parting the waters
Nothing is lost.
The past surfaces
from the salted tide pool
of oblivion over
and over again,
and here it is now—
complete
with ironed sheets, old sins,
and pewter candlesticks.
My mother and aunts approach,
shaking the water from
their freshly washed hair
like aging mermaids.
They have been here
all along, sewing
or reading a book, waiting
for the wand of memory
to touch them.
All night
The children have gone
through doors so small
we cannot follow
even if we stoop
and the dogs bark all night
hearing calls
in registers too high
for our frail senses.
We follow words instead
but they are only signposts
leading to other words
leaving us lost
in our own landscape.
We struggle merely to see
for the sun too has slipped away
hiding its tracks
in afterlight, to a place of unimagined
reds and golds
a place where children
lounge on grass
calling to dogs whose barking
they can still hear
all these years from home.
ENvoi
We're signing up for heartbreak.
We know one day we'll rue it.
But oh the way our life lights up
the years a dog runs through it.
paperweight
Listen:
there is nothing
to hear.
The round world
is shaken with snow,
a thousand parachutes
settle—
they call the cold
a quiet death.
Our cells sign off
silently, like snowflakes
melting on the tongue,
and muffled white hoofs
ride us to sleep.