was it really
Hemingway who wrote
The apocryphally short
Story about baby shoes
Never worn?
Could be a tutu
In any condition
Little girl gone
We don’t know by what vehicle
Age or demise
Matters that she is gone
And with her
All we knew
Of innocence
sigh
They are all so…
Cute
Lost between loves
What makes a human
Jettison a cat?
Their faces so lovable
How can we
Let them go?
then
Keep their flat glossy
Images so
Egyptian gods (of them)
Emblazoned on our internet
Flat ghosts
Of souls we
Refuse to keep.
you were always
Mythical.
A place I longed to be
A harbor in the storm
Heck–flowers and chocolate!
Go no distance to describe
The way these stem cells of each
Her babies carry her
As she and they
Grow up
Her eldest may lodge
In her vision
Her youngest in her chest
And each in between
Find places in her blood and bone to
Insinuate their eternal
DNA into hers
You might call them sneaky
But she will call them all
Dear–
Dear to stay
When each day she fears
This child will be too soon
“A grown-assed man, Mom!”
(Sic)
And she will compress and fold
Each memory of her babies
In the laugh lines
Around her eyes.
Donning her eye patch
From the foyer
Of this quiet
suburban domicile
mother spies the place
Where she will hoist
The skull-and-crossed bones
Talisman
of her new-found pirate
Heart. She shimmies the gutter pipe
Hangs the flag from the gabled roof
Bids the children–
Swab the deck! Hoist the sail! Board the stern!
Bemused, they do their level best
This ship once an ordinary…
Home?
Until Papa returns
Salutes his lawless mate (sailcloth on her makeshift mast
suspiciously similar to
laundry on the line)
The Jolly Roger, eh? He asks
Surprising unfazed.
Come down, my Pirate Queen
And tell all
Your loyal crew
What hast tha’ plundered for our dinner?
girl you got
Wings down your spine
Silvery feathers
An anthem in your head
Sing it, Girl–
Sing loud
Whole world to hear
Percuss.
heart a bird caged in bones
Use it all to
Question every undisputed
Law mitigating the force
Of gravity and light
With your full-throated
Iridescent flight
Rise up
Rise.
late at night
I search for something to cover
My fear
A wedding dress? day-glo body-paint?
Or Marilyn Monroe
‘s iconic white shift
When truth is all you really
Need
A body is
Mostly just water-
River wide and shimmering in the sun
Deep muddy current
Run all the way
to the infinite
Sea
you think Vikings
Drawn swords and treasure chests
In the strong man’s house
Who ties and binds matters
The scars on His wrists forever
I am the plunder
So grateful to be found
Restored eternal
From the house of the strong man
Strewn with bones and promises
Redeemed by this warrior
King
bring your lantern buckler
to the dawn gate
Where the night sky
holds on to the dark
Lift it high
Pray fire
for the dragon you have summoned
Knows all your gods
By name.
Words betray only the barest threads of love
“A mother for a child”
You must know I always
Wanted to keep the possessive
Pronoun “mine”
In our relationship
They took that from us
Let me see how
These tiny seeds of faith
Could move mountains
Losing sight of light to find it
Time makes
Trees from seeds/
Holes in the arms of love
I look for your face in every crowd
And the pictures you post to the world
Of a baby I once held
So dear, beautiful girl
So always, always dear
I tell
The young man that I have
Fallen a million times
(Felt like it anyway)
A million falls
A million failures
A million times
An arbitrary number
Not as funny as bazillions or gazillions
Arms spread wide to denote the bigness of the thing
God sent His one and only Son
…to fall like this?
Fail like this?
Criminal nailed to a tree?
His falling and my falling, so different
His fall just
To rise to life,
Me in His arms
Carrying Light 