Saints

I hesitate 

      but make myself do it.

I place my ear on your pillow

     at 8:32 PM,

the exact moment 

     of your ascent 

a year ago tonight.

     Yes––ascent––a propulsion

I listen for. 

     A gust of wind 

lifting lifting lifting 

     your wholeness

––mustache and thick curls, 

     perfect teeth, long legs––and, of course 

your bel canto trumpet,

     setting your completeness 

down onto the 

     unendingness

of saints marching in, 

     of brass bands 

and beautiful solos, 

     your trumpet blaring, 

your cuff links 

       gleaming. 

When my man’s hand guides my elbow up the stairs because I have grown unused to being upright (2021 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize Semifinalist

Because I have not slept a full night 

     since Spring, 

have not eaten through my mouth 

    in a season.  

The kitchen looks the same. 

   His mother sets the table, 

the kids sit down to eat

just as they did

      that night I bolt 

 to the ER. 

Now the man I married 

     pulls out a chair, teaches

me how to bend again. 

And I begin to sob 

     at the deep beauty 

of sitting 

      at that table.  

Because I have lived so long 

     as a clam flipped 

on her shell.  

Because in the bleached light 

     of my hospital room,

the scream of machines 

     do not cease, 

I think of all the things I will do 

     if I make it home again.  

First I’ll subscribe 

     to Gourmet magazine, 

learn to cook—embolden

     herbs with my love. 

     I will infuse the world’s oils 

with my devotion. 

   In the garden, I will tear at the ground 

         With both hands and birth 

   more trees 

        and they will include apple, cherry, plumb

and the scent of lemons 

     will besiege the windows 

of the house.

And there will be many red flowers

    to beguile more hummingbirds.

And each morning I’ll gulp down 

     the sun in one breath,

Starting with that first dawn 

    When I am home again. 

On the border

The suited men have jaws 

                        that snap up & down
      about invaders.

It must be done, they growl,
                   hearts dangling 

      from holsters:

This yanking on necks 

     of newborns

while grinning 

    at the camera 

flashing light on the blight 

       behind white shirts;

                   stink steaming through 

 button holes

as the sunburned beseech
viewers on TV too pleased

       to teach the flip-flop clad

                    a lesson.

Beside the plastic men stand

       beauty queens

      double-breasted & stoney-styled

thinking about getting home,

sun shines on painted gold hair
and sewn back lids

at the fields of families

        tired, kneeling, sweating 

                    at our gates.

With no backward glance, 

         the mighty board          

                  their gulf streams 

and fly toward the stars
          like the gods we allow

                           them to be.

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

For my mother: Some stars become black holes. Others get sucked up inside them just for getting too close. --Author Kris Kidd

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

still in braids when you first hear

goose steps on your street.

Let’s say the last day of school the Luftwaffe

offers you a typing job, they mention travel.

Let’s say you ride in the back of a Mercedes-Benz Transformable Torpedo 

behind your boss and his driver

When the gates open and beings pour through the yard

Like rushing water, drenched as if just risen from the ocean floor.

Let’s say sleep comes and goes that night 

and the next morning you place your breakfast 

on the window sill 

and turn your back

And when you look again, the plate is gone

And you feel relief 

that a ghost has eaten 

And you are not arrested, your giving 

hand not cut off.

Let’s say the next day you repeat this act 

and later when all is over, 

in the dark of night,

You grieve because you did not do more.

And let’s say what was 

not done becomes 

the story and your life a protracted 

mourning for it, 

for what was not done.

Like a kidnapping

  One average day

       on a walk to school, 

 the love the child carries for you

     flushes out like milk                

from a leak in his thermos.  

The way that child looks at you 

     one evening over dinner 

is a look you have not seen before. 

     You can't be sure 

      you saw what you saw.  

The way that child speaks to you 

     is not the same tone, 

not like any previous tone.          

And for a long time, his sweet face                

    appears in your dreams on a

   poster pasted on power lines.  

 The new voice, new gaze sweeps 

     into every moment going forth.

Quiet as midnight,

     cool as that dark.      

All day I stroll with the dog in the redwoods.    

No thoughts of him 

I raised from birth

     who now shaves his face,         

him I pampered and praised--perhaps too much 

     because, well, he was so                

beautiful,  

so tender in all God's ways, 

     and exiled into life with me.     

When I return to the house,      

     it hails me again—

      the strange voice, that novel gaze

—that face-slapping loss.

Of course the dead do not come back

I know, I know        and yet 

ignore this 

            sometimes 

when I pass his chair.

Minds do that:

                  fly 

tree to tree like a hawk

         sensing a heart nearby.

      Today I sit in his chair 

                       and feel he

might come back. 

              His whole beautiful self 

              now getting a break from                 

 clocks and scales--

                     all that holds me here.

One day he might show up again. 

       I’ll say Hon, where have you been?

       I’ll say Don’t leave like that again 

And his right hand 

            will fold around my left.

                       

How true this feels though none 

     can say for sure 

     so I sit in his favorite chair

    and watch for signs                     

      like a hawk.

I've grown used to absence--yours husband

I’ve grown used to absence--

           yours husband.  The clock

       has not stopped since 

you and I sat 

under this patch of sky

             I move around in 

without 

          our quiet conversation.

Now and then your face hoots

through me as a train

       waking up an empty station.

And though it does not stop

        you are once again 

in the picture--you are

       the depot of the life I led

 before this one.

And then 

I return to my day.