THE LAST SUPPER

 

When Aunt Anita got word from the clinic

that the cancer was fanning outward

like a web of newly shattered glass,

and that it was, in fact, inoperable, she promptly

planned a get together for family and friends,

an informal wake that she would attend,

and which she dubbed -- not without a touch

of gallows humor -- her last supper.

She arrived in a ball gown, sequined and sparkling,

her long dark hair newly styled, flitting

from table to table, bar stool to bar stool,

glasses raised and clinking, remembering both

the good times and the hard times with

those she knew -- and she knew nearly everyone.

She was their confidante, keeper of their

stories, their sorrows, and secrets.

The next morning she slipped quietly into

a coma, one long dream receding into

another, never again to wake.

Born into nothing, into a town so insignificant

that no one had bothered to name it,

she left this world, nonetheless, dressed to the nines,

a benevolent ruler with a Louisville slugger

tucked behind the bar, just in case.

She left, quite simply, glowing.

MY FATHER FLYING ABOVE REYKJAVIK

 

It's sometimes hard to imagine my father's face,

even when looking at an old photograph.

In my mind's eye, he is always turning away,

as he is in this moment, maneuvering through the clear

arctic air 10,000 feet above the city of Reykjavik,

as far removed from the fields of Aitkin, Minnesota

as his imagination would have carried him.

I can see the smooth, unlined flesh of his neck

peeking between his military cut and Air Force collar,

can see the blue-green lights of the control panel

blinking like stars, now closer, nor farther.

This would be long before he met my mother,

before he left us, and those families which came before.

This is, you might say, a test run for leaving.

He is an apt pupil, willing to put in the long hours.

Does he spare a thought then for his older brother,

my uncle Leo, drowned, so very handsome at

the foot of Mount Fuji, his uniform weighing him down,

a birthday card written out to his sister floating

on the silent surface like a forgotten map?

Or does he think only of this -- the acceleration

and ascension, the world falling away below,

everything making more sense from this distance?

The sky trails behind him like a new signature.

He may never come down again.

DOG DAYS

 

Those long summer evenings of childhood,

when the air stilled, thick and sticky with heat,

and it became impossible to sleep,

my brother and I would bring our pillows

and bedclothes into the living room,

camping out on the floor like intrepid explorers,

stripped down to our white briefs,

our thin cotton sheets billowing like sails

toward the uncharted waters of sleep.

We could hear the chirr of crickets,

and the thump of moths against the screen,

dreading the high and tiny sirens

of thirsty mosquitoes circling the dark.

We would take turns getting up to readjust

the old box fan, which rattled and shook, never

quite staying put but pulling itself forward

bit by bit, or turning slowly to the opposite wall,

as if it knew a better way out of this misery,

this engine to our imaginary boats,

so clumsy and so stubborn, though it was

all we had, its rusted heart and grimy blades

slowing and sputtering to a stop, then

starting back up again, shaking off its own sleep

for our sake, and always -- we hoped --

strong enough to bring us home by morning.

SENSITIVE

 

I have never wanted for you, dearest daughter,

to be anything other than the beautiful and sensitive

soul you have always been, collecting oak seeds

to watch them spin back down to earth,

those long-stemmed dandelions bent over, as if in prayer,

deciphering the forms of strange new animals

among the clouds, where the ancestors sleep,

faces smiling back from the most ordinary of stone.

I have admired, as an outsider, the special language

you share with birds and trees, how the cats

in the neighborhood all come to you, unafraid,

knowing you already, and how you mourned deeply

the death of your beta fish, the one you called

your sister and confided your worries to.

I have heard you choosing each word for a poem

or song, tapping them against the roof

of your mouth, letting the new sounds settle,

until they filled your ears as perfectly as the silence,

watched you conduct, with arms gently waving,

a string concerto constructed in your mind;

and when bullies have thrown their sharpened words

like so many stones, I have sat within your sorrow,

unable to offer an answer as to why some, young

or old, simply enjoy the act of causing harm.

These are the times when I want nothing more than to

protect you from the inclement elements of self,

the ever-shifting atmosphere of your inner world

overwhelming you, to close, temporarily, the windows

against the sudden rain of summer, until the sun

again finds its way, small enough to tuck into

your pocket like a coin, thin and hot to the touch,

rubbed smooth at the center, reflecting.

CARRYING MY DAUGHTER TO BED

 

My daughter, so proud lately of her lengthening limbs

and muscles, still asks, on most evenings,

to be carried to bed, which -- amazingly, though

with no small effort -- I am still able to do.

Long gone are the days of lifting her with ease,

as though moving one of my own limbs,

absentmindedly, up or down, gone now the special hold

I somehow stumbled upon when her wailing --

as if the entire anguish of the world had

been condensed into one elongated vowel --

simply could not be consoled, her small and fragile

body held out before me, head resting snugly

in the palm of my hand, her torso fitting perfectly

into my forearm, her flat and skinny feet,

not yet having touched upon earth

or grass, reaching out into the air, unafraid,

and we swayed that way, gently, almost imperceptibly,

upon the kitchen linoleum, until her cries

drifted slowly into coos and gurgles, and at last

into the welcome silence of sleep.

Tonight, I carry her down the narrow hallway,

turning sideways, and with little grace on my part,

dropping her into the soft familiarity of

bedsheets and blankets that bear her fragrance,

her shape still faintly visible from the night before,

where she will drift again into weightlessness,

her body building itself even when she

is seemingly gone, as the map behind her eyelids,

the one only she can read, draws her

forward, relentlessly forward.

DANDELIONS

 

Perhaps I have been too hard on the housing projects of my earliest years, as if they were merely prisons to be endured. We had yards, after all, as Louie Anderson reminded me. We had clean water and our own rooms, we had a washer and a dryer, and windows which kept out the winter air. We didn't even remember that we were trash, until someone at school reminded us. I learned to play soccer, albeit poorly, with the Vietnamese kids next door, only vaguely understanding the word refugee. We slurped our ramen at lunchtime, me inevitably making a mess with my chopsticks. I noticed that they laughed more easily than others around me, my family included. They grew their own vegetables in a small patch of earth out back, chomped on radishes and green onions right from the ground, washed clean with a garden hose. I loved most the dandelions which sprouted up everywhere overnight, like a thousand suns scattered across the sloping grass. I plucked and gathered them, careful in my choosing, brought them to the back door as a gift. But my mother refused them, saying they would only attract bees, and to throw them away outside. Many years later, when my little girl placed a small bunch of dandelions in my hand, something in me lifted and something in me mourned all over again. We brought them inside, placed them in a small vase, and the bees, busy with their tireless work elsewhere, paid us no mind at all.

LAYOVER

 

When I find myself walking through the airport,

the enormous glass walls filled with sky

and my own meager reflection, ostensibly

just another middle-aged traveler wandering lost,

I am, unbeknownst to others, suddenly

thirteen years old again, traversing that strange city

of flight alone, disregarding the instructions given

to me by the kindly airport attendant, a young woman

in a wine-colored smock and neatly-tied scarf

smelling vaguely of vanilla and lavender.

I had never flown, and found myself suddenly

on a solo endeavor, anxiously en route

to stay with my brother or sister out west --

no one had quite determined where

I would end up -- the quietly stubborn kid

enamored with music and poetry, the mysterious world

of girls from which they all seemed to emanate.

My mother, who no longer wanted the job,

would be staying where she was, taking yet another

sabbatical from her parenting career.

So, I found myself on layover, hovering between

cities, and between lives, daydreaming past

the gift shops and baggage carousels,

the lounges overflowing with beery conversation

as the Cubs struggled to pull out a win.

I suppose my mother meant to impart a lesson,

but I already knew how to leave

and not look back, knew how to get lost

in the secret rooms of self, or deep within a crowd.

Overhead, I could hear the formless voice

calling out gate numbers and departure times,

the soft-spoken warnings, as if this were all merely

a game of chance, some tickets better than

others. Who could say which was which?

I walked on, only half listening, for something

that sounded vaguely familiar, the right combination

coupled with a bit of urgency, something that

would lead me, for now, homeward.