an odd couple
him outspoken
earrings and hair
thick with want of a brush
she perfectly manicured
tight as a spindle
of silken thread
their words bounce off
one another, harsh, playful
forced, relaxed
his mouth open and loud,
her lips pinched and defiant
with them we will take a new step,
form a new friendship,
walk our children hand in hand with theirs,
hoping the oddities
that make us (them)
who we are meant to be
will be the same oddities
that will bring, keep us together.
i may not see it through their eyes
or feel it through their legs
but the mountain lures me
and i can already sense the wind at my back
hear the spinning rubber on pavement
the thin air tightening in my lungs
and the sweet smell of pine calling me home.
it may seem crazy (and it always is with me)
but i will chase that train
climb that mountain
win that race
if only for my legs
my eyes
my heart.
with a pedal of determination
i will be just like the little blue engine
of my youth,
thinking my way to the top
thinking
thinking
thinking
all. the. way. down
to where everything tastes
better on the other side of the mountain.
with her giant oval ears,
she turns her head from side to side
waiting
we quiet them as much
as a passel of schoolgirls can be
waiting
in a moment she stands
glassy eyes searching the grasses
waiting
out from his hollow, her fawn
bolts to nurse, jerking at her underside,
waiting
she nudges him away with a quick kick
and he crosses our trail, leaving her
waiting
we stand in a semi-quiet line,
mesmerized, in love, memories in hand,
waiting.
Riona
there was a time not so long ago
when I worried you wouldn’t walk
contented as could be you sat happily
on your bottom, legs refusing to straighten
adorable, yes, but not for a mother.
how I ached for people to stop asking
for you to reach up, put your palms on a chair,
and stand.
you are four now. Four! and have tucked
stairs, one at a time, into your steps of experience,
have learned to chase after your sisters,
rarely even begging to hold my hand to steady you.
it wasn’t a mistake that I asked my friend to
draw, in perfect artistic beauty, your favorite pets
on a pair of (my all-time favorite shoes)
Converse Chuck Taylors for your birthday. Shoes.
for my youngest girl who is perfectly happy to dig in
to the hand-me-down box and pull out a “new” pair.
But no. Those shoes are yours, only yours, and on the
same day you put their magic on your feet,
your bottom in your brand-new non-baby swing,
digging your toes into the grass to make a dirt hole
(“just like under my sisters’ swings”)
you learned how to pump. all. by. yourself.
i will never know, Riona, I will never know
what will bring more tears to this mother’s eyes:
your first step at twenty months
or your legs in the air at four years old.
Isabella
Grandma reads a book to your sisters
(you hate reading).
you sit on the couch,
swing your legs,
jump up, jump down,
grab blocks,
knock them over,
dash into the kitchen,
pick up a set of toys,
jolt over the coffee table,
sing a song.
Grandma asks your sisters
to answer a question
about the book.
Before a split second has passed,
you’ve already slipped in
the answer.
“How can these girls say anything
with this one around?”
“It’s true,” you admit.
“I know everything.”
You pick up a set of plastic bugs
and bolt away,
my speed demon of elder knowledge.
Mythili
you are so proud to be
the five-almost-six-year-old
who takes steps into the school
every day after your sister,
backpack on back,
lunch in hand,
ready for kindergarten.
i watch your smile
as you tell stories about
the block towers you’ve built,
as you “read” every detail
of pictures in elaborate tales
much better than the actual words
written in the books you love.
all i see,
beneath the layers of
worldly knowledge you have
acquired upon entering school,
is my baby girl with
her baby teeth still on top.
until they loosen,
fall into an apple or Daddy’s palm,
wait in a pillow for the Tooth Fairy,
i will hold on to this smile of yours.
it is yours, yes,
but it is mine, too.
standing between this moment and that one
we’ve drawn an imperceptible line
(only our hearts can see it)
how it hovers over us
darkness enveloping
the light we should share
standing between this moment and that one
i can still see the other moment
(it is mine, it is ours)
and i want to take a giant eraser
and clear the board
of every line
every imperceptible line
that ever has
that ever will
that forever will never
divide us.
like a hurricane where
it doesn’t belong, stress
has swooped in from a
once-peaceful tropical locale,
tearing down trees,
ripping off roofs,
destroying in its path
every last bit of calm
that the summer once
peacefully offered me.
i stare into the beast’s eye,
reminding me that the middle
is only a moment of waiting,
that the end will whip around
and leave remnants of the
past in pieces behind its
horrendously angry tail,
pieces I will pick up, put back
together, and swallow in peace.
the music has ended
(crickets are singing now)
and there are no cicadas here
their tiny legs call out to us
in the deep of night and the
light shining on my belly?
it is like that night under the moon
white sand encircling our toes
where i walked to the water alone
you remember. how anger and
longing threw us apart, how i
imagined a trip there alone, with them.
in a perfect circle, the moon
led me along the beach, wind
whispering the truth to me
we didn’t have electricity
a bathroom or a camper,
nothing but haste and desire
i think of this now only because
of the songs you have chosen
now ended, given in to insects
i will carry them (the music of
our lives) to sleep along with my moon.
i would be lost without it.
with water everything is pure
from sandy shores to lakes demure
it washes off and cools us down
and shatters each internal frown
with water we wash out the weak
replacing it with a stronger streak
of life that breeds within the deep
bringing forth the hope we need to keep
with water we have a clearer light
on days that inevitably end in night
it guides us there and guides us back
and washes out what once was black.
with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that is momentous
and forget everything circuitous
with this pedal I will fly
into my life, by and by
taking with me all that’s past
leaving behind what I’ve surpassed
with this pedal I am me
more than elsewhere I could be
to speak my mind and ache my soul
to take the parts and make them whole
with this pedal I thee wed
a life that’s mine (inside my head)
to remember all that brought me here
to forget all that should disappear.
with turbulence bouncing her brain,
she rests her eyes
and recounts
(rebreathes relives)
the memory.
haunt
pleasure
remorse
renewal
and words that
can’t define it.
she traps it there
(behind the eyelids)
for no one else to see.
like a kidnapped child,
it will not submit
no matter how many
locks she places on its cage.
she searches for the keys
but
they have been lost in layers
of days and months and years
that only allow her this one
to keep
to keep without release.
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