AIRPORT SUNRISE

When I was a kid, and you could do so, I loved

to wander through the vast, complex city of the airport,

past its chintzy gift shops and stuffy bars,

wafts of blue-tinged smoke and stale beer drifting

out into the clamor of air-conditioned lobbies,

where everything was in motion, the lives

of strangers and their families suddenly so close,

everyone embracing, everyone either waving

goodbye or hello for the first time in years.

Someone was always crying, sometimes a whole

congregation, shuddering as if from the cold.

Someone, you suspected, might never be seen again.

I would have been there with one of my sisters,

visiting from, or returning to, their separate family

in California, a mysterious land of earthquakes,

sun, and ocean, where the only snow they ever saw

came from postcards or their TV screens.

I loved the enormous glass walls at the terminals,

how they scaled upward seemingly without end, drifting

into shadow, the mighty and monstrous planes

gleaming on the tarmac, tiny men waving

each of them this way and that, flares in hand,

signaling in a language no one else could fathom.

I loved to see the sun hovering on the horizon,

throwing out a few tentative ropes of light,

then pulling itself up in earnest, blanketing this

flat and slightly tilted corner of the world; and I, too,

would be waving a solemn goodbye as my sister,

along with the other passengers, slump-shouldered,

moved forward down that accordion-like tunnel,

something small closing behind each of them,

like the shadow of a page being turned, sparks of blue

and yellow from a doorway I could not see.

VISITING AMELIA EARHART'S HOUSE WITH MY DAUGHTER

 

We slow to a stop on Fairmount Avenue, the gentle swaying of summer Ash and Elm rising above us on either side, casting an imperfect net of shadows around our sneakered feet. The tall Victorian house has been well cared for, newly painted, as though lifted from another century and gently placed on this small slope of earth. People still live here, so we are mindful not to step upon the freshly-clipped lawn, or to gawk too long into the small curved windows above; though it's easy to imagine the face of that young girl looking out, dreamy and despondent in this foreign place, a harsh Minnesota winter swirling outside the glass. Was her adolescent mind already in flight, mapping a course amongst the heavens which no one else could see? My daughter and I wonder why some details seem clearer when farther away, ponder whether the sky is the greatest of all distances, or in fact its opposite. We have no schedule to keep, and nowhere in particular to be on this day, which makes such questions come more easily, if not their answers. The earth is tilting, though we cannot tell from where we stand; the afternoon sun is both warm and receding.

TELLING STORIES

 

When I remember now those bars and restaurants

along the avenue -- most of them long gone

and forgotten, along with those hopelessly younger

versions of ourselves -- I remember, too,

how you loved telling stories about everyone

within your line of sight, inventing detailed narratives

that were alternately comical, or tragic, sometimes

outlandish, sometimes quite believable.

You knew -- for your own belief in the story

was always essential -- who was on their first date,

and who was on their last, who was celebrating

their daughter's graduation, and who was in mourning;

you knew the man at the bar was out on parole

by the way he clutched his fork, eyes darting like silverfish,

knew which bartender was skimming money,

and which wrote poetry on the backs of napkins.

Now that you have returned so abruptly to silence

and to myth, I can't help but wonder

what you might have said about us, sitting there,

observing, as though we held some secret wisdom.

Would you have invented a better ending

for us, separately or together, one with a bit of nuance,

some humor, or at least a hint of romance?

Might there be an opportunity for redemption?

Sometimes I imagine our stories go on without us,

while we go about our routines, planning

and plotting, setting one book down to reach

for another, endlessly distracted, the lives

we once thought absolute becoming less and less

believable, in need of reconsideration.

MY MOTHER'S SAINT PAUL

 

Before my mother moved to the other side

of the country, leaving only her guitar for safekeeping,

she wanted to drive the city one last time,

to claim and to remember, startling me with

a sudden and unbidden openness,

I had never in my life witnessed from her.

She drove slowly, intentionally so, in that big white boat

of a car, down University Avenue, a street

we never ventured near as kids, nothing but

adult bookstores, porn theaters, and seedy bars.

We heard stories, locked the car doors when riding past.

Those old ghosts were gone now, along with

the small honky tonks she once played, underage,

the low-tiled ceilings yellow with smoke,

barely tall enough to accommodate an upright bass.

We rounded the smooth asphalt encircling Como Lake,

the zoo just up the hill, the same trickling waterfall

where as kids we were chased off by security.

The White Castle where she worked as a teenager

was still serving up greasy sliders with onions,

and the baseball diamond at Mechanical Arts school

where she played with the boys after school

looked very much the same to her eyes.

She speaks, lastly, of the childhood home

that never quite was, the collective nightmare

that she and her sisters somehow survived.

What does it mean, I wondered, retracing the maps

of our past, searching for structure, for patterns,

a road back that might in turn lead safely out?

We want, if nothing else, a narrative that makes sense.

This is the house where she learned to play,

she says, practicing for hours until her fingers bled,

and this is where she first saw snow falling

at the age of six, running outside in audible wonder,

this skinny girl from the hollers of Tennessee,

looking up and up, tasting each frozen star

upon her tongue, so cold they startled each time,

their small light disappearing on contact.

AN AFTERNOON IN EARLY JUNE

 

It was the day of our neighborhood fair, the street closed from one end to the other to make room for carnival rides, local food vendors, and musicians. Kids with faces painted as jungle cats or superheroes strode up and down, panting dogs lapped up the water left out for them. Someone at the coffee shop had paid in advance for the next person's order, a gesture which was quickly taken up by the next, and the next, on and on, each new customer surprised by this mild act of generosity. The cash register grew quiet, the tip jar was emptied and filled again. I like to think this small, impromptu ritual went on long after I left, their smiles and nods, the polite raising of their glasses, stranger to stranger. "Kippis!," as my daughter and I say at home, a Finnish toast I first heard as "keep us" -- as in, keep us well, keep us together, keep us close to the source of this love, whatever the name. Keep us here, savoring that first sweet sip the whole length of the day.

THE DOUGHNUT MAN

 

The doughnut man seemed to turn up

overnight, no advertisement in the paper,

no fliers waving from the wipers of cars,

not even a shop sign in the window,

just the soft, milky glow of a kitchen light

signaling through the dark of early morning,

that heavenly smell wafting all the way

up and down 7th Street, drifting

outward with the smallest of breezes.

No one seemed to know his name,

where he came from or when, or even

whether he spoke English; he simply nodded

when we pointed out how many of each,

his thick fingers, surprisingly delicate,

placing each in a brown paper bag,

sending us kids on our way back home

where whatever small crime we may

have committed earlier in the day would

imediately be forgiven and expunged.

Even the body of Christ could not compete;

even the sun looked brighter and fuller

when shining through the greasy window

of that small bag, its warmth rising,

as if the day were something you could

keep close, hold on to, consume.