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12.06.2023

a friend admits goodbye

We had that one Texas afternoon
singing along - do you remember that time

downtown in my beat-up van

drips of sweat down our temples
laughing and feeling like two misfits
the adults would never understand
satisfied and cavalier

in our awkwardness -
it wasn’t enough

The exchange of emails

probably hundreds of conversations

I smile every time I remember

how you lost your shoe
(or did I paint that
into my picture of you?)

in a frantic dash
across a record store parking lot
for a photograph with Regina -
but it wasn’t enough

And seeing your sister 

in a body cast in the ICU

and listening to you cry 

when he didn’t love you back -
but none of it was enough

to maintain at least a fake politeness

of infrequent correspondence 


Pithy friendship 

in the springtime of youth

on the fringes of life’s summer

exchanging maudlin thoughts

that will, curiously and always,

have a place in my heart.

I wonder how phone calls dwindle

and words quiet

after someone tells you

“You are my favorite person”

I still have the letters

I will probably never throw them away

We are the adults now
we have no time for friendships

buoyed by the innocence
of unprejudiced childhood
I’m not sure what it is, exactly,
that you don’t like about me anymore
but I understand
most friendships are meant to fade
we have served finite purposes
in our individual stories
and I am beginning to be okay with that
I hope only that you know
I leave you with love 


10.05.2023

banquet

I want to know you 
like I want to know
a fresh French loaf
steaming, topped with pork
and duck fat
and gerkins
burning my fingertips
heavy and fulfilling 
bringing my body rest

you are a cup of tea
delicate and soothing
your voice, your hesitancy
your simple honesty 
ephemeral eye contact
your quiet rebellion and gentle protest

and you,
you are homemade plum jam
your giggle, your sweet roundness
the sadness behind your eyes
all smiles

I want to listen to you talk
I want to hear where you come from
the story of your grandmother and
the story of your mother
braided into the story of you
how you've been hurt
found a way to recover
how you've been taught to keep quiet and refused
and how did you choose:
to tend to the woman
or to become the mother
not simply reduced 

I want to hold you and tell you
the world doesn't deserve who you are
if only everyone could see what I see
friend, you are lovely
and you fill a part of me
I didn't know needed filling
a good meal
lucky thing
there is always room
for more 

9.05.2023

atole

I stand in the yellow light of my cramped kitchen hearing the night crickets outside the window bare foot resting upon ankle slowly stirring the maizena in patterned swirls powdery soft, bleached stripped of all color until it hits the liquid blooming pink I watch patiently as it comes together this ancient, sacred sweetness (made from corn that I did not harvest or mill: no arm muscles here quivering with the work of keeping my family alive) And I am thinking of the spirits of the ones who came before me with summer-cinnamon skin, who survived and whose stories live on in me I couldn’t begin to tell them but the kitchen is where they are alive and breathing I toss comino and chile like a prayer into bubbling pots I spread a paste of masa and water across strips of corn husks as if the pride of my lineage depends on it And on this night, simply: sliced one plastic corner and poured its smooth contents into homogenized 2% milk and snow-white crystals of sugar and called it not necessarily a sacred offering to the dead but a middle-of-the-night snacky still, I hold onto this heritage so tightly - colorful and wounded rich and determined - as if it could flit away like a hummingbird in a small town in Northeast America where my native blood is a qualifier for the 2.2% this daughter's son's daughter of an indigenous man knowing my summer-cinnamon babies will have a golden-edged childhood where they will have heard correct pronunciations and eaten foods our neighbors have never heard of


8.17.2023

girl

thirty-seven in a
yellowed image, blunt haircuts and knowing smiles
dappled light and folded hands, elbows resting casually on knees
knees wearing slacks instead of dresses
delicate bracelets hanging, bright silver against summer skin
the only adornment
feet bare and childlike,
a silent protest 
I understand


These versions of the girls who wrote the most beautiful words
all glossy and faded on the inside of a book sleeve.
not the photograph taken three months before death at the age of 83
after a four-year fight with cancer, or such
whispy gray in patches 
necks wrinkled, skin stretched
hands spotted and gnarled
hands that held warm cups of tea in a favorite mug
hands that helped toddlers to their feet
hands that dried the tears of their friend after a miscarriage
hands that dug into cool, dark earth and buried seeds
got all dirty under the fingernails
evidence of life and muscle and sweat and ardor.
in the end, fingernails are always clean, probably

I think of all the wisdom held in those beautiful heads at the end
what would they have written about, then?
what poems does an 83-year-old girl dream up
folded delicately into stark white hospital sheets
Are we always who we were at
seven, at twelve, at twenty?
only with a refinement, a resignation 

But we choose the younger image, the strong and healthy self
as if there is little dignity in enduring
and ultimately dying
(which is, of course, the one thing we all have in common)

but perhaps when I go
you will choose the latter
the one with the whispy hair and spotted hands
years written on my body
the head full of memories and unspoken wisdom 
that we all, eventually, just have to figure out for ourselves

8.03.2023

early riser

what I'm listening to: Fishin' by Luisa Marion 

silhouetted against a pearlescent sky
the swoop and the flit
the lilting whistle
and choruses of chirps
I'll never stop writing about them
their small black bodies on the wire
their conversations and the shape of their wings when they fly
how they draw us into simplicity

things matter and they don't
or rather, the wrong sort of things matter

on summer mornings, I shut my bedroom window 
to block out the sound
and I draw the curtains to block out the sun 
but lately, I am pulled outward
like the face of the blooms
are always looking toward the sun

I used to wonder how people woke up
in a history without alarm clocks
I hadn't even considered the call
that pips and pecks at my dreams
before the sun has chance to rise

there is one in the garden
pecking at my plants -
robin is always the boldest.
goldfinch feels like a treat
her tiny striking flash of yellow,
she is cautious, and precious as a gem.
starling with his metallic chirrups 
and the same nest in our gutter every spring.
cardinal loves the striped seeds from my sunflower forest
and is never without her mate
astonishing every time in his apple-red,
and the crows are complaining loudly to one another
in the crest of trees just over there
I always wonder if they recognize me,
smart as they are
if they hate me, love me, but really
any strong emotion toward me would do
making me their counterpart
and feel as if I have a place in their world
rather than the reverse,
which is that this is my world
and they have a place in it.

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