what amazes me most
is the unequivocal love
that i could never
(digging deep into my soul
tearing out my heartstrings
ripping apart my internal organs)
be able to replenish or replace
i could not even touch on
the amount of love
trapped within the lips
he presses against my cheek
let alone the endless ocean
buried hollowly in his chest
whose waves knock me to the shore
all breath lost to the salt.
the space between
when that light counts down
and how sore my muscles will be
is immeasurable
but i can measure the speed
of my tires through
the intersection
a dream in the making
i beat the limit
and make it in time
to hear thrilled immeasurable
screams of my beauties
the sun is high
young voices howl
the swing creaks
yet we lie here
i have no desire
to move from this bed,
to take my hand away
from your new goatee
oh how easy it is
to fall in love
with the morning
allowing us to stay
this is a dream
to wash away my nightmares
to feel my skin on your skin
to know you are mine
the sun is high
our plates are full
but there is time
always, for love
with these feet
you will pound it out
you will remember your childhood
your hand in his
you will run
run past the wind
as the moment
you last saw him
slides into your subconscious
and he becomes a part
of every step you take.
i don’t want to think
of your new pink backpack,
your hand-me-down uniform,
or your first steps into kindergarten.
wasn’t it just yesterday
that we swung you in the car seat
into the hospital elevator,
calling you Mythili by mistake?
how can we move from birthday
to first day of school in one week?
it’s too much for this old mom,
this worked-through-baby-years mom.
but it will have to be.
tomorrow’s the big day,
the beginning of the endless
letting goes that you and i must face.
we were strangers.
i was afraid.
you could kill me with your cracks,
i could lose myself in you–
you are high and low,
curvacious and straight-laced,
everything in between.
you think you can beat me,
sometimes with wind,
other times extremities
of heat, cold
stinging my skin,
beckoning me with your endless gray.
we are no longer strangers,
you and i.
friends is too weak a word.
intimate companions
who share the sunrise view,
are tickled first by snow,
who see each other’s secrets.
so i will pound harder,
fearless now,
and pedal all the way down,
gravity and every last crack
you’ve tried to hide
exposed by the love
that has grown between us.
Riona
Five. FIVE. five…
you wear the pink taffeta dress
(pattern handed down
for fifty years)
a gathered waste,
scalloped pockets and sleeves,
plastic pearls to complete the couture.
you jump in and out of fountains,
climb plastic playground steps,
pretend with perfect attitude
(that encompasses all you are)
to blow the absent candles from your cake
we move from playing with new gifts
on hardwood (you offer me a pillow)
to party number two, where
you surround yourself with
breaking-down children and ask
only that i roast you a marshmallow
in the lightning-flash sky
and circle of warmth
you are five.
you dash to the car in the
pitch-black, too-far-from-city night,
your row of new lip balms in palm,
and before you will sleep,
you divide them evenly amongst sisters,
your generous heart more beautiful
than your perfect pink taffeta dress.
Mythili
it’s been a year, and
baby teeth are gone,
replaced by no-finger-sucking
straight white incisors
that have sent Blankey
to a closeted grave
with their grown-up appearance.
you have school friends now
who you won’t let go.
you know the way down the corridors,
will soon show baby sister,
and, as always,
you speak quite frankly
about the condition of your classroom,
the behavior of other students,
and your ability to stay on task.
how could these two adult teeth
bring deeper wisdom
to the little girl
who, from birth,
could already see the world
in a light
the rest of us can’t see?
Isabella
i find pictures of you
at five, six,
(pudgy cheeks and tiny teeth)
and look into your pale hazels,
your over-freckled cheeks,
hold you against me,
your head now at my shoulder,
and i know
i know
(though i’m afraid to write it now)
you are no longer a little girl.
you are my oldest,
will always be first,
will always move from one stage
to another before them,
will be the one to induce the most fear,
the most intense kind of love,
a kind i cannot describe here
(or to them)
one that is shared from those
moments in our babymoon
to those moments now when
you understand what they don’t,
when you give me the look
a reflection of my expression,
you, a shadow of me
who stands at my shoulder,
ready to grow.
girls pose like little models,
even the baby smiles
underneath the bright flashes
(she’s not a baby anymore–
why must i be reminded
that five years
have slipped into oblivion?)
the clouds move in
on a Sunday afternoon,
a semi-quiet house
where they pretend to pick up
while we lie on the couch
reminiscing the twin bed
we shared so many years ago.
(with money clenched
like fists in pockets,
we borrowed furniture,
walked across ant-biting carpet,
washed dishes by hand,
roasted like oily chicken
in the absence of central air)
is it so different now,
our money spilling out
into the screens of tomorrow,
the cool air tickling our skin
as their tweeting songs
remind us of all we have seen,
all we have yet to see?
with closed eyes we see the world
blanketed by senseless screens
absent of real words
imagery we can’t understand
with closed eyes the world sees us
hidden behind doors
lost from human contact
connections we can’t define
with closed eyes we see the world
painted with desire
immersed in ourselves
love we cannot celebrate
it could be the Spanish-English mix
from the nanny’s mouth as we sat in the zoo,
my thoughts of the last day of summer
slipping from my hands
quicker than the tears
my baby cried to sleep with,
or the anger inside
that someone would pay another
for everything i love the most.
it could be the defriending,
his cold absence of words in my presence,
or her emphatic insistence
that eight months is enough
time with her baby
when a thousand years
would not satiate me.
it could be the story i love
coming to a bittersweet end,
or the small voices
absent from my home
on the one day when
i need them most.
but i will never be quite able
to define what haunts me.
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