Poetry

Under the driver’s seat, down with fuzz, frizzled
napkins from McDonald’s, paperclips, a dime
and two darkened pennies, lies the reason I
couldn’t console you on the death of your son.
At birth, my son’s heart rate dropped with every
contraction. The nurse turned off the sound so
we wouldn’t have to hear the slowing beep—
that counting between flash and thunder—with
ever so much at stake. Me on my right side,
beep-beep, beep, but on my back or left side the
machinery would beep much slower. When
more than one doctor runs through the door at
one time, beep you know things will not end
well. But that’s not this story. Not my story. It’s
not your story, either. You had no warning. My
son survived his birth, cord thrice wrapped
around his neck; he survived toddlerhood, grade
school, and high school (just). And here, our
stories converge—one suicide completed and
one not. Forgive me. I didn’t know how to
comfort you. 

Two hours ago I took a photo of a sky
so blue it came across faked,
one of those 1000 piece puzzles 

where colors have been polarized
to a bluer multiverse; I no longer trust
any image to be true. Even mirrors 

expose a spectre, some quick flash
of a face-what-was, when
any darkness under the eyes 

developed from my choices,
legend-maker nights.
Irises clear, less sad, less 

weary. A ghost at first glance
fades into the face that is—
older, unretouched

by special effect. Without
a hint of yesterday’s
storm that cracked windows 

and trashed yards, bright
with clouds layered atop
a gemstone sky, I took a picture. 

I grew up learning which lemons were sweet enough
to eat plain & which ones to lemonade or daquiri,

or that the best candied peel comes from their cousins,
citrons, painted from Van Gogh’s palette as he worked

haystacks or sunflowers. Golder. Warmer, somehow
than the circus-trinket yellow of a fully ripe Meyer.

After reading Takamura’s elegy, now all lemons
are about Cheiko, how the fragrant oils colored

the air around them as she bit into the fruit & braided
a moment mystical—her vision clear, memory spotless.

That scrape of rind & pith against enamel. That perfume
inhaled. Then Cheiko retreating, back into the place

where her memory held her captive & a fresh coldness
became another seed of something she once knew.   

That summer when the rain came
my books were washed away by the river
broken bikes, leftover cars
watched my pages tear
lines, poems drenched in dust
and rust, and mud
from the shoes in basement closets
pairs were separated into singles
Then halves, then dissolved
Nothing, a silenced current
That summer when the rain came
It left everything, left  nothing
behind the fences, parking spots, pictures
leaking rainbows of faces
washed by acid rain and scrap metal scratches
Your address, floating through flooded
street coffee cups following bathtubs
on couches, and in baskets
the fireplace too weak to burn
grandmother’s apple pie recipe lost
in the pile of books, and pressed flowers