Chapbook Poem 6

[This one references several of the poems I didn't include here, but hopefully the language will speak for itself.]

Bring back the river, bring back

the Taj Mahal. I'm ready to leave

this behind, send you a postcard

from Lourdes, that grotto

of miraculous healing. The whales

will carry me there, past Hawaii

past miles of train tracks,

and spit me out at the feet

of the Virgin, her eyes

downcast, still looking

for her son in the ground.

I will take her hand

and lead her to the spring,

she doesn't know she's blessed.

I will wash her feet, like the son

she's missing so bad,

and ask his forgiveness

for how much tenderness we need,

she and I thirsting

for a water that can hold us up,

for a well deep enough

to drop the stones from our pockets

and never have to pick them up again.

And you, dear friend, you

will be one of the saints,

perhaps your namesake,

patron saint of wives and the abused,

who died longing for Africa,

for a space all her own,

rich black earth, wide open sea.

Wander across the land and don't stop

when you reach the second coast. Don't stop

until you find what you're looking for.

Peace Treaty

[An older poem...but I haven't posted in a while. Revising right now. More poems soon.]

Love, let us not walk beneath the trees that shatter.

It would be better to skirt through ice-strewn snow.

One day, I'll tell you that my heart is an owl,

that I only wish to perch where hollowness

offers close wood on every side.

For now, let me say that sleep is impossible

without knowing if I will hold

your sister's baby come spring

or dice onions with your mother,

our knives singing through the paper

as you gather mismatched chairs

around the dining room table.

I've never been one to stop ticking,

though pretending to nap beside you

was more silence than I knew to ask for.

I never thanked you for playing along

or before you kissed me

that first time on the driveway.

I never apologized for making you

eat vegetarian bacon, though I knew

it tasted like burnt cardboard,

or for not whispering how

beautiful you are on stage.

Tell me how to say these things

without crossing this border we've drawn

between us, arbitrary as lines

on a map. Countries get bombed

over the slightest misstep—

Kosovo nestling too close

to Serbia, the way I now hesitate

to wear the earrings from Pristina

you slipped into my palm on my birthday—

but surely we can be good neighbors,

passing small gifts over the fence:

Here, a lilac branch. Here,

a buckeye. Here, a whistle. Here.

Chapbook Poem 4

My mother keeps a list

of everyone she wants to pray for

stuck to the mirror in her bathroom.

All our hurts spelled out

on green post-it notes.

I'm sure she'd added me this week,

my name dashed with his.

I feel her prayers in my ankles,

which have been sprained and broken

enough to know what healing is.

To pray for my mother,

for all the thistles

that have passed between us,

I would have to cover

my walls with her name, a name

that means beautiful in a language

I don't understand. I only saw this grace

after I made her cry

like a river had been broken

inside her, swelling with love

and disappointment,

all the things that make us human.

Chapbook Poem 2

In my dreams I jump into the sea and am swallowed

by whale after whale. I've learned that Jonah

means dove in Hebrew. And doves can be dirty,

obstinate sailors. Mourning doves

used to sit outside my window and coo

incessantly. I ran through the yard screaming

to scare them away. Then all I heard was

the wing whistle of takeoff.

What I want to do is flee

from where I'm asked to go. I want to test

your patience with me, to swim

right into the whale and hope

you'll come in too, to sit with me a while.

We could have such laughs,

echoing our voices against giant ribs.

We could sing hymns

and wonder if the whale could hear them,

could understand what a soul is.

We might never want to be saved,

to be spat out from the warmth

of the one place where even God

lets you hide.

First Apology to My Sister

I don't always mean reconciliation

when I say our names together.

Sometimes a story just retells itself,

like the time our father waited until July

to burn the Christmas tree, matted orange

pine needles lifting into sharp flames.

We weren't afraid then. Even when

the blaze touched the telephone wires

and he swore at his hands, we drew

our excitement into our lungs,

filling them with black, secret air.

Now I find myself smaller than expected

and hesitating to touch the fact

that I may never learn how to peel

potatoes, the whole table going hungry,

or how to keep hot wax from spilling on you

as we sing Silent Night, or how to build

a snow fort that won't collapse

on our family, face-down in the front yard.

I am afraid that it will always be Christmas time,

a match forever suspended between my hands

and what you've chosen for your bed.

Dear Sister, this isn't what I hoped to give you this year.

I gathered the State Fair for you: the giant yellow slide,

prom queens, Arabian horses, lemon shake-ups.

But I can't reconcile with the snow.

A child of July, I've inherited the instinct to save

until my cargo is long out of season,

but I never intend to release such tornados

so much as to swallow the fireplaces whole.