Poetry

Asking why on the White River,
you tell me about the time you tried
to kill yourself, dropping to the side
of a California highway.

Later that night
I’m spitting tobacco juice down the drain,
remembering how I laid crucifix in the grass,
touched it with trembling hands in triumph
at the memory of a near six year drawl
prophesying over me: the grass
           would never be greener.

Known only by the glow of cheap cigars
I tell you why I won’t sing hymns.
You tell me you were in love once.
     I ask myself how to know what it feels like
and why time is a mechanism
                                of middle grade clarity.

The spin and ache of hours draws truth
from history, admissions staining the water
in incantations of suffering. Nicotine
behind my eyes, beneath my tongue
              like a rudder as I say to the sky
I never wanted the grass.

I wanted what is now in front of me:
tall trees casting silhouettes on black water.

Noun

the state or quality of lasting forever I wish I remembered the last time I rode in your car. I do remember other rides. Climbing into the cramped backseat of the ‘96 Sentra—always behind the passenger’s seat, never the driver’s—ingrained in me to always buckle up first. The resounding click of the belt locking into place and I could relax, slumping back against gray seats, the fabric like soft fuzz on the skin of a peach. Mema hated to drive so you were always the one behind the wheel, the one to always reach a hand back, crossing through patches of sun warming my legs until you found me. A knee. A calf. A hand. The small fingers of a child curling around your doughy skin, aged with wrinkles and rough work but always gentle with me. Maybe it’s better I don’t remember the last car ride with you where your eyes were failing, tires crossing the double yellow, your mind shaded by clouds. Instead I am six, seven, eight years old, forever safe in the bubble of your blue car, sunshine bathing my legs and your hand clutching mine.

As I opened the dumpster
to empty the week’s trash, birthday balloons rose
to greet me, as if bonded to the lid,
charged with anticipation.
I scrambled to shut them down
yet they kept rising, obedient to unseen forces
brazen they squirmed toward
the black open air.
How vast the continuum of emotions
permissible each moment on earth.
A Ukrainian couple proclaims their vowels
while dressed in army fatigues,
flower petals decend upon the same ground
pierced each night with metal-cased shells.
Shirtless boys giggle while dribbling a ball
across the dusty floor of refugee camps.
A celebration for being alive,
a witness to one more orbit,
even with the hurt, the bitterness,
the weight we carry.

A checkered powder blue dress on Sunday morning—Easter

Red, the color of a leaf in autumn, tied up with a matching ribbon

Little white shoes cradled on small feet, not quite touching

the carpet under the wooden pew

Notes of a piano began, my feet swinging

and swaying inches above the ground,

Back—What can wash away my sin?

Up, Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Back, What can make me whole again?

Up, Nothing but the blood of Jesus

The music carried me on its wings

Pure white curling around me,

Tickling my cheeks with silk feather tips

I fall into them and let myself soar

Don’t cry, they tell us.

But if you must, 

be sure to look pretty doing it.

Emotional discretion now comes in a tube

so you can paint on indestructibly perfect coats,

little gatekeepers to lock away the evidence that you cried. 

And should you let it out, 

you risk confining yourself to the caricature of the Crying Girl,

(Streaky-faced, probably sitting in a bathtub somewhere).

Because as everyone knows, there is a fine line between 

Sentimental 

and

Emotional wreck. 

But moderation was never my strong suit. 

I am a floodgate and never a trickle:

a saltwater plumbing problem to be solved. 

In airports,

during movies.

And, God forbid, even funerals – 

“Don’t cry so much,” 

says my grandmother’s oldest friend, half kindly, half fiercely,

pulling me to her chest to muffle the sound of my grief.

Because pain should only ever leak from us, not pour.

Because an open wound cannot possibly be worn with dignity.

Is it any coincidence that the words “hysterical” and “hysterectomy”

have the same Greek root? 

For every woman who wears her heart on her sleeve, 

there is someone handing her waterproof mascara. 

I think about those ladies in the ancient world, 

how they used to weep for hours on end,

 and I wonder why we ever stopped. 

Who caged those oceans inside us, decided

they were not our stories to tell? 

So today, I am twisting the lid back on the tube, 

nailing it shut and lowering it into the ground, 

I am pulling the cork off my bottled up tears 

and using them to water the roses I will lay

on the grave of every heartache I have ever buried:

Every raw emotion I have ever apologized for. 

Clouds have never moved

more quickly than here

under the blaze.

A child’s laugh has never fallen

on softer ears than mine, now.

I watch her spoon pasta,

painting red her lace bib.

The water never cooler,

as condensation on a glass

of spiked lemonade.

Stone never felt refreshing

on bare feet, as here in this city.

And I miss you.

Your hands were rough,

But they made sturdy dreamcatchers,

pointing out shapes in the clouds.

I imagine the father you would have made,

better than mine, I now know.

But I didn’t want two girls and a boy,

even if I could’ve given them to you.

Our martini nights so quickly turned

sour, like the salted limes on glass,

It’s funny how we called it passion.