don’t go off the sidewalk
we warn as they abandon
their ice cream remnants
and dash to their brief
moment of freedom.
fearless leader number one
follows the handicap ramp
to its very edge, dangles
her arm like a proud warrior
over the parking lot,
two mini warriors behind,
waiting, watching, weaning
themselves into a new era
of independence.
amidst the chaos
of this day
(or any other)
i have missed a milestone
that even with pictures
i will never
be able to replicate
it is not the first
(nor the last).
it tears at
my heartstrings,
a reminder of
all i have lost
with everything
i have won.
i wait for the day
when what i’ve won
will fill the void
(the interminable
guilt-ridden void)
that encompasses
all i have lost.
you sit like a tiny blue frog
hidden in the twilight on
a lily pad surrounded by black water
almost impossible to see
but i know you’re there
hiding out, zippy tongue ready
in a moment, you will snatch
away my summer, swallowing
my girls as if they were annoying flies.
i can’t disappear from this encounter,
but only work my way closer, ready
to pry you open, releasing them, in spring.
she could be quoting my words
(from another time)
driving through the town with its decrepit
buildings, broken down cars
crashed in signs
and lack of traffic
i whisper across to him,
“what a dump.”
within five seconds
(the time it takes to remember
my favorite novel,
to recount the town’s significance,
to get to the other end)
she announces,
“what a cute little town.”
a day later
we sit on the porch
where two disabled neighbors wait
to board the
fifteen-passenger bus
with cracked windshield,
rust-covered roof,
and a muffler heard a mile away.
“look, it’s a limousine,”
the oldest daughter this time,
and i wonder if it
is my perception
or theirs
that is invalid.
Mythili
you are a fish
swimming all day
a proclamation against the heat
losing all of last year’s fear
and washing it away with intrepid dives
into the pool that you proudly stand up in,
reminding me that you are
almost (but not quite)
a six-year-old mermaid
whose summer of swimming
will soon end with a splash.
Isabella
at your sisters’ request
they have segregated themselves
into the far back.
most oldest daughters would love a chance
just one
to be alone
but your lip pouts its way down the interstate.
i sit beside you and flip out two auto bingo boards.
within five minutes you have won,
within fifty miles your board is almost full,
within three hours we’ve gone through
every Extreme Nature card
and your only request
is that the ride will never end.
Riona
you are an echo of your sisters’ enthusiasm
the squeals of delight
tagging just seconds behind theirs
as we pull into the hotel parking lot
you shout, “They have a fancy fountain!”
only a nanosecond after Isabella.
this i could remember most
as it happens daily.
but what will make me most proud
will be the fourteen flights of stairs
that you climbed up
one foot on one step, another on the next
(remember when you were almost two
and couldn’t even stand?)
not one time, but two in a ten-hour day,
my soon-to-be-four-year-old
advancing to the top
of a milestone I will never forget.
I have opened my wallet one too many times
but I just can’t help but pry it open once more.
it is for their eyes, sparkling and expectant,
and the polite smiles of the women who run
this little shop in this little town
that I will be leaving a little too soon.
with little brushes
little fingers
little hands
they paint.
an alligator as brightly decorated as a carousel horse
a miniature hat box with scribbled-out brown
a snake with dots and stripes and red eyes
they thank me
(all of them, the girls, the proprietors)
and the money,
it can’t capture their happiness,
so I’ll just tuck it here into this poem.
it is not for this view of farms
with old wooden barns
in the early mist of morning
that i rise early and ride
(though it could be)
it is not for the excitement
of a road I’ve never traveled
its twists and turns leading me
into a maze of forests and fields
(though it could be)
it is not for the muscles in
my legs that have tightened
into circular mounds of strength,
carrying me endlessly without pain
(though it could be)
it is for them, three souls lined up
to lead a life that they will choose,
and in my silent guidance they will see
that there are many roads, many paths,
that will lead each of them to happiness.
Isabella
While at first reluctant,
you have given in to riding
our connected bicycle,
stating quite simply, in your
I’m-seven-and-overheard-your-conversation
voice, “I want to spend time with you.”
Your keen observations along the route,
of roads previously untraveled,
family sightings, and hill monitoring,
only add to the noticeably stronger
pedal power that you offer.
We beat them home and you are as
proud as a new mother, displaying our
connected contraption with hands
outspread in a beauty queen pose,
our time together warranted by
your everlasting desire to win
(oh how I already know you
will always, always win).
Mythili
We are at the beach.
It may be fake (a river turned into a lake),
but you have managed to discover
seashells in perfect conical shapes
(the ones I searched for in vain at the
real beach when I was your age).
We haven’t even made it to the car
(as usual, your lunch lies abandoned
on the table, limp, unwanted)
and you have entered the imaginary
world that has followed you with penne pasta,
fingers, barrettes, sticks, even earrings
everywhere you go, creating characters
with each shell, telling stories with
frightened-fairy tale plots, holding
complex conversations from snippets
of adult talk that you have captured.
You are immune to the outside world,
to the goings on of swimming or interacting
with your sisters, and have given in to
the world where you imagine yourself to be.
Riona
Nothing can thrill you more than the simplest
pleasures (the tiniest pieces of the bigger picture
that we, emptying our wallets, want to offer you).
Here we stand in the intolerable heat
of a midsummer southern day, and I cannot
snap enough pictures of the grin that exudes
happiness in its purest, rawest form, lighting
up your entire face brighter than the glaring
sun that beats down its midday punishment.
In your hands is the infant rabbit, fur as soft
as the skin on your new cousin’s cheek, that
causes you to abandon interest in all other animals
(doves that coo, clucking chickens,
miniature goats begging for food, ponies
with lofty lips who placidly pick feed from puny palms).
The genuinely gentle creature you hold in your arms,
pulling its nose to your chin, clutching it as if
it is your own child, perfectly encompasses
all that it is (everything you are) that I love about you.
Once, when the first was born,
every small smile, every night
of endless crying, brought weepiness
to my eyes and yearning to my
new-mother heart, and I thought there’d
be a time (a time for me, for us without them)
when things would be easier.
Now (and every day since that first birth,
those first strenuous and anxious nights)
I know better. The new-mother yearning
transforms into seasoned-mother longing
and I wish I could snatch back those
moments that I once wished would end,
trap them inside these ever-harder moments
of sibling battles, school-aged woes, and
still-sad-to-see-them-grow goodbyes.
Once, when the first came into the world,
every moment led to a new surprise, a
new milestone, a delighted set of new
parents and grandparents. Now, when
everything is old hat and three lives have
filled our own lives with their love, I know
that things will never be easier, that
every small smile, every night of endless
worrying, leads to a new level of longing.
how could a movie made for children
bring tears to my eyes
and leave a mark of sadness on my heart
for the remainder of the day?
because I’m a mother,
and what I see in this film
is the coming end of
the three girls sitting beside me,
now in booster seats,
whispering, “Is there more popcorn?”
and rocking the seats
annoyingly as all small children do,
and the day when
they too will pack their most
sacred toys in boxes,
ship them off to a storage room
or some new little girl’s house,
stuff their cars,
and drive away to college.
and before i can even blink,
all i will have left of this day,
of any other day that i have with them,
will be a memory.
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