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i am afraid because you are
a person, too, and i am
vulnerable enough already.
somehow, i want you to be god-like
as i watch you vaguely across
the afternoon. boredom has
settled over the room like too
much sunlight, while september
plays outside the window—all
blue and green and promising.
the air of fall is sweetly spiced
like apple cider—tingling, and
full, and alluring. fall days
are the shining shadows of love
and joy preparing for re-entrance
to the world. fall days are tangled
with purpose and preparation, laced
with golden secrets in the air.
and in the slow moments of afternoon,
i breathe living air and try not to
worry about you breathing too.

i raise my hairbrush determinedly
against the knots of disillusion.
my worn nerves feel a certain
sympathetic kinship with the split
threads falling from my head.
well do they know the feeling of
frayed subjection to wind and
insufficiency. nerves and hair,
fragile cords, blown into dark
tangles of delicate confusion.
and who will tease the knots undone,
and smooth the snarls of my soul?
and though i’m far from home
and girlhood, i remember with
comfort a certain pink bottle
that you brought home with
the groceries one late afternoon.
eyes shining brightly with relief,
you declared, “our nightly
battles are over!”
kid-shaped letters across the bottle
read, “NO MORE TANGLES,”
and that night I crawled onto
your lap, and shot a glance of
fear and distrust at the
instrument of my torture:
a biting fine-toothed comb.
then you sprayed a gentle mist
all over my head and-like magic-slid
the comb smoothly through my hair—
in much the same way as you
slipped ‘grace’ in as my middle name—
so that i would never be without it.

“Vous êtes une grosse vache.”

For: Michael Stanwyck

i still remember
the stinging slap
of the boiling asphalt
as we ran barefoot
down the street
chasing summer through
backyards and sidewalks
and trees and sprinklers
and pools…

...blue pools, and Mrs. Stanwyck
laying out in the sun,
her deep red hair blazing hotly,
soaked in the kerosene of sunshine.

the days burned, and the nights
lay still in silver, and shadows, and softness.
and i sat silently in the driveway,
playing with shadows,
and listening to your dad
talk softly with my mom:
concerned, compassionate,
tactful of our loss.
in the dim hush i thought
about our shadowy baby
who would never be born,
and i thought of your mom—
sitting alone in your house
down the street—
sitting alone at the dining
room table, with light dancing
across her burning red hair.

“It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds.”—Ben Gibbard

The sign was carved out of a rough block of wood, and trimmed with faded blue paint.

Printed neatly across the smooth, flat surface (in matching blue paint) were the words:

Remember What’s Important

Simple yet commanding words that called to mind bright flashes of memory—
A warm, golden house with wooden floors and laughter;
George Bailey running happily through the snowy streets of Bedford Falls;
The tattered, marked-up pages of the green leather Bible waiting patiently on the nightstand;
And a crisp January day in San Francisco—

It was a painfully beautiful day with all things unnaturally bright-the richly green grass, the sky a most brilliant of blues, the ocean foaming pure white bubbles-And in the shade of the trees lay the bodies:
Ruined, lifeless, horribly cold,
Piled cruelly, one on top of the other.
Who could bear to look at such a thing?

Yet small metal letters warned all who dared to look away, to ignore the truth, to call reality a liar:

In remembrance is the secret of redemption.

Who could bear not to look at such a thing?

Suddenly a full classroom darts into focus—
A friendly brick building, twirling blue chairs, and bright, young faces intent upon the sacred Exodus of Remembrance…

...Lost in a wilderness of stillness and shadows…the haunting, desolate beauty of purposeful pain…the gentle, troubling whispers of reality…a barren, lonely land dotted with fireflies…and over the earth floats the “music of the spheres” mingling with the “still, sad music of humanity”...the melody…heart-breakingly lovely, trembling, piercing, sweet…Then Light begins to spill over the edge of the East…rich, vibrant Light…

“The people living in darkness have seen a Great Light;
On those living in the land of the shadow of death a Light has dawned”

Illumination spreads softly like creamy butter over the coarse bread of humanity,
And voices whisper from the past of light and shadows,

“In your light, we see light.”

I am thinking of a house made of windows
in a land where artificial light is only used at night.
I am thinking of giving up cars and
air-conditioning. I am thinking of walking, brown legs,
air, and sweat. I am thinking of cold applesauce.

I am thinking of the curious way that
people look best in t-shirts and flannel
pajamas pants with honest faces, and
stray hairs flying all directions. It is
a comfortable beauty that doesn’t paralyze
with its inapproachability. It’s more like a
familiarly crumbling sidewalk
that leads to the cozy corners and water-color couches
of conversations between old friends.

I am thinking of asking the sun how much he
pays in travelling expenses each year, and
where he would like to settle down if he ever
gets tired of wandering. He’ll probably say Florida—
it is the Sunshine State after all, and lots
of people retire there. (I know for I’ve tried
to drive down A1A in the middle of February when
the roads are so crowded that there’s nothing
to do but roll down the windows and listen to
Eric Brandon announce the Top 5 at 5 on Magic 102.7)

I am thinking of the freckle under your eye, the smell of
gingerbread cookies, and all worlds my shoes have walked.
I am thinking of the man who donated his shirt
to the thrift store on Oakland Park Boulevard where
I bought it for ninety-nine cents last July.
Somehow I’m wearing a tiny bit of his life as
I push up my sleeves and eat lunch in the California
sunshine that doesn’t make me sweat.

I am thinking of the mallard ducks outside my window
who prove that the sweetest moments
in life are stale bread crumbs scattered
generously on leafy afternoons in May.

I am thinking of Billy Collins, T.S. Eliot, and John Keats,
and I am feeling strangely sad that they’ve probably never thought of me.
I am thinking that I’ll wear sunscreen
this summer and eat peaches down by the pier while
the Atlantic floats like warm bath water under
my favorite corner of the sky.

I am thinking that the poorest island
in the Bahamas is richer than all of America because
there are diamonds in her night sky and emeralds
of sea glass on her hidden shores.

I am thinking of the Air and Sea Show,
when we laid in the sand and I read
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy aloud
while you turned darker with every passing minute.
I am thinking of purchasing a rocket, and visiting
the Milky Way for my next vacation.

I am thinking of whether I’ll have my wedding
outside on a sleepy afternoon, or in a candlelit church
with bloody red roses. I am wondering what color
I’ll paint my bungalow, and from which window I’ll
write my stories?

I am thinking of the shooting star we saw
over the McMahon’s house on that cold January night.
I am thinking of the Christmas lights laying in
a tangled mass of green chords like seaweed.
I am thinking of the dusty store in the South Carolina
countryside that sells fireworks and boiled peanuts.

I am not thinking of money or time.
For we stumbled upon the “intersection of the timeless moment,”
and now we will be here and nowhere, for always and never.

Dear Krispy Kreme,

I’d like to thank you for transforming
my strictly hypoglycemic mother
into a woman who takes midnight drives
with the windows down to buy her
favorite food.

It was eight years ago when those
fiery orange “HOT” signs began melting
the snows of Mother’s cold resolve.
She was pregnant with Camie, and
donuts were her weakness:

From the backseat of the van,
Cayla, Cathryn, and I watched with
gleeful disbelief as our health freak
mother went sailing through the
intersection and into the parking lot
of Krispy Kreme!

“We’ll get six donuts!” she announced.
Much to her mortification, she realized that
we didn’t know the difference between
donut holes and real donuts.
“Oh my gosh, Rick, they don’t know what
donuts are!” Well, you raised them.

The donuts were just the start of the
global warming that was to follow. I like
to think that my hideously striped knee-high
socks and experiments with black eyeliner
contributed to the laid back woman who sends
me Sweetarts for Valentine’s Day, and can’t
get off MySpace.

Iceskating became trips to the beach,
and then came Chinese fire drills,
music so loud we broke the speakers,
and running over the bridge on the way home
from the ocean…we’d reach the van
breathless and barefoot and off she’d drive—
leaving us laughing and chasing our silver
Ford Winstar all the way down 16th Street.

I’m sitting in Panda Express for the first time in my life
eating a crusty chicken egg roll and opening cookie after
cookie in search of a fortune that I like.

I’m a picky eater, and for nineteen years I’ve been
eyeing the contents of my egg rolls suspiciously.
I’d rather not know.

Instead I think of those young days in our small white house
with green carpet and open windows. I think of the late
afternoons and the take out boxes and bags of Chinese
food that Dad and Mom would bring home happily from LeLe’s.

Boxes overflowing with wanton soup, and fried rice, and
crispy egg rolls that I would nibble timidly—afraid to
even acknowledge that I was eating transluscent and
mysterious vegetables.

I much preferred dessert. That moment of freeing the
future from its crunchy brown cage still makes me
catch my breath…as if all the world is waiting—
trembling and dreaming—inside that hopeful little cookie.

_I.
That night the windows betrayed me
and let all the darkness of October
fill up the empty room. As the chill
of the unfeeling tile crept icily
up my skinny ten-year-old legs,
I stood alone, distracted—straining
to hear what was happening in
the bathroom, wishing I was too
young to know. But I knew, and
my journal read, “Today is the
saddest day of my life.” Light
played through the forsaken
glass of water: my wishful
contribution to help Mommy
feel better—But what power
has water against blood? And
so I cried—because babies
aren’t supposed to be born
in toilets.

II.
That night the porch light shone
warm against all the darkness of
October. Warm like his brown eyes,
warm like my hushed laughter. Warm
like the brick doorstep anchored
calmy beneath us, warm like the muffled
voices on the other side of the window.
I’d pictured it a thousand times, but
I’d never imagined being so
acutely aware of the tiny black
ants marching steadily across the
rough white concrete. Black and white.
Wrong and right. The silver van watched
us closely with large, clear eyes…and
I blushed under her perceptive gaze.
She knew. She knew, but I didn’t know,
and I closed my sixteen-year-old eyes,
and wrote blindly, “Dear Journal, lips
taste of love, and sin, and awkwardness.”

III.
West Virginia’s mountains lay cold and
silent under all the misty darkness of
October. Condensation dripped down smooth
black windows, and tears slipped from
swollen red eyes. The air stood still:
torn between death and life, a hospital
bed and hide ‘n go seek. Overhead the
ceiling shook with the innocent games
of children who did not know, but
we knew. My seventeen-year-old pen knew,
“He’s gone.” The house stood alone,
burning recklessly, valiantly:
a torch refusing to be
extinguished, a heat insisting to be
felt. In the deserted Dairy Queen on
Main Street, we ate our melting icecream
flavored with the paradox of life._

“I want to be reincarnated as confetti.”

My sandals slap the sidewalk on my journey to the sea.
Sand sticks between my toes, and condos soar to the sky
in the sultry heat. Sweat trickles, slow and certain,
assurance: I am alive.

Shampoo and sticky sweet steam triumph over salt
and sunscreen, as long afternoons slip lazily
down waterslides to long summer nights.

My bed-a shimmery pool of cool blue sheets-
ripples softly at the touch of my sun-baked skin,
and on it’s silky surface I sail my ship o’ dreams.

May 7, 2006
I am a warm loaf of bread
baking in an ancient Aztec oven,
turning a delicious golden brown
for centuries in the sacred
lushness of wild Mexico.