As Mourning Doves Persist

Women slap midday pavement in their sandals, dressed in swimsuits in an assortment of sizes at the hot spring. Two eleven-year olds sport zero curves, run soupy mud onto their tiny thighs. I dive for a hammock with a hat slung low on my forehead from under which I can still spy the ample hourglasses of souls, and I speculate what they do in other days. One with a face flat and broad, skillet of knowledge, I imagine flown in from an ancient island. Here she absent-mindedly rubs her partner’s neck just at the hairline. My mother dog paddles in an iron-infused pool out of reach. Her white hair accentuates her blue eyes and suit. She looks over toward me and sighs. Submerges up to her shoulders. Two new arrivals are painted. One butterfly tattoo etched across a chest with wings that seem to flutter above a line of stretchy lycra. One thousand eyes in this damp span of moth wings wet with mountain runoff. Another’s thigh wrapped with ink garter. ...

for Robert Weldon Hunt What calculus is inherited from father. What algorithm foretells the snowstorm on the highway, driving? What poetry in music of folk songs to which his head swung to politic and freedom ride. Ongoing dedication in lessons a clean house, continuous on an interval. Derivative cloud, closed curve in a sandstorm. Periscope of his bright making. What straight stare and analytic eyes. White board revealing velocity of many daughters moving across the room, over the yellow dotted line. Sine. Perhaps it is the chain rule, half empty or half full. Reliable horizontal line sloping like popcorn hypotenuse gathered with needle onto thin thread to deck a season tree carried in two or more basic functions. Meeting to entreat ongoing introduction to the skills the first born learns from first born, with building blocks and abacus. Arithmetic engineering bridges even a house divided in tsunami lit with heaven’s gold star guiding through ...

We sleep in the master bedroom of a temporary rental .  I dream a car accident, backing up without a brake, can't find registration papers or insurance proof . A man with an accent calls to say if I don't return to the hotel, the room will no longer be ours. I crawl under the debilitated auto, spread paper in the shade where oil drips from two places, in front and behind me. You  are nowhere to be found.             In the morning upon waking, our old marriage tangle is rested and cast off. You softly tell me to sleep as long as I like, and later you hold me in the kitchen. Outside, red ants make neighborhood blocks of the slate porch, crossing grout tributaries. Two white and black magpies take to low flight then settle again on the fence.  Inside tamales simmer in green chile roux.

                                                                                  for Delaney And now you will assist the Raven, your daytime and night sky guide. There she is, do you hear her? your mother always asked, out strolling with you. Spot her high wire nest and eyes for you, secure   in coat of twigs and twine.  Forever more, your overhead soul surveillance.  You will find sustenance just pluck a practical feather to edit the dark and the sun drenched.   You who spotlights supple ballet ankles and disappearing glaciers. Right where you are, at the shore, born with assurance, little squirrel. String the smarting disappointments  and the pleasure bubbles like perfect baubles to make a sturdy necklace Know the...