As Mourning Doves Persist

                                                                                                                                                  for eb Who knew leaves could land like this. Twin silhouettes  on wet pavement. Half a century of travel to meet again, sisters. Water and sap through veins. Decades of San Joaquin Valley orchards of orange fed by concrete aqueducts. Leafless hedges like  oversized bonsai in the hundred degree heat.   But then, under San Francisco Bay’s sky eucalyptus scent so heady it’s medicinal, this arrival on spindly fronds. Your familiar intonation.   Such root pressure ...

At age 12  there was a park hill going down   To join my family gathered around a rugged table with refreshment I began  to descend     slowly at first               proud to master space     But gravity and determination were not well-matched and propelled me speed began its pace    to betray me And once I reached the level bottom  where grass and concrete met    I had fallen bruised I hoped no one had seen  the disaster of such eagerness Scuffed    there was no brushing off Standing revealed stiffness of one such  solo hands  my tentative but able brakes and then other’s hands to lift me up Laughter offsetting ego’s red Oh that I had learned to drop my self indignation then but it would be 50 years befor...

Inside I imagine puckered cups of butter   cookies nested    in paper that  releases a sigh   But instead there may be fiction   within   wishes never reciprocated   Playbill of redundant arguments   One black glove    found fraying   This vessel on an emptied  table   solo     temptation is labeled with  another’s name   Guarded initials as if carved in melting snow     A tool unsuited  to the task of   prying open  Not yet valentine

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 happin...

Where will you appear, my mother? As your mother found her way   silver                   into a ghost silhouette    after her death   behind you in the wintry trees I think perhaps I’ll recognize you not as turquoise as expected but pooling olive as a Southwestern hill     slip cover Not Fremont Ellis landscape with rain but mobile by Calder gentle   kinetic   Texas wind vane A hard working literary history   yours  tied in bundles like Emily’s letters to an anonymous lover

Grandmothers’ recipes. Memories of grandfathers who gardened. Our daughter’s baby book which I always promised I’d retrieve first in case of fire or earthquake. I’d like to say I would remember to bundle the two-inch thumb drives that contain  everything we’ve written in recent years, but maybe it would be better to make it out with only our fresh imaginations in tact.   Pack all the photographs instead. That beloved baby book so full that it is tied and retied with mended bands. I will insert between the pages, one love letter each from the forgiven and sensuous men, and the reliable women too.  Exercises in cursive pen and epistles of regret. I will bundle up the scent of purple wisteria encroaching on the second floor window of a former San Francisco Sunset kitchen.  The first hour in which my husband walked into the bookstore where I was working. His blue eyes and his wounded silence questioning everything.  My  mother and my fa...

Inside I imagine puckered cups of butter cookies, paper that releases a sigh. But instead there may be fiction, wishes never reciprocated. Playbill of redundant arguments. One black glove, unlost, fraying. What vestibule on an emptied table, solo temptation labeled with another’s name. Guarded. Eventually recycled. Initials carved in melting snow. A tool unsuited to the task of prying open. Without valentine.