parenting

Emperor Penguin

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I am the empress
you the emperor
as you sit for over a month,
our young tucked
beneath your flaps of skin, fur
protected from windy storms
harsher than hell
while I waddle my way
across Antarctica,
weak from giving birth,
starved from lack of fish,
the iciness engulfing me
until I feel I can move no more.

But it is you,
it is them,
huddled together in fatherly love,
that push me forward,
reaching the sea
with its wealth of life,
bringing it back
for you, for them,
for all of us to taste
as we form a new season.

Reminder

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thanks for the quick
and painful reminder
of why i never ask you for anything.
i’ll just tuck it under my sleeve
with all the others
that are crammed somewhere
in my layers of clothing
and try to use your reminder
(and its inability to keep me warm)
as a reminder
of how much more
i need to
reach out to them,
strip them free
of useless, painful notes
and wrap them in
the warmth of love
that your reminder
has tried to take from my heart.

October Daughters

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Isabella

you still want to hold my hand
at the skate rink
though i know it won’t be long
before i’ll be remembering this day,
just as i now remember our first time here
when you stood in size eights
under the lights,
sashaying without moving your legs,
a two-year-old on a dancing mission,
and here you are now,
seven almost eight years old,
begging to skate with me
while we still have a moment
left of this afternoon,
this evening,
this moment of your life.

Mythili

the words of your imaginary worlds
have developed
into a complex combination
of English, Spanish,
and your own invented language.
you will still take
two toothpicks,
a doll head and a rubber band,
or, like today,
folded up pieces of cardboard,
and create stories
as intricate and imaginative as you.
but you are not the same
with your kindergarten knowledge,
your wealth of new friends,
your step out into
the world i know i can’t keep you from.
i will let you go,
but still listen
to your stories,
hoping that one day
you and I will both remember
who you were then,
who you are now.

Riona

it is year two
of you handing me apples to core,
of dumping in enough cinnamon
to fill the house with,
of squeezing lemons,
of tasting remnants of fruit.
i tell you,
Next year you’ll be in school
when I make applesauce,
and you answer,
I hope I go to my sisters’ school,
completely unaware of
the aching sadness in my voice,
of how much I will miss you here.
And I know that’s the way it
ought to be, I know it.
But knowing your innocence,
your focus on now,
is why I can’t control my ache
that grows and grows
just as I can’t control
how you grow and grow.

Room of Punishment

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i heard what happened
in a roundabout way
as all families today,
over Internet connections
and telephone lines,
communicating the news
of those who can’t communicate.

i cringed in my mixture of pain, guilt,
of love, sorrow, my emotions
breeding from those moments
in my childhood when i sat,
holed up under my blankets
in a dark room of punishment,
wishing i could be instead
in your arms, your wet kisses
rough on my cheek, your
planned-out dinners and desserts
waiting for approval,
your I love yous ending every sentence.

instead, you have been moved
from one dark room of punishment
to another, shuffled around
like a naughty child,
no parent (child or grandchild)
able to solve the dilemma of your age.

i am one of them,
two generations down,
with young children of my own
who will never sit in a room
wishing for your warmth.

all i can do with
the electronically-presented words
still ringing in my ears,
is hole up in my room of punishment
and wish that i had called you
before they took your phone away,
wish that i had visited
before He took your mind away.

Pie

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how strange it is to hear them
in the back seat of our car,
though they belong to us.
wasn’t it only a moment ago
that he and i drove down this road
and stopped at Village Inn for pie,
a Friday night with nowhere to go,
nothing to do, no responsibilities?

they chirp their wonderings like baby birds,
but they are no longer babies
as they sing in Spanish the
possibilities of what color
Doctor Dino, the preschool
take-home toy, will be next year, as he
has changed from blue to red to green
in the hands of oldest, middle, youngest.

Denver, too, has changed since i first,
at age eleven, took a bus across town
with my friend, eating lunch in
the Tabor Center and pretending to shop.
now the light rail has taken us here,
to a Convention Center that didn’t exist
amongst fancy four-star hotels built up
like mocking gods in the face of recession.

he and i, we are not the same either.
there will be no stop at Village Inn,
no pie. instead we listen:
“Va ser… ¡rojo! ¡rosario! ¡amarillo! ¡azul!”
and i think, we’ll never know the color.
our baby will be out of preschool, Doctor Dino
will be in some other little girl’s home,
and these streets? they’ll never stay the same.

Three Little Bears

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Calling down the stairs
as if reciting their favorite tale,
our three little bears shout out,
their words falling one step after another,

“I have no pajamas in my drawer!”
“The pajamas in my drawer are too hot!”
“My pajama drawer is broken!”

And despite the crying over silly bands,
the arguing over vegetables,
the quarreling over favorite plates,
we have a good laugh
and remember, remember
why we are parents.

War Paint

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it started with innocence
plastered on little girls’ faces
like war paint,
pink, blue, ready for battle.

after a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and a mile up the mountain,
after sifting through
golden remnants of fall
and finding treasures
in sticks, under rocks,
the war paint began to smear.

dripping down into the vessels
of their wrinkle-less cheeks,
the pink, the blue, the blood
awakened them to a new reality.

(i want to take my brush,
soft as silk on their skin,
dip it back into the bucket
and paint them, my young,
until they are blinded from
the horrors of everyday war)

but it is too late. for it
dripped and seeped and slithered
into their eyesmouthporeshearts
as they sat awestruck in
the back seat my (motherly) hands
pushed them into.

as their lips wrapped themselves
around their Sausalito saltwater taffy
(blue and pink, like war paint,
a gift brought home, home)
they took in the scene, faces
in the window, knees on the seat,
all innocence wiped away.

shattered glass. hushed crowd.
distant (gapingly absent) sirens.
blue and red blinking lights.
knees on the pavement.
blood on the pavement.
bodies on the pavement.

it ended with…
a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and sticky faces and hands,
war paint, pink, blue,
faded from their first battle.

Birthday Party

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it is her first invite
(i wish it was her last)
and we sit in awkward silence
exchanging knowing looks

we’re surrounded by excess fat
skimmed off meat
once set aside just for the rich that has
oozed into our barely-middle class neighborhood

in gluttonous globs it surrounds
even the youngest rosy cheeks,
tripping and slipping their every step
as they unwrap, unwrap, unravel.

by coming here today, we are guilty,
and though our portion size is smaller,
it sits at the edge of the heaped-to-ceiling plate,
torn to bits in minutes by a ferocious four-year-old.

we take our leftovers in six baggies home,
but they are not for the dog. they are for us,
our girls, to chew on all evening, to try and
fill the growling hole in our gut-wrenched stomachs.

Wool

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you may think i have wool
that blinds me from your version
of reality. but i pulled that back
ten years ago with my degree,
so don’t think you can
blindfold me again, as you do them,
the bleating sheep who wander
in their field of frustrated naivete.

i will pull it back, this wicking wool
that hides your response in
its porous, scratchy fibers. and i
will see the truth for what it is:
without the wool, you have no cover
for your reckless requirements, just as i
have no reason to cover my knowledge
with the cries of your freshly sheared sheep.

Everything Included

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we could walk
but we prefer to ride
they hop in
with three pennies,
jubilant voices,
and a mission.

we arrive at the
perfectly painted plastic horse
covered in vinyl saddle
where they climb up and down
riding like pro cowgirls

when five minutes have passed
they head for the cookie aisle
where disappointment sits
plainly on the empty tray.

instead, we pack on our helmets
to continue our weekday adventure,
the wind blowing allergen-ridden dust,
remnants of summer’s sun
beating down on our backs.

i follow the oldest, who
weaves like a drunk driver
through the sidewalk,
into the street,
everywhere her heart takes her.

a giant, loud-mouthed dog
greets our arrival. we reach
with skinny arms into
the abundantly fat-with-fruit trees,
pulling down ripe green pears,
apples with red dimples.

the dog continues to carry on,
and just as i wonder if he’s here
as a warning for us to leave,
a woman’s voice calls over the fence,
“Take as many as you can.”

And we do, the tangy juice
of tiny homegrown fruits
sliding down the girls’ chins,
dripping into the pile at the bottom
of the trailer, sweetening
our end-of-summer afternoon,
sweetening our time here, now.

everything included:
the bikes,
the horse,
the absent cookie,
the fruit,
for three pennies,
jubilant children,
and a mission.