Sleep Talking
On nights when sleep evades me I think about the moon I think about my life and my children and what book I could be reading I scroll Instagram for a while, The true city that never sleeps Finally I think of this poem I vow to remember it in the morning But know I never will So here In the blue light glow I peck out these lines By sunrise I have forgotten Days later I find it Buried in my Notes app with to-do lists and reminders The bare bones of a poem Riddled with typos Like art on layaway Waiting just for me
Those Who Mother Us
Are Not Always Our Parents
is the title of a New York Times article I read two days before Mother’s Day, and a memory stitches itself together in my mind or my heart or my body or all of it, the time I duck my head and walk briskly into the bathroom of my childhood church because when your own mother buys you mascara so that she can say, don’t cry or your mascara will run, you get good at hiding. In the bathroom is the beautiful mother I sit behind in the sanctuary, always with the back of her head curled perfectly and me wondering how she does it, the one with two teenage boys, and of course, I think to myself, of course she will not know what to do with me and my melting mascara, of course this is all a mistake, and when I turn to leave, she wraps my limp limbs in her arms and I see her in the mirror holding me, taking a tissue and wiping clean the inky thumbprints under my eyes, and even though we never spoke a word to each other that day or after, I still hear her voice clearly when I look in the mirror saying, yes, yes I will take care of you today.
Good Girl*
Once upon a time a worthy woman possessed a sweet and gentle nature She could not endure wretched kings - they could talk of nothing but golden flowers and diamonds. They summoned her for she had good taste. Her godmother said, promise to be a good girl. She went and gathered the finest rat and brought it to the ball. Beside herself with delight she made a profound curtsey and departed as quickly as she could. *A found poem sourced from Cinderella by Charles Perrault
An Elegy for an Ache
My grandmother says she’s grateful she can FaceTime my Dad from her hospital bed. She misses being able to touch him. He’s 600 kms away. I sit on her bed and George climbs onto my lap, curls up there. I’ve become accustomed to constant affection. My hip aches, my shoulder throbs, my knee smarts, and stabbing pain pounds my heel from carrying a nearly-three-year-old. There’s exhaustion, brain-fog from interrupted sleep, pulling George into bed, how he nestles in next to me, the warm heft of him, wriggling, then deep breathing. I sink into the capaciousness of his affection like a warm bath. I don’t know when I will be down to droplets.
STRONG MEN
weep when the baby is placed in their arms for the very first time. strong men fall to their knees when they get the phone call, beg the doctors to hold on for just one more second. stop and smell flowers on the side of the road, grind the coffee every morning, cut up vegetables. strong men read poetry because they like the way the words feel on their tongue, smooth like a skipping stone, cuts like a river. strong men know the name of the pediatrician, the math teacher, the date of their daughter’s dance recital. strong men wake up in the middle of the night, wipe tears and change diapers, hold tongues and doors alike. strong men wear pink every day for a week after a student in their son’s class says it’s not a boy color, let their daughter paint their nails, stick butterfly clips in their hair. strong men cry without shame, fall to their knees, beg the moon for forgiveness. strong men hold up their own weaknesses, turn them over in their hands, examine them in the light for all to see. strong men refuse to pretend they are always strong, or right, or brave — not when the world is so ripe for potential, not when they have so much left to learn.
Roots
I thought I would be a tree rooted in one coordinate. Deep system of support limbs long and strong to hold seasons, people, and time. I thought I was a leaf unceremoniously plucked and blown on a whim to an unchosen destination, spinning and free-falling. But, I am a butterfly bush (non-voluntarily) divided and then transplanted. My hearty roots adapt, learn new soil and weather. The clusters of blooms fight to show off violet dresses, the color sky holds after a storm. All the flowers’ nectar beckons butterflies to dance. Applauded by passers by, the sky, and the bush, herself.
Resistance Exercise
In elementary school, when you beat the pants off that boy in the pacer test and his fists sent so much red to his head, that you simply said, Next time, try wearing a skirt! You didn’t dance around the fact that you were fast her. In middle school, on the activity bus, when the upperclassman said you were in his seat and you answered him with a question: So, what did you stay after for? Powerlifting. Oh that's nice. You lift weights? Yeah. So, are they the little weights - like the ones old people carry when they walk? You didn’t resist this resistance exercise. You stood up by sitting down. The summer before senior year, the one who got all hot over Italian ice, who told you to take your beach pics down from the gram, because he didn’t want other guys to see you looking like you were going swimming? So, what do you wear at the beach? You didn’t go deeper. You guarded your one wild and precious life in a two-piece. And you, my daughter, my dear and remarkable speciwomen, you are nearly ready to to leave the nest. And you’re smartly wary of the ones who fancy framing you in a shadow box, like some rare butterfly. But they can’t pin you down or keep you waiting in the wings. Because this beauty of yours, it does not suffer. It flys away.
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*stands and slow claps* You’ve done it again, you guys. You’ve done it again.
Woah this is such a good issue. I love every poem! 💛👏🏻