Long before her son’s whirling and untimely demise, my paternal grandmother believed in her traction with elected officials. I remembered this belief upon my first campaign, which was, parenthetically, about the loss of a single child and an unjust judge.
Who save me
would draw a line between Mamaw and the rise and fall of Hasmonean kings?
Amidst all this talk of unjust judges and rising kings
I tell myself there must be
sycamores in Jerichos still
Awaiting His return
I believe that
Raccoons see you as the Mama Raccoon
Dogs see you as their alpha
But I see you at the head of the old stone table
A wry look on your face
As though I could ever be
More than your little girl, oh
God of the Universe
You spread out this invitation
To partake in your matchless
grace
The old woman and the older woman sit down across a flimsy folding table. Between them there is a plexiglass barrier, the kind you might encounter now at a doctor’s office or the checkout line at the grocery store.
This time we all know we are contagious, right?
They type into complementary machines–one English to Korean and the other Korean to English
Do not forgive these Korean letters, forgive something else if you will.
The devastating depths men may plunge to
If the womenfolk fail to speak.
Waited in the animal clinic
(It was touch and go those days)
looked up at the plastic picture fitted
over the flat fluorescent light
A joyful tangle
of cats, dogs, suitcases, lamps, unicycles
Bowler hats and other ephemera
as though a world populated entirely by domestic animals had
Lost its purchase on gravity
Things rise in a riotous jumble
Rapture, I think
One day we will
Rise and float
Balloons in blue sky
I told myself I would
Swim the coldest days
Knowing the river runs
Warmer than the air making it
Rise in Holy Ghost waves
I turn to watch the tide
Tell me you remember
Every day you stayed with me
When all the cool kids
Left town
Ephesians 5:13 NIV
[13] But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.
Become light, old man,
Let us all become light
In the end, I picture you
Crossing paths unexpectedly with someone much like me only nicer
Between trains in a crowded station
She is going one way, you the other
And she knows there is only one minute left
Amidst the noise, the crowd, the excruciating sound of braking
To say something
To change the course of your endless
Destination
There is no end of the line?
Who will meet you at the station?
Jesus, the ticket pressed into your hand
The only way home
She once gave me a raft of hand-me down clothes.
Of good quality, and competent craftsmanship
But off somehow
I tried to alter them
To make them
Something a young woman could find comfort in
But this has never been a story about
Young women finding comfort
From what is cast off and
given away
The little boy in the picture wore the most adorable overalls
And brand-spanking-new shoes
He approached the chicken in the unfamiliar garden
With the utmost deference,
The pears still hung on the trees, each carefully wrapped in old newspapers to shield them from pestilence
An unseasonably warm day to worship one’s ancestors and
The food at the restaurant was good
Something about historically accurate food
In the last few moments before
The two little red-headed children
Reported
All they saw–aggressor-accomplice-victim
The little boy in the picture wore the most adorable overalls
He walks into every room looking for someone who might comprehend
what it is
he has seen and heard
He weighs their solemn waiting-room-faces
Do they have
Better memories now? Do they still need to write things down or
Know every word by heart?
Are all the lambs among them and
can we see their scars?
Who can end this waiting
By calling us out
Out into life
