Tic-Tac-Toe

I mistake the day for nothing

Moments are like prayer,

Memory still muttering.

All words shimmer earnest, 

fall underfoot where children 

rush and stomp, play, find fun.

Daylight peels itself slowly

from windows and eyes

someone I know says, "hug," 

someone else says "love"

I breathe as though 

for someone far; CPR

I am a daughter of dread

my self-conscious prayers rise

like the breath of those dead.

_

NuNu Love

7:30. After I packed everyone's lunches, 

I rushed to get changed for school.

In the time it took me to change, 

she slipped her smiley "I heart you" 

into my lunchbox.

When I got home at 4:30, she grabbed me

asking, "Did you find it? Did you see it?"

She said she kept giggling at school 

thinking about that note to me. 

Me too.

_

I'm with the Band

In too much of a hurry 

to smile for me/the camera 

before he sets off to saxophone it in.

(And I watch over his shoulder.)

Give us this day our daily produce

Smiling at all the fruit and veg in my office today. 

I didn't accept the tomatoes 

'cos we have lots of them fruiting at home.

The apple is my favorite

it makes me feel like a real teacher.

_

Amanda, Michelle, Gina

They're saying the man who kept the three girls imprisoned in Cleveland committed suicide. I wonder if after being imprisoned himself, he realized what a horrible thing he'd done and offed himself out of remorse.

Far away from everything related, even I have nightmares about the whole thing. In one, I was crouched on the floor at the grocery store for something on a low shelf and overheard someone calculating aloud how big a cage to contain me would have to be.

If the nightmares ever subside, I'll get to smile at my friend J Castro's disgusted FB update when the news broke: "After years of being asked if I was related to Fidel, now this."

Yes; I was in Cleveland over the weekend. No; I had nothing to do with it.

God.

_

Dancing the Night Away

Kavitha-Neil's Wedding/

Last party of the summer vacation

Weekend with Grandparents Portrait (2)

With Maama-Thatha

Horseshoe Park, Cleveland