love

Baggage

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what we had when everyone else
told us we were too young to marry
was nothing more than a small carry-on:
four spinning wheels for
simple maneuvering in and out of doors,
a handle that slid up and down with the
smooth ease of young love,
straps for easy carrying on the back
(thickly padded, covered in felt)

nothing like the heavy sets of mismatched
baggage, beaten from too many travels,
wheelless and torn, strapless and with
handles that break out blisters on palms,
identifiable only by their massive weight,
their inability to fit easily into anyone’s trunk,
that everyone else, now older,
carries with them into relationships.

what we had when everyone else
told us we were too young to marry
was nothing more than a small carry-on:
inside it we rolled up our
running socks, fuzzy pajamas,
pants for every season, swimsuits and gloves,
and packed ourselves a trip that would
far surpass the one that the people
around us told us not to take.

Mouth

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the same one that kisses
each daughter’s cheek
and whispers, “I love you”
a thousand times a week

the lips that open and close
over organically local food
and delectable chocolate
that brings on the best mood

the crooked and aging teeth
that bare themselves in grins
filled with laughter and love
and inglorious sins

this mouth is surely sore with vice
though can just as easily love
because what I say is who I am
not just who you were thinking of.

What He Does

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What he does if you need to know
(really? it’s been five years)
is wake up one morning girl
and two obstinately not-morning girls
arguing with them to
go to the bathroom, get dressed,
eat breakfast, brush teeth,
and get out the door
before most people have left for work.

Alone, because I have usually
left already to enjoy a bike ride to school
(something he allows me to do
every day if I want, without question)
and even if they don’t want to do
any of it, with his patient words,
his no-nonsense attitude,
he convinces them to obey.

What next? You’d be amazed.
Takes Mythili back and forth
to preschool, setting timers for
snack and show-and-tell reminders,
grocery shopping with Riona in tow,
plans a menu that is healthy
(and that they’ll all eat, and that
we can afford), cooks and does dishes,
sets out my morning coffee and oatmeal,
cleans the house top to bottom every Friday,
(have you ever seen Dad use a vacuum?)
budgets and pays all our bills,
takes the girls to the park,
the zoo, the museum,
sets up play dates
and manages homework.

All without one critical word,
with the sensitive nurturing
every child needs and deserves,
all so that our evenings are calm,
relaxed, child-filled (not errand-filled),
so that we have a home, not a house.

What does he do, you ask?
Have you not seen our spotless home,
tasted our delectable dinners,
thrived on his technological advice,
and witnessed firsthand those
small arms reaching out for Daddy?

Let me apologize.
Perhaps you have not been blinded by love,
or perhaps in your narrow world of
work, work, work,
you have forgotten (or never knew)
what a happy family,
a perfect husband,
looks like.

In This Moment

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in this moment

I can find the pace I need to get me there stronger
Mythili can “read” a whole page in her elaborate story
Riona can say “I wuv you” seven times
Isabella can brush her top teeth by herself

and someone on the other side of the world
or right across town
is giving birth to a perfectly healthy baby
while another lost soul is pointing a gun to his head

in this moment

I can hear Alanis Morisette motivating my pedals
my students can see twenty pictures on Google
of the cedar trees they’ve never heard of
the teachers can track me down for brownies

and someone right across town
or on the other side of the world
is pounding a woman’s skull into the drywall,
while another is handing a ten-year-old his first pair of shoes.

in this moment

I will live
I will love
I will remember what I have
what we all have
(somewhere within us)

Ode to Pod

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for years I’ve dreamed of this day
so why am I not smiling? my own
classroom, my own walls, my desk
in the corner with no one to bother me,
no one to pester me with the constant
openings and closings of doors,
students incessantly filing in and out,
no little pod desk accessible only
by interrupting someone else’s teaching.

but if I hadn’t been here I wouldn’t
have heard Hanna wondering about
lessons that I then reached out to share
(making our co-teaching the best
teaching I’ve done so far);
been close enough to Karen to see
the endless hours she puts into teaching those kids;
heard Bill complain about the toilet
overflowing and everyone in homeroom
giving him crap about it (punny, I know!);
I wouldn’t have caught clips of those
conversations Bill and Scott had with
their students (the ones in trouble,
the bullies, the ones with family issues)
and witness, firsthand, how to mix humor
with discipline in a way that is nothing
shy of teaching’s greatest masterpiece;
I wouldn’t have visited Tammy’s lab
to see the limitless ways that students
could be brought to think for themselves.

if it weren’t for my little windowless pod,
my small desk that Bill cleared his crap for
(with nothing overflowing), I wouldn’t
have the friends who make me feel
less departmentalized (in my solo
department), I wouldn’t have even
had a brownie list, I wouldn’t have seen
the best teachers in the school, but would
be in the dark, just like I thought I would be
when (during the overcrowded days)
they put me in this dark space
that, in fact, has brought nothing less
than a world of light into my life.

Catch Me a Moon

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catch me a moon once meant
fix my broken heart
(at sixteen, when in pieces
my heart’s only remedy were
the silver splashes of light)

catch me a moon now means
give me a moment
(a moment to myself, to bike,
to run, to remedy stress
with silver splashes of light)

catch me a moon was a story
I wrote (and memorized,
reciting its words as I tackled
giant hills on my way to school
under silver splashes of light)

catch me a moon is a poem
I write (holding my mended heart
as I rediscover the well-lit path
that will carry me—carry all of us—
as we reach for silver splashes of light.

Every Moment

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I remember nights without sleep
and cries without consolation
diaper bags and strollers a must
for even the simplest outings

now their once-wispy hair is
tied back in tight braids and
their cries are aimed at each other
with bitter words to match.

a blur it’s been, baby years gone,
relinquished first to toddlerhood
and now we’re full-on childhood
their lives zipping by me

before I can even sit on the swing
with their daddy and reminisce
the time that is happening now,
they will be all grown up.

(I will remember this when I
hold my hand to a feverish forehead,
when they pitch a fit and act their age,
when I think every moment is too much)
because every. moment. counts.

Face

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Without this, we wouldn’t be here today—
I would still carry the guilt
that hovered ghostlike in my soul
for eight harrowing years
and you would still not know
what it was I had done to you
(some might say that’s better)

but you and I, we both know
that the blemish I could never
quite cover up bumped out
on the face of our love and your
discovery became the astringent
we both needed to wash it away.

now we face our future together
you with the phantom of a beard,
me with my imperfect (but so
loved by you) freckled skin,
and I know that without this…
(pain? grief? remorse?)
we wouldn’t know how to face
whatever will come tomorrow.

Write My Heart

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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).

March Daughters

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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.