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
trees don’t grow on beaches
and they shouldn’t be here
eighty years old
stacked up along the sand
a domineering presence
of the shade i crave
it is June now
and cotton floats in the air
in and out of our hair
our mouths, our pieces of food
a dreamy landscape
of seeds starting anew
i sit for hours
as lyrics drown out
the blue-collar Bud-drinking
daytime neighbors
i could sit all day
my cottonwood Colorado
a dreamy landscape
of all i will leave behind
soon we will breathe
the salty seascape
there will be no trees
only a faulty umbrella
unable to withstand wind
no cotton bleeding with life
no comparison to this life
and will my girls
sassy as ever in their new bikinis
remember what it was like
in the cottonwood Colorado
of their youth?
or immerse in a
languagefoodculture
that blends together
in a different dreamy landscape?
yes, it was Hitler.
he gathered them up,
took family members one by one,
and like feathers
tossed into a torrent,
the survivors fled home
that’s my first dot
their home across the sea,
ancestors’ ashes scattered
into a grey Polish sky,
is what brings them to me
my second dot
a rejection letter,
a flyer in a park,
three daughters and a school
quite fluent in Spanish
who years later would fly in
two Spaniards
to fill every moment of our lives
my third dot
was it her Inquisition,
or Hitler’s wrath,
or the coming together
of lines on a child’s paper
that connected the dots,
the dots on a map
that make my dream a reality?
three Colorado girls.
Spaniards full of life.
a doctor from Jerusalem.
with a few words,
desires both evil and good,
we are all connected.
every morning
as i come to my crossroads
just after dawn
touches her fingers to sky,
i make my decision–
an uphill battle
breaking my muscles,
the wind of the highlands
an ever-greater challenge
than the meandering creek
i pedal for simple sights:
the middle-aged blonde
with two matching goldens,
(sometimes leashed, sometimes free)
the bright yellow spot
of a SmartCar, and me
always wondering just where
on the curvacious beauty of
a road i will pass it,
the ever-silent deer
who peer intently at my machine
as they stand cautiously
at the edge of civilization.
and today? a gift,
the top of the most tenuous climb,
the wind bending back leaves
and straightening out flags,
pushing against my will,
when what should cross the road
but a lone pronghorn,
its native spirit leaping
over barbed wire and into
the chaparral, leaving me to
finish my ride, open up
a starvation-induced chocolate
whose wrapper reads,
You are exactly where
you’re supposed to be
(i don’t throw it away,
its aluminum words
imprinted on the crossroads
that may lead me elsewhere tomorrow)
spotlighted white half circle
against a blanket of navy blue,
shadowy mountains sheathed in pink,
golden streams pouring over bridge,
cotton candy clouds of violet,
calming gray threads stitched into
budding green quilt-work pastures,
deep-set pools of brown nestled
in five heads of beige curiosity.
the moon rests, the sun rises
to the colors of my morning
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)
i could hear the howling
i had my gym bag packed
i longed for climate control
(i longed for you more)
throw passion to the wind
they always say that
because they’re not driving
into a twenty-mph-headwind
or feeling it edge along
our backs, our tires
as we ride uphill
faster than the opposite side
pushes down
it’s always those curves along the dam
trying to tell us we can’t make it–
they don’t know us very well, do they?
how i ache to reach the end
where i will have full view of the lake,
where you will take me down
the curvacious path
and rebuild the quads
that have longed for you all winter
i am always amazed
i am always amazed
by how connected i feel
(alone on you)
to the world around me,
how i see the water
and in it my grandmother’s love
for looking at the water,
(insert tears here)
how the right song always comes on
(“Sky Blue and Black” this morning)
how all my stress
slips into the howling wind
as i race for a better time,
how i love,
love,
love you
we have left the pretty pink bar,
beauty slipping from sky in silent flakes.
the roads are not icy yet,
but moist in anticipation:
the wipers push away drops
(we have no possibility of sliding)
i watch the silent storm
move into my city,
remembering him in eighth grade,
so tiny and cute,
turning around in social studies
and making fun of the teacher
he is not here,
but rides along the slick streets
inside my mind as i pull back
the cautious, modest man he has become,
a beauty in the Beauty Bar
with his grace and patience,
more perfect than any dress
he could ever create
for the runway of his dreams.
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.
mañana tenemos el
Acción de Día de Gracias tercera
he stands in an airport
with laughter at the back of his voice,
the emotion so close to tears
that they sit waiting
on the edges of my lids
estamos bien.
tenemos una avión mañana por la mañana
because we are all well
with them in our midst–
so un-American to be grateful
for a night longer,
a missed flight,
a smile that we’ve all tucked away
inside ourselves
(that he fishes out
as easily as catching
tadpoles on a hot June day)
Thanksgiving dos,
we sit and share thanks:
one of the four girls
mentions her extra parents
(the highlight of the evening)
i bring forth my Spaniards
(absent)
but with an ever-present influence
on every thought i have,
on every emotion that has crossed my heart
in the four short months
that i have made them mine
Isabella gives me the look
as if i could forget
the reason we are all gathered,
for without these four girls,
none of this happiness
could float in the room
carrying the
feliz día de los padres
mylar balloon
up to the ceiling,
zhuzhu pet attached,
miracle in place
(can you see it?)
and the Spaniards?
they would live somewhere else,
and our surrealistic vision
of tomorrow
would be so.
real.
so.
unimaginative.
instead?
i hear him laugh
about fumando el toro,
the night in the airport
and our third,
and final,
Thanksgiving meal.
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