The year I thought nothing
could grow in my heart:
That was the year I met you
with everything blackened,
deadened inside me,
you took my heart,
held it in your hands, and
like a lover of gardens,
pulled out the weeds
that I thought had permanently
implanted themselves,
and replanted my love,
only to tend with water
and years of sunlight
the beauteous garden
that without you
we would never have
to pick from, to eat,
to admire.
This season I will grow time
pull it out of my sleeves
like magical Mr. Mistofelees
so when my youngest looks at me
with her shy and longing smile
and inquires, “Is today a school day for you?”
I will answer, “No,” and make it
all about her, even if I must wake
before dawn and stow the bike
and put away the computer
and forget for once what
I’m having for lunch the next day,
all so we can sit together on the couch
and cuddle with a book,
sing the songs she loves to hear
from my tone-deaf larynx,
and have all the time in the world.
Your happiness reaches through the screen
and pulls at my heart
three thousand miles away,
popping tears (first of joy)
(then of anguish) into my eyes.
You stand behind him
at his Aruban birthday meal,
matching grins and goatees,
your hands intertwined,
two boys as happy as
lonely children granted
a whole day to spend with mom,
two lovers granted
their wish of a life together.
I want to reach out and capture
the purity of your emotion,
the love that exudes from
a depth that They will never reach,
and show the world
just how right you are
(right for each other,
right to love the one
your heart tells you to love).
And as the tears creep into my eyes
every time I place your photo in my mind,
I know that I will continue to reach,
reach, reach for what I know is right
even as the anguished tears tell me
that They think I (you) (we) are wrong.
Only here will I worry
about traffic jams along the bike path,
runners and bikers decked out
in garishly bright bodysuits
speeding double file
in a race to beat their average
so early on a Saturday morning
Only here will the wind whip up
a thunderstorm that creeps in from
the mountains every afternoon,
sneaking out after torrents
that the dry steppe soaks up
with its thirst for rain
so early in the year’s seasons.
Only here will fourteen miles
vary from century-old Victorians,
to modern multiplexes,
to simple suburban trilevels
tucked amongst the creek that
brought us all here, that connects us
so early in the life of Colorado.
Only here will I raise my girls,
stake my claim, teach my kids
that the beauty surrounding us all
lies within the pedals, the pounding feet,
the mountains bearing weather,
the creek bearing gold, the architecture
that keeps us here, brings us here,
so early in the life of our love.
Mythili
With pride, you grin to show
your mouth with its bloody hole
(your first lost tooth),
palming the remnant of an apple
that you tuck behind your back
like a puppy hiding her tail
“That’s great. Where’s the tooth?”
Bewilderment clouds your smile.
“I swallowed it.”
“That’s too bad,” I try empathy,
but it has broken through your doubt,
and giant droplets of loss
form at the corners of your eyes.
We make a mad-dashed search for Blankey,
and soon you are in my lap,
cuddling your tears away
as if you were still my toddler,
not the soon-to-be-kindergartener
who has just reached another milestone.
Isabella
One evening of defiance
(its pursuing punishment causing
a head-thrusting tantrum into your pillow)
has led us to the deal we make today:
show me you can behave
and I will grant your wish.
Bribery is the secret that every parent keeps,
and you are mostly silent in the trailer
of our long bike ride,
asking only three questions
along the 41-mile route:
“Are we lost?”
“Are we almost there?”
“Can we stop at the playground?”
You follow along the Girl Scout activities,
budding in line and asking questions,
only twice intertwining your hand with your friend’s
to identify shapes in clouds, to dance,
and when the long day comes to and end,
I pull you into my arms,
whisper what you want to hear,
in three words forgiving us both.
Riona
Though the time is short,
you insist on helping make dinner rolls.
You and Mythili fight over
stirring the flour,
patting the dough,
and who gets to sit on the counter.
I’m as flustered as a
bird with broken wings,
hopping about around you
and trying to get the job done.
“I wish we had a kitchen with an island
so you girls could be on the other side.”
Your response is so simple.
“I wish we had a ping pong room in the
basement, but first we need a bigger basement.”
And just like that,
I have forgotten about my broken wings,
my flustered flurry.
I hand you the dough
that you round into a ball too small
and smile, my frenzy tucked
quietly behind me.
while we can’t take back our youth
we can relive it in our children’s eyes
that is why
as much as i hate spending my Sunday
afternoon shivering in an indoor pool
while it is windy and fifty outside,
i must take joy in the excited
thrills of three girls
who play games,
splash each other and me,
and never wipe the smiles
away from their cheeks,
telling me time and time again
how much they love me
for bringing them here.
for less than you paid for the
plastic tarp that covers the addition
you’re attaching to your
6,000-square-foot, $10 million home,
we enjoyed the same priceless views
a sky as blue as God’s eyes
with puffy white clouds dancing
in front of distant snowcapped peaks,
the green hills and weeping willows
decorating the winding, perfectly flat path,
the ponds with cattails, the canal,
the endless crabapples dressed in
pink and white flowers for spring,
the sprouting green bushes,
your gorgeously manicured yards,
green grasses galore,
green buds of leaves popping
out on trees as tall as back east.
your green may have seven figures,
but mine has ten million shades,
strength in my calves,
a content-with-books-to-read-in-the-trailer
oldest daughter,
and priceless views
that I didn’t pay a penny for.
a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine that tears into my palms
(blood spilling as it rips the skin,
blood pouring onto them)
i can’t release it
every now and then a brick
will fall from the pile,
forcing me to stop my forward motion,
bend over, bring it back
i can’t release it
a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine that tears into my muscles
(ripping them apart at the seams,
ripping me apart at the seams)
i can’t release it
every now and then a brick
will fall from the pile,
forcing me to stop, to mortar it
to the wall i try to repair
i can’t rebuild it
a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine as thin as a line of fire
(burning me up with every step,
burning them up with every step)
i will release it
1. Sore muscles: a recorded memory of my crash
2. Fixed bike with gears that switch like butter
3. Three beautiful girls
4. Pancakes for breakfast
5. Strawberries in season to go with the pancakes
6. Cross stitching, so relaxing
7. A quilt made by my friend and bought by my husband
8. Two pairs of shoes for Isabella: $8.63
9. New bike helmet (silver to match my bike)
10. Prime rib
11. The last of Dad’s prime rib that they saved for my birthday!
12. Prime rib, second helping
13. Cooked carrots cooked with the prime rib
14. Asparagus (in season!!)
15. Made-from-scratch chocolate cake
16. I didn’t have to bake
17. French vanilla ice cream to go with the cake
18. Fixing the fucking bridging certificates so they’d print
19. 3.8 mile hike
20. View of the flatirons
21. A trail that is accessible by the stroller
22. Girls who tell stories to each other along the trail
23. A survival kit that includes two bottles of Riesling
24. A shirt nice enough to wear to work
25. Rain that pours only once we’re back at the car
26. Printing all the bridging certificates for free
27. All my Facebook birthday wishes
28. The silly ecards Elizabeth sent
29. Earl Grey tea
30. Green olives stuffed with blue cheese and garlic
31. Hershey’s Special Dark
32. The perfect, most surprisingly romantic husband in the world
You and I, we have our course and miles set:
a journey plotted amidst winds and trail closures,
a day after torrential rains and their
resulting torrential (all over the path) floods
yet no journey is complete without a moment
of hesitation, of paths lost, of alternate routes
we travel the way I remember (years ago,
a different bike carried me to work this way)
but the path is twisted, filled with tree roots
and curves that you’ve told me you dislike.
at our usual high-speed pace (we made a pact
to beat our record), the sidewalk jumps up and grabs
us. like disconsolate lovers, we tumble to the ground,
rolling over each other’s metal, skin, plastic, blood.
i lie for perhaps five minutes, adjusting my headphones
so not to miss my story, thinking perhaps my leg is broken
there could be phone calls to make and i’ll need a new
helmet, but when i stand, i grin at my bruised-up,
perfectly movable leg, and gasp at you tangled beside
me, my partner in this determined destiny we’ve set.
when i lift you and turn the wheel, you too have suffered
scrapes in our lovers’ quarrel. i adjust your chain, wiping
my greasy fingers on our towel, swipe the broken pieces of
the cateye to the ground, and we are off once again.
“that was only mile three,” I whisper, and your unscathed
silver frame, your perfectly intact black tires, lead me
into the wind, the pain of our bruises washed away with
spring’s air, water from the overflowing creek, and love.
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