April 23

i will remember
the pain starting at mile thirty-four
the wind at twenty-six
the snow at thirty-nine

i will remember
the endless rolling hills
the cloud-encrusted Pike’s Peak
the socks over my double-gloved fingers.

i will remember
the ninety-eight-degree Kentucky
the mile-long hills
the luxuriant lack of wind.

i will remember
your wide and comfy couch
your set out towel and hot shower
hot chocolate waiting for me.

i will remember
four kids playing cars
three girls dyeing eggs
muscles sore for days.

i will remember this day
thirty-three degrees
sun and snow and wind
everything blowing around in my mind.

For the Ring Master

everyone posted pics of Easter today
(some writing religious messages),
children in brightly colored dresses
or sweater vests searching for eggs
(me, too, the girls holding up candy
treasures and invading each other’s baskets)
some were bright-eyed babies, others
older kids who knew the game too well,
diving for eggs under trees or behind bushes,
their rainbow of baskets an afterthought in their palms.

but my favorites had to be my cousin
with his glaringly orange, silk-flowered,
feather-to-the-sky top hat, tinted orange glasses,
and his springy head-to-toe pink explosion of
daffodils, scarves, and feminine-beauty partner,
and their “gay meth lab,” (dyeing eggs that I
see hanging from a tree in the background)
for all the beauty of love, diversity of celebration,
for the “Ring Master of the gayest Easter on Earth!”
for a new rainbow of love on this holiday.