STORM

 

We are staying up late, my young daughter

and I, to watch and listen -- sleepy

though we are -- to the summer lightning

storm outside, which flashes, matchstick quick

and seemingly at random, across each

small window of the flimsy French doors.

This light show is more exhilarating

to her than the storybooks stacked beside us,

which wait patiently until the world

becomes once more calm and ordinary,

in need of retelling, embellishment, magic.

For now, we wait, counting out loud

the seconds between flicker and crash,

the dark shoulders of trees and angled outlines

of rooftops, lit up for a moment, then gone.

When we startle, it is merely with delight.

We do not speak -- not now, not today --

of the horrors of the television news,

the once unimaginable now commonplace,

school children crouched under desks,

their backpacks cradled close, utilized as shields

against a hail of bullets from every direction.

For now, the danger is far less specific.

For now, we are snug and safe in this

boat of a bed, letting the wild wind-swept

currents surrounding us have their say,

our small, indeterminate patch of the universe

throwing off sparks, shifting, nearly breaking

apart, reminding us of what we live within.

When the storm at last seems spent,

I rise to close the curtains, our plastic moon

of a nightlight standing in for the one

which we cannot see. But we know it's there,

as the stars are there, and the far away sun

of tomorrow, like all good things,

and it's enough -- for now, for now --

to rest, at ease, in that simple knowing.

FEATHERS OF A DOVE

 

How many trips did we make back then

to the hardware store, as summer

leaned lazily into autumn; how many

dusky shades of blue and gray

holding their secret oceans of light

were mixed on our behalf, a seemingly

endless variety of color swatches

laid out like narrow, unframed windows,

opening onto a bright coastal morning

which no artist could ever have gotten right?

How elegant and whimsical their names,

dreamed up, I imagine, in some drab

and lifeless boardroom, and labeled here

in practiced script: English Chamomile,

Whispering Mist, Feathers of a Dove.

We read them aloud just to hear their music,

the unassuming romance they promised,

the time we longed for most of all.

How many thoughtless brushstrokes

covered the wall at the end of that narrow

hallway, as if the smallest of decisions

could make all the difference for us?

How many weeks before the baby arrived

to parents who could not agree

even on this, our days together already

beginning to flutter from our grasp, restless

and unfinished, all but flying away?

THE MOON IN MY HAND

 

Today I held in my outstretched palm

a smooth, flat piece of moon stone,

black, ordinary, impenetrable,

nothing you would consider otherworldly,

nor containing even the smallest

fragment of mystery or light.

Nothing asking to be named or known,

merely a door opening into further darkness.

When my daughter was very small

she would exclaim in joyous wonder

from the balcony, "The moon! The moon!,"

greeting her nightly friend once again.

But this, this cannot be the moon,

I think. This is mere flint, shale, asphalt,

chimney soot swept and hardened

to a coin of no value here below.

No miner would bother to claim it.

But a child can easily see light where

our eyes cannot, can spark a new

world from nearly anything within reach.

We add our stone to the fish bowl

full of earthly ones, our own small piece

of moon, which we read has traveled

hundreds of thousands of miles

to be right here beside us, where we rest

and dream another day into waking.

DEAREST BULLY

 

I can still feel the rap of your knuckles,

brother, striking against my own,

stinging, bruising, like four faceless

skulls declaring their dominance.

I can still feel the weighted air shifting

between us, I who was never quite

quick enough to slip from beneath your

reach, and rarely, if ever, managed to connect.

There are things I cannot pretend

to miss -- the swift punch to the shoulder,

the ever-elaborate wrestling holds,

a perfect pearl of milky spit dangling,

like a lazy thought, above my face.

I do not miss the ghost you pretended

to be, silent, tugging, inch by creeping inch,

at the foot of our childhood bed.

Your ghost is real now, free to wander

room to room. And I no longer fear,

though the world you left compels us to.

I miss you in the ways you were soft,

the gentle humor you held close,

the vulnerable boy hidden from view.

I miss the moments you cried, unashamed.

Tonight, as always, I kiss my daughter,

let her snuggle in, as she wraps her

small fingers around my crooked thumb,

drifting effortlessly again into sleep.

It's the kind of calm that I live for,

and would fight this whole world to keep.

SOAP

 

God only knows what casual blasphemy

or stubborn refusal of chore had tumbled out,

but there I was, a child of four, made

to kneel upon the smoke-yellow linoleum

of the bathroom floor, a fresh white bar

of soap clenched between my teeth.

I was instructed only to wait. To speak directly

to the Lord and await his forgiveness.

I cannot say whether it came, or not, only that

the wait dragged on for what felt like hours,

a thousand years to the Creator being one day.

The soap did not make my mouth feel

any cleaner, nor make what came out of it

lighter, every uncertain lisp and stutter floating

like bubbles up toward the heavens.

I tasted only shame, a chemical bitterness

lasting the whole length of the day.

I understood words to be weighted things,

meant to be avoided whenever possible,

and God the Father, forever holding

his tongue, to always be listening,

always ready to silence with the back of a hand,

a sword, or a book thrown suddenly open.

FINNISH FUNERAL, AITKIN, MINNESOTA (1939)

 

It's impossible to know who is behind

the camera's noisy shutter, capturing these

mourners gathered beneath a haze

of summer sun, in somber black and gray,

gazing, without exception, at the dry ground.

Not so unusual, perhaps, for a people

known for their stoicism, for not making such

a fuss about this life, whose language has

many words to describe the existential weight

of snow and ice, but lacks any future tense.

The pallbearers stand on the back of the flatbed,

the hand-carved coffin between them,

men long accustomed to labor, not quite

prepared for this task, their faces shadowed

by grief, hands held close to their bodies,

as if already clutching at bits of earth.

My father is the baby here, knowing only

his own hunger, memorizing each face,

the sound of their voices, each particular touch,

while my mother, many miles away, has not

yet opened her blue eyes to this world.

My great-grandmother is about to move,

slowly, just outside of the picture frame,

becoming, seemingly overnight, part of what

we call history, that lengthening shadow

we each carry, yet never quite manage to catch,

that which shows no sign of stopping

for us, or even of slowing down.

FRUIT FLY

 

I peel a Clementine tangerine for

my young daughter, and immediately,

seemingly willed into existence

from thin air, there you are, circling,

assessing, navigating the smoothest

possible surface on which to land.

No time, I suppose, for introductions,

or easing your way into a room.

Your lifespan here, after all, is so brief,

and your thirst relentless, ancestral.

Strange, then, to consider our shared DNA,

invisible ladder reaching between us,

the opposing engines of our bodies,

our separate intuitions and needs,

ostensibly whole worlds apart.

Yet you are somehow always familiar,

inventing and erasing yourself on

the shifting periphery, bumping into

the white plastered walls, as if motion

itself were the only true means

of survival, and sweetness -- the very

sweetness of this world -- worthy

of every possible risk.