Physics: stored energy
(marble at the top of the hill)
waiting for its chance to convert
into kinetics (move it baby)
Latin: potentia (power)
derived from potent
(being able) to do whatever
it is you have the potential to do.
Humans: we are the marbles
waiting at the top of the slope
for our chance to convert ourselves
into a movement that will change the world.
my first broken heart shattered
more than an organ in my chest
the parents who didn’t notice
(they never liked him anyway)
the sister whose world revolved around
school, work, boys, reverse
the friend whose own budding relationship
took the place of the grieving conversations
I longed to have.
I was in AP Euro when I wrote
the last pages of that journal,
tears seeping out of my eyes
in the small class when he, usually cool,
called on me to answer
and when I looked away,
the saltiness gushing down my cheeks now,
he snapped at me
(snapped up every last piece of my heart)
and I couldn’t care about
school
God
work
friends
parents
anything
until I found a way to heal,
to seal the wound with words
(the same words he wouldn’t allow me to write).
It wasn’t enough that we had flown
twelve hundred miles and driven three hundred more—
(the Grand Canyon beckoning another set of tourists)
the pennies my parents handed me to shop with
weren’t enough
(and not because I needed those things)
row after row of turquoise and silver
birds carved out of bone
earrings that dangled or
popped perfectly in the hole
tiny tables shaded from the desert sun
the dust gathering at their feet
like milkweed clinging to the skin
their eyes almond dark
weathered as much as the hands
that wove thick cotton blankets
too heavy to wear here
necklaces that reflected
the perfect polished moments of the morning,
silver that couldn’t be tarnished
with anything less than
the strength of the hands that worked it.
those hands, those faces, were what
my nine-year-old heart ached to buy,
not the sapphire sparkle of turquoise,
but the poverty that seeped
through their thin cotton dresses and trousers,
the braids that hung down their back, frizz-less,
the forced smiles that begged, begged to sell;
but we were poor too (riding in my grandpa’s
ancient station wagon, two years of careful
saving to buy the plane tickets, clothes cousinly
hand-me-downs, camping along the road)
and I knew I could never buy enough
to give them back what so many generations
had already taken away.
Isabella
I thought by seven you wouldn’t want
to wear those fancy, “spinny” dresses that,
at age two, caused you to flop on the floor
in tireless tantrums, insistent upon wearing
a dress—OR ELSE—so much so that
even if I pulled out a pair of pants
or a onesie for your baby sister,
you expanded into a volcano of screams.
Yet, on a day when you are free from school,
I know I will still see you emerge from your room
clad in the neck-to-toe Victorian style dress
with the gold Christmas paint on the navy blue
background, the embroidered buttons, and
the ballet shoes over your tights, spinning just
as happily as if you were still two
(oh how I love you now but still miss year two).
Mythili
we have no need for gifts in our house.
you create your own.
finding on the floor of my car
a bright yellow foam brain
(product of my school district’s
ridiculous expenditures),
you snatched it up,
reclaimed it as a mouse,
carried it to the park
and named her Lola
Lola hurt herself falling
off the seesaw
and jumped for joy dashing down
the twisty slide,
settling in next to your mouth
(fingers inside)
for your nighttime soother
(of course under blankey)
every night, causing panicked screams
when misplaced,
your beloved, favorite found toy.
we have no need for gifts in our house.
we have you.
Riona
at Mary Poppins, in between
your animated reactions to the
bright colors (“it’s turning green now”
“look, Mama, it’s bright red!”)
and the tap dancing (“see all the
chimney sweepers in black shoes?”)
my friend Hanna counted fifteen times
your turning to me and whispering,
“I wuv you Mama,”
making my heart melt more
than you in your pretty dress,
your first (perfectly obedient) night
at the theatre,
your first musical,
your first time walking everywhere
I once rolled or carried you,
because no matter how many times
you say it to me,
I feel as if it is my first time
hearing your lovely words.
calling me out in front of them all
isn’t the way to get to the truth
because it’s more polite for me
(as my mother always said)
to admit nothing at all
than to lie to your face
your reaction is as ironic as if
you’d admitted me into your classroom
to run it one day (my way)
only for you to pat me on the back
and thank me for the gift
(the gift that in three years
you wouldn’t allow me to give you)
but I will seal my lips this one time
(though I admit you know me well)
and use the scapegoat I have stood by
all these months, tucking it in my
pocket in case of further inquisitions,
though you and I both know why
I’ll (you’ll) never admit the truth.
with two sets of glistening wings
that shine the sun in my eyes
you hover over our activities
searching the pond for prey
you are a mostly silent hunter
whose beauty is marred with your kills
yet, I can hear your wings flutter
above the water where I hold close my young.
your expertise skims the top of the pool
as you dip your sticky tongue to capture
all the smaller, weaker insects (us),
but behind you I can see the silky web
always, always, a stronger predator reigns
and before you can reach us with your lashing,
your wings are caught (their glimmering shine dulled)
and I know that, at least today, we are safe.
Dedicated to the Glenwood Canyon Bike Trail
the sky here is always blue
(clouds sneak in each afternoon
but the mountain air chases them off)
and in the morning you just might see
(you just might, if you find the soul of God)
a herd of bighorn sheep
(brown now, September leaves golden)
startled by you
and the dawn that tickles
their grass-eating lips
you can stop your pedaling
or keep going
(keep going)
because the beauty doesn’t end there—
you will breathe it into your lungs,
the light heaviness of
the red rock canyon,
the perfectly laid path that winds
along the river that
has carved out this magnificence
so you
(you, them, everyone)
can taste for these delicious
high altitude moments
Heaven on Earth.
Perhaps I am an existentialist
like Sartre
the one I never read about
but Mrs. Clark told me
and that was enough to know
to know
that I am who I am
and no one can make me different.
(but if she hadn’t told me
at sixteen, would I know
that’s who I am?)
I’ll never know.
What—or who—formed this shape?
am I a trapezoid trying to be a triangle
or a triangle trying to blow myself
up into a cone?
not sure
pokey though
pokey and prodding,
peeking out and stretching
my angles as far as they will
s t r e t c h
it could have been her
with all the no’s
it could have been him
with all the passivity
it could have been me
a round ball in the beginning
but I bounced back,
eventually
finding the format that suits me best
(I may have been fourteen)
I’d had enough
and now I stand
angular as ever
unable to fit into the
cookie cutter they’d imagined
instead
looking up from one edge
and down from a corner
I see myself, the perfect
unnamable shape,
formed by my own desires.
he has carried her in the crook of his arm
to the point of exhaustion for both
yet
even long distance I can hear her cries,
I can feel the stress rising up over phone lines
and all I can reply is, “I’ve been there.”
she handles it as flippantly as a new mother can,
mentioning only her concerns about the schedule,
the lack of sleep,
the looming return to work,
but he is not so sure
and when she tells me she must go
it is not because of the crying (now settled)
(innocent, newborn) baby,
but because he is stressed.
and all I can reply is, “I’ve been there,”
knowing the words will
never be enough to
cover the overwhelming burden
(of love)
that comes with becoming parents
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