the sun beats its way into summer
and simmers along the shore.
all i see are sparkles
brighter than diamonds
lighting up my lake,
my little girls piling
watery sand on my
abandoned-nail-polish feet,
hazy mountains in the distance
popping under bright blue sky,
my Colorado begging me to stay
but i know, i know,
their sand-castle grins
captured in my shitty lens,
that i will be home,
we will be home,
as long as we’re together
she is five
she is my baby
we stand in hot sun
beneath a bittersweet ending
i help her hold up her hand
and when she isn’t included
no one notices
and i feel smaller than her
when he comes up and asks
if i’m some other girl’s mother
so he can invite her (not mine)
to a birthday party?
all i can do
all i can do
is be grateful for my new
dark sunglasses to hide my tears
and the worries that rest
deep in a mother’s heart?
this is the bittersweet beginning
of a lifetime more
Riona
with Starburst in her pocket,
girls follow behind like
needy pups.
only one knows the destination
of the gift:
the quiet child who always watches,
who often plays by herself
and becomes the coveted pet tagalong
now she pipes up,
i know who those are for–my mama,
because she loves my mama
and my mama loves Starburst.
i would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary.
Mythili
you’re the middle child
unaware of sisters’ quirks
living in your world
Isabella
you gave me a dose
of grumpy teenage hormones
what will we do then?
Riona
you speak to almost no one.
we see your shy face
hide behind your mama
as if a couple of years
were lost along your upbringing.
yet,
on stage,
your Peruvian chicken costume
in full polka-dot glory,
straw wings,
paper orange beak and all,
you are a star
as you dance front center,
the folk guitar song
giving new life
to my littlest angel.
Mythili
with focused face
looking so much
like a small adult
that i sometimes forget
you’re a child,
you create art.
a windmill in
perfect proportions
copied from a book,
the oil pastel coloring
as detailed as a
gallery painting
the Girl Scout
finger puppet
where you sit surrounded
by Daisies whose
mothers assist in every step,
you speak not a word
but work diligently
on cutting, gluing,
mastering your art.
this is your gift from God,
this is your gift to the world.
Isabella
you shine your light
wherever you go,
upon your persistent pleas
for a gecko,
a cowboy belt,
or dinner alone with mama.
you direct plays
in the backyard,
setting up obstacle courses
and circuses,
your siblings and friends
falling under your spotlight
to shine in your presence
baby sister mimics all you do,
and at first irritated,
you give in to flattery,
making a parade around the house
and reading all her favorite stories,
your brightness shining
on all you do, see, touch
the emotions are so intense
when the right song is played
when my girls say the right words
i cannot fathom my life without them
they sit under green blanket
as i write this
my oldest inflecting as needed
the words she learned years ago to read
my middle girl?
the best combination
of crone and imaginative maiden
fantasy worlds mixed with logic
and the baby?
idealism at its best
all the things we’ve dreamed of
wrapped up in a five-year-old’s summary
i cannot fathom
my life
without these girls
(i’ve said it before
i’ve named a poem
i’ll say it a million times more)
Isabella
you pop out of bed
with a craving for peppermint tea–
it’s been a long night,
filled with the turmoil
of the ever-adamant stomach bug.
you should be sleeping,
wanting to watch mindless television.
instead you run on the treadmill,
make circles with your bike
and spend a three-hour afternoon
entertaining your friends and siblings
along every corner of the park
you may walk around the house
as cheeky as a teenager (age nine)
wearing your iPod like
an artificial limb,
but on days like this,
your boundless energy ever present,
i know just how much
you are my daughter.
Mythili
you are ferocious, tenacious
in everything you do,
whether it’s your insistence on hunger
(even soon after eating)
or your commitment
to your best friend,
sharing nicknames with her,
demanding to spend school nights
sleeping over at her house,
and loving her, fighting with her
as if she is the other sister
you never had
i know you are only seven,
but i see so much
of an adult in your
not-quite-innocent level of dedication;
i can already picture
the woman you will be
Riona
the exuberant smile
that carried you out the door
after them
has disappeared as you
plod back in,
morose expression of want
dripping from your face
you point to the scratch,
a tearless, silent cry for attention,
and i put all i have
(my ice cold beer bottle)
against the unbleeding skin.
pop! there it is again,
the exuberant smile
of the littlest angel
whose delicate pleas for love
are always so easily satisfied
just like a baby
my baby curls in to cuddle
her small body
still fits into my lap
i can’t replace the hours we’ve lost
the years we’ve lost
or fill the ache in my heart
for the good i’m trying to do
that doesn’t do me any good
but when her tears creep down?
when she won’t go for a night of fun
because she’s missed me too much,
when the weeks have flooded by
in a pile of work
that i’m so fucking good at
when i can’t just be her mother?
it is too much
and i am five again
just like her
searching for my mother’s arms
to comfort the sadness
that rests so heavily on my soul
Isabella
since age two,
in intermittent spurts
you creep downstairs
in the dark hours of morning,
your voice cautious,
Daddy?
(because you know me well enough
to leave me be)
he won’t wake up,
(you are almost nine)
and i send you back up to your room,
telling you that you’re old enough now
to soothe yourself back to sleep
you leave the room sobbing.
i toss and turn
in my already-restless sleep
worrying over the scar i’d created,
a bitter hole in our relationship
you’d remember till you die
when i wake you for school,
you have a happy story
about little Laura and locusts
from the book that soothed you,
fully forgiving me for nighttime selfishness
i think back to my childhood,
how i would have treated my parents
to silence for a day,
pouting in defiance
perhaps you,
insomniac, crazy, loud-mouthed you (me)
are just a little different,
so subtle that i couldn’t catch
your drying tears to see
the beauty of your individual soul
(i see it now,
and i am so proud to be your mama)
Mythili
you are a young woman,
though seven,
you prove time and again
how easily words will come–
you have backtalk and sass
like a teenager
and know just what not to say
one punishment is enough
to teach you a lifelong lesson,
and you take your crone’s hands
and draw pictures
with delicate detail
only mastered by true artists
how you came to be mine,
with your fierce independence
and longing for touch
while simultaneously craving
to be left alone,
will mystify me as you move
into the next step
of your beautiful life.
Riona
you will not speak
at times specified only in
your quiet mind,
a mystery to all of us
who wish to hear your words
i know you hide behind
those dark lashes
a collection of truths
that will someday spill out
now you save your words
for strangers in your first
cookie outings
while we wait
at home, at school,
for the thumb to come out,
for the gentle voice
to roll over our minds
and bring us to the real you.
we sit in central citified sun
sipping smoothies and lattes,
munching on freshly baked croissants
and chatting with strangers
on a day so warm it can’t be
the third week of January
(a beauty we all share
as we peel off our winter coats)
they skip alongside on an impromptu adventure,
moving along the zero street,
playing pig and picking out dates
on ovular stamps in concrete.
we enter the train store
and examine the pure wonder
of details so tiny, humans
standing knee-deep in plexiglass water,
monkeys climbing up a fallen-apart billboard,
and fast-moving trains. one declares,
it is nothing short of art
later i pedal into the wind
around the dam and up the hill
until i see the circular beauty of the lake,
and its curvacious path
interweaves me with a hundred pairs of legs,
all taking advantage
of this day like no other
before i am home
i am home,
and can almost forget
the tears whose all night sting
kept my eyes bleeding till morning,
the two dark, cold miles of separation,
and the hollowness of our words
that find their way
into the poems he wishes i wouldn’t write.
Mythili
you are still my little girl
though you try to pop out
adult (somewhat crooked) teeth
and blend Spanish and English
easily into your imaginary life
among friends you are a leader
(no tag-along little sister role)
and you wait
so anxiously wait
until you are big enough to ride
Isabella’s bike,
to read Isabella’s stories,
to find the right way to
wake up on early school mornings
in our troop,
you are Magical Mythili,
the perfect name
for the creative artist
born from the
destined-to-be-crone
little baby whose head
turned to see me walk
into the room
forty-eight hours
after birth.
Isabella
all of a sudden
you have decided
that you’re a reader
it is a simple statement,
one you would wash off your back
like the layers of shampoo
you push aside
but to me
watching you read
Laura Ingalls Wilder
just like i used to
it means more than
the thousands of words
filling your brain,
making you mine
Riona
every day a new song
a new dance
a new Spanish phrase
a new smile
from my newly school-aged girl
i was worried.
you know that
or you don’t.
you’re small.
tire easily.
timid.
dependent.
oh so calm and pleasant
the perfect student
who hugs goodbye
a friend
whose name you won’t mention
who shies away from
the video of your
performance at the assembly
who is everything
and more
than i could ever
ask you to be.
