Slow strides
glide along cracked concrete
while we pass ancient ruins
under watchful construction
Our eyes inspect
open doors
chipped paint
Roman Catholic features
among numerals
and names
You pull me across the busy street
I follow
and lean in for a kiss
you don’t notice
and the buildings’ scaffolding
casts shadows
under which we hide
until the sun hits our skin
just right
and I awake
dreaming again of this
bilita mpash
The Picture
I have a picture of my father
on the trophy case in the kitchen.
It is a picture of him in uniform,
in Pisa, The Dispensary, 1st Staging
Area Battalion building, behind him.
He is happy in that picture of him,
laughing, but he is thin, the war raging in
the mountains where Germans in uniform
have dug in. He is a survivor, which in
January 1945, made him a lucky man, my father,
a living miracle, sent from the Battle of the Bulge
to recuperate and drive an ambulance to the front line
and bring back the wounded to a hospital tent like the one
he woke up in. Not yet twenty-three years old,
he had seen enough of the world to last him the rest of his life.
All of this excess movement, need
to create, chest shakes,
snort, scratch, and cracking joints,
and tension too —
Begins with a lack of satisfaction
I figured that creativity and
restlessness went hand-in-hand
Better, they were inseparable, the same
Now my arm
is so still
that two flies
mistake it for a branch
Poetry can snatch at passing
buzzing energy and
end in still-life
But eternal works
begin with stillness.
I know it’s irrational to worry
about how cold she would be
underground. I place
her urn on our hearth, anyway,
cozy and warm. Hopefully, in her
new enlightened dimension,
she will actually appreciate
the gesture. But, I doubt it. I can
almost hear her complaining
that I don’t dust the urn enough;
that my husband and I stay up
too late when she’s trying to sleep;
that she hates our choice of TV shows:
police dramas instead of her favorite
sitcoms.
Need I remind you, mom,
that I am probably the only person
mourning you?
She is the sore subject my siblings
don’t want to bring up anymore. Good
riddance is the general by-line. But,
grief still visits me. When I come across
a rare pair of clip-on earrings,
I want to buy them for mom. On
Mother’s Day, I feel the strangeness
of not giving her a call. It’s
the familiarity of her presence,
for three quarters of my life,
that I miss. Those memories hijack me,
and I weep, alone
Conception
Sperm meets egg
Hello! Yeshowareyoudontmindme
Deception
World meets boy
Hello! Yesitsfineheredontaskanyquestions
Inception
Boy meets girl
Hello! YeshowareyouIwashopingyoudcomealong
Reception
Sperm meets egg.
Holiday Season
The weather has turned
cold these final days
before Thanksgiving.
On my walk to school,
I noticed the dying grass
the color of “tumbleweed.”
It can only mean
a few short weeks
til Christmas break.
