Having moved to the south
with our own predilections,
my daughter was doomed. 
By two, responded fettucini alfredo
when asked her favorite food.  

As peers discussed beloved chips,
she was lost.  Same, during the bible story
game introduced at a birthday party.
When they said grace at preschool
she insisted the first three syllables
were not God is Great, but Honest Gray,
which we felt was a sweet interpretation.  

At home, it was with affection
she renamed nightly dishes  –
warm mush, soggy lettuce salad,
and following a kitchen mishap,
upside-down-oven-lid-surprise.   

Now in her forties, she is organized
and wise. Surely more sophisticated
than I, cooking from directions
on her laptop dictated by culinary artists
foreign to me.  Sometimes, as the years
go by, I can’t help but wonder:
Will any of the stained and marked-up
recipes amassed from my lifetime
in the kitchen find a place in  hers?                                                      

We tossed our watches out because our phones
told us the time and so much more, like when
to go to bed, how many steps our hearts
required us to take. We had an app
to order food, another app to flag
a ride. So when the grid went down, we had
no watches, and we left our sense of time
somewhere back in the ancient past, and now
a cyber bully with no social media
must find his prey in person. Tell me now:
who’s got the time to tell you to your face
that they don’t like your face? What did you call
me? How’d you call me with no phone? Face it:
the algorithm’s gone. The sun, the shadows, and
thr trees are calling. Now’s the time. Pick up.

Her once black muzzle is all white.
Her short legs can no longer propel
her long body up to her spot
on the sofa. 

She can still bark.
Lift me up. Put me down.
Mostly she sleeps, on any lap,
or wrapped in a blanket. 

Around her swirls the chaos
of a household of three adults,
two small kids, four other dogs. 

        For Emily Dickinson

I go to the beach on my phone,

scrolling instead of strolling,

scrolling with my sand-colored hands.

I stop on the image of a cliff

then stop again on the image

of a sea cave, carved not by the sea.

When the walk is over, I plug

my phone back into its charger,

neither of us yet recharged.

Just to sleep at night,
sometimes I hold you from behind and run
my thumb across your gullied fault lines.
Read the book spine of your body.
Your second growth of spine, a love cut you grew up 
like a raised garden of personhood, sprouting
pink flowered scar. Magenta row of rosebuds.
You carry the supine thorns in you, straight across
your heart you dared them to cut you up for good.
For the good of man-kind, to be the kind of man
who is allowed to be joyous and gay. To be okay
You cut and pulled yourself closer to yourself,
Soft covers over your heart, all blood and capillary
waves of relief. Interstate highway of free land reclaimed
indefinitely. My thumb travels miles across your chest,
walks one way and another, slowly and solely in meditation,
in awe of it all, this handful of all, of you. At the edges,
I turn back because there’s so much more to know, better.
Braille poetry of a man stretch like a smile beaming
with pride in the June summer heat. Shirtless like a signature
that dances and spins its way into the most beautiful chosen name.
You’re a birthday card full of love letters to yourself.
Sacred and brimming with secrets so dear you’ve taped
up all the edges for safekeeping and it feels
like a knot beneath my doting fingers. Clay enclave of heart
beating code to me beneath the wall of your chest.
We’re night cot neighboring skin bonding, tiny knocks
back and forth, always asking to come in, come closer.
My thumb walks the gravel holler of your chest
as if to come home. Foothills of hair and sky of freckled star.
Everything about you is North. In the dark,
we are just two lost pieces of Pine Mountain
shifting to meet itself all over again.

Holds many different spices
Thyme is saved for Jim’s savory soups and stews
Cinnamon sprinkles are in mama’s apple pie
Red pepper abounds in my brother’s chili
Dill pricks my potato salad
Paprika dusts mama’s deviled eggs
Cardamon gives my chai scones their best
Ginger spikes grannie’s ginger snaps
Nutmeg scents our holiday egg nog
Oregano floats in mama’s spaghetti sauce
Saffron flavors Jim’s bouillabaisse
Sage fills the air at thanksgiving
Pumpkin pie spice pumps  our pumpkin pie
Marjoram flavors Hazel’s potato soup
Sesame seeds dot my Szechuan stir fry
Basil goes in my spaghetti sauce and omelets
Garlic powder fits the need when fresh is unavailable
Rosemary flavored shortbread cookies are a delight
Fennel seeds go in Jim’s special sauces.

Did I whet your appetite with these spicy memories?

Somewhere near the Big Bang,

How do I explain to my wife
how my daughter explained to me
how to miss someone?

That my daughter,
seventeen months old,
fourteen teeth,
hair not yet cut,
walking only last month,
one word more than one syllable,
(cookie)
explained to me a concept that,
until now,
I thought myself incapable of comprehending?

In second grade,
or maybe first,
I graduated from the type of summer church camp
where your grandparents stay with you for the week,
to the type you go to alone.

36 hours into the camp,
I did finally stop crying.

I honestly can’t recall much from that camp
other than that coming home
wasn’t an option.
As was made clear to me on the camp phone.

I settled in,
admittedly did have a good time,
and never asked my parents to reassure me again.

Since then, I venture solo
as any good eldest child should.
No one told me what middle school would be like,
how to take a job interview,
how to buy a house.

I just do it.
I go where I need to go,
do what I need to do, and
never look back.

At first my wife didn’t understand
why I couldn’t understand
why I should miss her.

But over time, I explained it well.
It’s just who I am.
I’m not a sentimental type.

Just a few months ago, in fact,
I was away on business for a week or so.
Going where I needed to go,
doing what I needed to do.
Explaining to my wife over video call that it wasn’t anything personal that I didn’t miss her.
When the camera turned to my daughter in only a diaper,
sitting on the chair we cut the legs off of
so that she could climb up into it and look out the window,
eating a small piece torn off a generic brand Eggo waffle.

I glanced down at the generic hotel waffle on my plate,
swallowed,
(not the waffle)
and missed her.