Tumbleweed Lane
your mother never loved you
the way you love me.
you felt safer in the arms of a man
over twice your age at 13, a man
who touched you in the back room
of the dance studio then made you his wife.
I hurt because you never knew what safe was
as I lay here in my bed and think
of all the things I wish I could say to him.
all the ways you should have been
held, your voice like birds as you
rub my arm and sing me to sleep, God
is so good and I cry because people
weren’t always good to you. You didn’t
know the neighbor was your sister and
you didn’t know your dad wasn’t
your dad and I need you to know
that you are not your mother.
The Start of New
railroad tracks ran
like spaced steps across
warm earth.
the distance between each
measured by held hands
and conversations.
strawberry alcohol painted
my lips a shade of red
and I learned how much he loved
his mother.
abandoned tracks towered
over a river, lifeless
the only breathing from the oaks.
wet tar covered my white shoes and turned
them black, caked by heat
as we crossed to the other side
with my eyes closed and his
wide open
don’t look down
so I did and the tracks turned
to cliffs, and the trees to mountains
I was somewhere in between
clouds dotted the sky
like splatter paint, we were abstract
in a forest lining
water that didn’t move
birds sang as we ventured,
we were children again
running, laughing at nothing
and betting on who could find
the biggest walking stick
it leans against the door of his
front porch now, as we sit at dusk
on the neon chairs and I think
back to the turning leaves of seabowoshi
