Here

I'm singing again
thinking savage
songs separating

Tonight's
bright hinge
muttered, relenting

Our own world
a handful of breath
veined and racing

_

Possible

the gods of the afternoon

the temple of traffic

the battle of the Buddha 

yielding, coming out alright

the siblings barking in my head

on those long trains headed here

_

Voices

Recently, the number of times I've been startled by the sound of a man's voice from the kids' bedrooms upstairs has been legion.

Li'l A, newly 13,  sounds bignormous.

And although he still has my puny wrists and ankles much to his chagrin, the mousey voice he inherited from me is now a grownup boom.

I don't note his mustache--because what south asian, male or female--doesn't have a mustache since they're six months old? (What. Just me? Oops.)

Anyway. If I sound surprised, it's because I was a late bloomer--actually the last to "bloom" in my cohort and expected that my kids would be the same.

Segue to say, I've been trying to get the kids up at 6 a.m. after a summer of late-late mornings. And at that hour the afore-mentioned teen voice sounds positively menacing.

Or cracks with pride as he tells me that his reddit comment got up-voted 238 times today.

Ahem. So when we say some commenter sounds about 13 years old... they very well might be.

Just saying.

_

Week Before Work

Frost sharp as
chin settled on shoulder

looking back
at the pelt of summer

book ruffled
beached by libraries

confiscated bliss
the hypnosis of hope

_

Nu-logisms

She has a freshly-minted teen for a sibling, so 4-year-old Nu sounds like she's in middle school too.

Truer to say she tries to sound like that. Frequently, there's a small hilarious twist somewhere. The ones we're currently enjoying:


REGULAR PHRASE                                                                  NU'S VERSION
"Blew my mind"               -------------------------------------->       It's blowing UP my mind
(EXAMPLE: Alligators in the sewers? Really Nana? That's blowing up my mind!)


REGULAR PHRASE                                                                 NU'S VERSION
"For real"                          ------------------------------------->        For real LIFE
(EXAMPLE: Uh-huh. It IS true. Alligators in the sewers. For REAL LIFE!)

Naturally, we've been going around using "that's blowing up my mind" and "for real life" with abandon. And sometimes people will look at me funny, perhaps because I'm not a native speaker and they're wondering how to let me know that that's not how you're supposed to say it...

_

Show and Tell

Your frown is a silent accordion 

playing down, standing up

standing on fierce ceremony

changing like a carousel

A big tent, this religion

its tenets intense and precise

decorous rules tricky as trapeze 

sharing everything save faith

This is the circus of our discontent 

perched at my waist, sparrow-hope 

and at bottom, on buttered tongue 

a juggle of a few thousand inherited words

-

Scoop

The gossip
leaves tracks
invisible trains
they run all night.

Everything's a window
where--enter: fear;
light is such a small
compass for a life

One day there will be...
there will be something
Today we can just cut
shit out like fingerprints


_