Only what will serve
her well. What otherwise
she may never see.
Cheese puffs implode
in your mouth. Clean-sheet
day is luxurious.
First principles, simple
machines, Newton’s
First Law.
Planets don’t twinkle. Some
fronds curl when stroked.
I love you.
Every morning we feed the birds.
Like when your spine aligns with a guest-bed groove,
or you reach the dip you’d thought long lost, forever,
between the dunes of your shoulder blades, or you
dream of grandma and the walks to DQ cherry sundaes and
playing with fridge magnets on the floor and her
cigar box of fragmented Canary, Blue-Green, Green-Blue,
and Mango Tango, and farewelling, engulfing hugs against
her house-coated breasts before you fall into the cold
of the world.
Isn’t that a dream you’d share
with everyone?
The footsteps behind
me weren’t, but were
a leaf skritching in my
wake. Crunchy and curious,
seeking distant piles
to explore, rakes to elude,
summers to mourn,
assuming I was more
adventurous than I am.
How big is this table? How many, and when? Will
I know anyone? I can do grilled chicken. Asparagus.
Something with curry. Nothing fancy, though I can
follow a recipe. Napkins, dishes, knives, forks.
Anxiety and depression, which, like salt and pepper,
should always be passed together. I can fix
a faucet and build a campfire, name the actor in that
one movie, sound like Donald Duck. When he’s angry.
I can rock any baby to sleep, take twenty-minute
naps. Do you need extra chairs?
I can sit on the floor.
My friend’s cousin’s name was Becky. She
lived in Ottumwa, wore sneakers and a ponytail.
Each summer she’d ride the year-end school bell
into town, radiating an aura of balloon
races and farrowing. Once, I think,
she touched my arm.
‘Cecelia’ reminds me of her, still. Not because
she broke my heart, but because I made her laugh.