the clear virginity
of empty days
like plastic wrap
like creaky nights
And radio static
in remote patterns
like birds beginning
to stutter in song
all our days of summer
all our years of childhood
slide like released ice
--one halcyon afternoon
_
Her voice rises tiny from behind the Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her tone is imperious:
Mama!
That exclamation is summons. I kneel on the floor beside her bed. She is two; the bed is only a month old. Her old crib was about to fall to pieces from all the meaty-thighed jumping that took place in it.
She is in the new, improved, big-kid bed now, I am kneeling beside her.
What is it, Chuk-muk?
A glimmer of eyes in the growing dusk. The shine of her teeth,
I forgot.
Did you want mama to bring you another hug? Another kiss?
My arms and mouth demonstrate the words. My heart fills with happiness, and chokes my throat. Another stroke of her hair, a kiss planted directly into her palm. She holds it, falls asleep.
This child now--at this time in my life, has ways of making feel grown up, parent, knowing… in ways the first child, my companion, the brother I’d never had before, could not.
_
This morning, dropping the kids off at elementary school and preschool, I could feel my hands tightening into claws, throat swelling, voice panicking as I said goodbye.
Violence towards kids--any kid, not just mine--is my trigger for anger, for desperation, suicidal ideation, cold rage, lately—thankfully--for action, but still most frequently for fat, bawly tears. And I know exactly how stupid that sounds.
They have adequate security at both schools (locked doors/ keypad entry), but on NPR they were talking about how you really can’t stop anyone if they’re determined. So I showed up to retrieve the two-year-old hours before her dimissal time. But I’ll be teaching my class tomorrow and won’t be able to. Big A tries to point out the killings are all the way in China.
True. Kids are so small and trusting everywhere. Also true.
_
You help us all into the box.
It is shaped like a coffin.
We are to leave for Mars.
They say
That Earth will be uninhabitable.
We are to lie inside
this box,
that is like a coffin,
for three days.
It takes that long to get to Mars.
For five hours I try
to teach the children
to say,“uninhabitable.”
Their mouths fail to shape this noisy word.
I think about the
impossibility
of keeping
the two-year-old quiet
or still.
Three days.
I think of the improbability
of saving the child with Asthma.
I say,
I’ll stay
here on earth with our children.
Underneath sacrifice,
Artifice.
The anxious place
of silence
in my deep
and small space.
Drawers
hanging
off their hinges
are chicken litter
are anti
matter
Empty chairs
are time and tide
are burdens
shifting
shape
like water
_
In a dream
I took
(my husband)
(to)
your apartment
looking for
proof
of
(a different) life
all the pictures
you had
were of your brother
But you’d saved
(a colony of chittering mice
for) me
_
The body is meek
weak
The winter is deep
deeper than water
Liquid with drink
are eyes, are ayes,
are yes
_
Our class went to Metropolitan University for a talk with Sunny Singh today. I had the same soft argument with Sunny as I've previously...
