Relief
After a week of blazing sun and heat
A grey morning.
Thick clouds promise healing rain.
The sky darkens, releases its tears fast and hard –
Stops –
Considers.
The wind whispers encouragement
Rustling the tall grass
We wait.
Meanwhile a busy hummingbird takes
An opportunity for breakfast.
Now the tall locust sways
Heralding the rain
Which comes quietly this time.
Like my soft, timid need to be whole.
First a test of strength and readiness
Then an hour of blessed soaking.
Exit
I do not live happily or comfortably
In these clever times either, Mary Oliver.
The wrongness of it all unsettles me
Even though I can carry on
Get out of bed, brush my teeth, and steel myself for the day ahead.
The sadness of the bees is deafening
We adapt to their background tinnitus.
and act like we are without agency to course correct.
One of my mother’s favorite stories to tell about me —
apart from the one where the boys chased me home with rocks
“because they liked me” —
is that my sister bit me so regularly
that my arms were full of bruises.
When asked who did it, my sister said, “Grandma."
Such a laugh she’d get for that.
No one asked me why I tolerated such aggression
because, well, that’s not so funny.
I hate liars.
And now our country is being led by them.
We are all approaching a breaking point.
Like the one I found mid-rage, mid-phone call
when I said, “Watch how you are talking to me.”
She didn't stop, and I hung up, knowing I finally had my clean exit.
Kisses
For Mackenzie 2012
I let her out into the thunder night
from her warm, purple cocoon
to race between drops
like those from a summer sprinkler.
She dances into a car—
her laughter like church bells.
triumphantly proclaiming joy —
and is carried closer to her future --
and life beyond me.
Each drop on her face
a kiss goodbye.
The Impossible to Grade
As we near the end of our term together,
I am already planning my escape.
First, I will delete the class roster from my brain
Slowly forgetting your names.
I plan to forget your comma splices and absences next.
Your stories of friendships and first loves are soon to follow.
The way you saw a poem with understanding and appreciation next
Eventually leaving only the impossible to forget:
The image of you lying on the couch drunk and lost and broken
With Pink Floyd playing in the background stays.
Your loveless childhood spent with abusive parents
and needy siblings remain with me. Your courage and survival skills
on nights without heat or food or any control are mine forever.
Your tribute to parents and friends who did not abandon you
When you stole and lied and ruined your life with cocaine and heroine stays.
I am talking to you, pretty girl, with the scars from cutting.
And your neighbor, the boy with the club foot and heart-breaking past
filled with relentless bullies and an evil mother
who refuses to let you grow up and away from her.
Your determination to walk away from her in your wheelchair is mine now.
And you, refugee from an African country that I already have forgotten
and you, man from the Vietnam War with scars so deep
the class almost stops breathing just to hear each and every word you have to share.
Your stories of poverty and lives without hope
Your stories of mistakes and deep regret
Your stories of life are mine now, too.
How could I ever grade that?
Shattered
To be honest, my mom often irritated me—
The way her eyeliner never touched her lash line,
floating above it like a missed opportunity.
The way she always saw the other person’s point of view
even when she knew they were dead wrong.
Her criticism stung—sharp and quick.
Her empathy was often misplaced.
I saw her as a version of my future self—
A likely outcome.
An outcome I didn’t want.
Even so, I admired her goodness—
The listening. The problem-solving. The connections.
The life-long friendships. The humor. The good deeds.
The way people spoke of her—loved her dearly.
The clean home. The vibrancy. The fairness.
The cheeriness. The smile. The twinkle.
The holiday traditions, the gathering of family.
But not the Sisyphean struggle to change that man.
Not the bickering, the judgment, the manipulative charm.
Not the ego, the quick self-sacrifice, the critical bite.
Not the internalized misogyny, the warped narratives,
the comfort of cookies in the middle of the night.
Not the refusal to sweat, the lack of adventure,
the willingness to be gaslit, the inability to protect me.
Not the preference of one child over the other.
But when her life-ending diagnosis came—
it wasn’t just her body failing.
It was my stomach twisting, my breath faltering,
My sadness buried deep.
My need to comfort. My unspoken terror. My managed pain.
As if I were in that bed, in that darkened room.
Her mouth slack, the wet washcloth on her forehead—
but I felt it on my own skin.
She was waiting to die.
I was waiting, too.
And in the end,
there was no line between us—
her suffering was mine,
her surrender, my own.
Both of us
apologizing
that it was taking so long.
Vision
The empyrean view from the bluff
Shows endless inland sea
And clouds spotted with gulls.
Our future spreads as wide and clear
At twenty.
Out of focus but searingly blue in the sunshine.
At fifty-six the traps sprung and truths unmasked
The sky darkened by fog
Like wisps of grey hair and sadness,
The view more finite.
Who could have predicted
The betrayal,
The joy of laughter and comfort,
The boundless love reflected in innocent eyes,
The pain in tears and the embraces,
The shaking fear and fullness of gratitude,
The beauty of this world?