You Were a Girl Then Too

you were a girl then too.

I carried a red and black stuffed monkey.

You slept with cats.

I played vinyl Bee Gees crooning to save me.

You wore a headband and had a devilish little

squint in your October eyes. I wished the wind

would stop ruffling my bangs, all cowlicks. You
dared ski slopes. I was afraid I’d be thrown

over the handlebars of a purple one-speed

whose front wheel I could hardly control.

Neither of us was sure where our father

or brother were. I lay by a neighborhood pool,

teen skin turning to California brown and

remembered how we poured lemon juice
onto our dishwater hair, braiding it wet to wave.

You took to drumming circles before me, your true faithful

spirit still at home in the Rockies. My heart in the hills

of a West Coast city playing grown-up on a bar stool

slamming back inspiration.

You still sing powerfully, Bible hymns that hover

in grandmotherly shadows. When I sing, my daughter

rolls her eyes thinking me no more than a boastful boy

with variable and unstable pitch.

I still hear the tetherball on its long cord

orbiting the perfect, carefree world of our patio.

Concrete and arroyo, and a cocoa-colored poodle.

We took turns then, at winning.

(for my sister SL)

Comments

Grit and Sunlight

What springs up: insistence in this persistent mother of mine (still breathing) Even busy ashes from a rescued urn float up reconstituted as morning dew She unfolds her tendril arms from shadow (shaking just five days ago as if in temporary surrender) (that moment when I am less certain of her longevity) this woman ever present (anyone’s mother) aging when even the most spindly clover of her fragile skin captures the sunrise light like anticipation’s shower blood underneath all humming bird or spores from her heart and in her mouth inhale (frightened) breath exhale grit inhale (certain) breath exhale grit

Open Mic, Cafe Babar

I remember arriving, not the prettiest but appealing to certain bards in the back room, entering through the Castro Valley corner door, walking the postage stamp sized Cinzano bar curated by a man from Detroit who named his establishment after a certain French elephant in a children’s book I arrive with budding consciousness around politically correct solidarity for disheveled neighbors, entering the cigarette lit night rising to tin siding ceiling to floor thumping insistence Bruce and Joie and David and Laura and John, their ash and sweat accumulating as I waited patiently for my place on the crumpled sign-up sheet Today, three decades later, I sit in a Santa Fe gallery named simply Here, and a poet reads to us of roadrunners and a bear and a continuation of the call for preservation of our environment There is an otherworldly hum outside the window of leaded glass The owner sidles up behind me and pushes the frame down to contain what we came to hear I have applied lipstick

A Matter of Travel

Solstice, 2019, for Tracy 1. And cross borders we do often without leaving our houses. Our bodies dream of gardens. Our hands flutter as feeling exits as we press hard against the solid entry door. I type the names of cities. My search reveals rivers, airfares, temperatures in July. 2. Seeking sleep, I am transported through music piped into tiny earbuds. While on an island my father has two seizures in the night. His ten children fly to one another with cautionary fright, typing. Time zones vary from each cell phone exclamation. Two sisters, you and I, raise questions that barely touch down for others but I witness you. 3. By morning we’re assured was merely fainting, and I reconsider change of plans. No emergency to rush to his quiet side. I walk no farther instead to this table for eggs, an English muffin. Arrive inside my individual conclusions. Concern that happiness, once again, is quickly stymied.

As Mourning Doves Persist

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