Beanie Weather

The young fella folding library mailers eyes the old ladies as they cross the light-filled atrium. They are an exclamation point and a question mark traveling at processional speeds, arms entwined for mutual ballast. I take my own child’s arm, tell her that if we play our cards right one day they will be us, we will be them…while the young fella wears a reddish “cadet” tee and a off-grey beanie in the late days of May in the heart of Texas–bit warm for beanies, she says.

Better to catch the eye of all the pretty girls, I tell her on the way home.

Kites

the lines we draw in the sand 

between alive and not as blurred

by these arbitrary atoms

configured into blood or bone

iterations of shell

crushed and altered by

lunar whim

the two abuelas lift la vieja

Under her

Right and left pits

she, swallowed up whole by the big

white shirt 

all three women lay on hands,

Lean in 

As we shield our eyes 

Look up 

Beneath the sun

the kite snaking ceaselessly over our heads

Paper-thin, it whips back and forth

Surely alive?

“Kite” is just 

A name 

Predatory bird with a haunting call

No more than a child’s toy

Perhaps we are all kites, then

The wind moves where it wills, but…

The old woman rises suddenly

Twine hastily tied to her waist

As the wind pulls her up

Those she loves

Upturn their faces 

Squint to make her out

Paper-thin

Unspooling toward the sun