Still

An old one that I rediscovered today...

Still

Somehow the pain of delivery
is made up for by what is gained.
But what if that gain arrives
purple and silent,
choked before his first taste of air?

Blood that runs from ripped openings
causes fear, but contained in veins
it is to be desired.

Blood can be washed away, but scars harden into
personal tombstones, whether they lie within
or without.

Silent son,
I know not why you died
but I loved you while you lived.

Orion

I can’t find Polaris or a Dipper
but I can always find you.

I discovered you in fourth grade, and since then
you have been like some distant friend.
I seek you in each winter-black sky.
You are only seven stars –
three for your belt, then
shoulder-shoulder-foot-foot.
I have to imagine you a head.

They call you The Hunter; say you
are beating Taurus with a club
or stalking Lepus to cut off his lucky feet.
You are a Babylonian shepherd;
an Egyptian god;
a Finnish farmer
or Indian deer, and Tolkien’s elves named you
the Swordsman of the Sky, but I
will call you Guardian.

Science teaches that while the rest of the constellations
wander into new shapes, you alone
will remain, expanding imperceptibly,
the oldest and wisest sky-dweller.
You saw Eve peek out from behind the first tree;
supervised the construction of the pyramids;
watched bobbing white insects of men creep
across the ashen surface of the moon.
What more will you see that we
cannot even imagine?

In warmer months, I can find no pattern in the stars.
I long for your return.

And though you visit other skies,
I know you will come back
to watch over me once more.

Anne Boleyn's Last

From Henry VIII, obviously. My third villanelle ever!


Anne Boleyn’s Last

When morning dawns above this solemn tower
and wrests me from this prayer vigil I keep,
sunlight will bleed across my final hour.

The night was long – it taunts me with its power.
Just moments yet remain for me to weep
’til morning dawns above this solemn tower.

The Devil lingers close, but can’t devour
my guiltless soul; no weed for him to reap.
Though sunlight bleeds across my final hour

and warms the yard below, I will not cower.
The sword will greet a lion, not a sheep,
when morning dawns above this solemn tower.

Oh Jesus, take me now, your little flower,
and let the arms of Death rock me to sleep
as sunlight bleeds across my final hour.

Without the sweet, we would not know the sour.
The sky is lovely, though despair is deep.
Morning dawns above this solemn tower:
the sun bleeds out across my final hour.

Gravity

B-17; C-14; PT-13; B-52.
Letters and numbers fall together
as my father and my brother speak fluently
the language of my grandfather.
I wonder at these seemingly random combinations;
the mystery of how they each attach
to a giant thing of metal and dials, and more,
how people manage to remember.
How does a letter and a number describe
number of propellers, position of wings,
nose shapes and body length and even color?
It is a tongue that I don’t think will ever
fit comfortably into my mouth.

But I don’t need to know their names
to be able to picture them, these huge silver beasts,
roaring across the smoky sky: or Grandpa,
lively but faded in black and white,
standing in front of his plane in his uniform,
waving and wearing his crooked smile –
thinking of home, but also of ascending
into that vast blue freedom, of forgetting for a moment
the weary pull of the ground.

When we saw him in the hospital, asleep
and asleep and asleep,
my little brother said he thought
that Grandpa was dreaming of flying,
but I say he didn’t need an airplane to have the sky;
he carried it with him in his eyes.

When I miss him, all I have to do is look up,
and being embraced by such blueness
feels like falling once more into his arms.

Passing an Orchard in California

A blur of sticks and chaos
and then, for one half second,
a perfect straight line, and everything
makes sense.

martini

when she hangs up the phone
she presses her glass
to her temple

only ice left
but the outside cries
cold tears

Not-So-Young Lovers' Dance

Grandma can’t see, Grandpa can’t hear,
and their relationship is a slow, stilted waltz.
They both know each step perfectly.

Sixty-eight years since the cheeky, dark-eyed brunette
and the grinning Air Force pilot said, “I do.”
Panama, Trinidad, Washington, Cali –
four children, four grandchildren,
and four Boston bull terriers named “Jupey” later,
they still dance that same dance. Slower now,
with longer pauses to rest and more stepping on toes,
but every small movement expected.
When he sits down she silently switches to his channel.
He cooks dinner and she washes clothes.
They sit in their chairs, she with her jumbo crosswords
and he with his book, and the fan hums,
and everything is yellowsoft and familiar.

As for the smarting toes –
well, they both deserve to be called crotchety;
grumbling over politics, over changes in the city
or the way things have always been,
and they grumble at each other when things don’t go
according to plan, and Grandma sasses and Grandpa snaps
but it’s all part of the dance now,
and soon he’s reading her the mail, and she
is yelling from the family room because he can’t hear
that a timer in the kitchen is going off.

The truth is that he’s gone now, though it seems
none of us can say it.
They pour all of his pills into a Ziploc bag
and when telemarketers call they say
“He no longer lives at this address.”
Aunts bustle around, cleaning, sorting;
Dad calls the bank, and Grandma sits
silent-still in her chair, trying to think
of how she’s going to do the dance
alone.

Departure

For Grandpa, 1920-2010

I started to listen to The Lion King on the way over
but I had to turn it off during the first song.
We were coming to say goodbye.

After you died, I sat on the floor and stared into the fire.
Part of one log was coming off, the shape of a thumb;
it burned more brightly than the rest
until it fizzled out, a hanging white bone of ash.
Grandma tried to pass her tears off as eye drops
and Dad came to dinner wearing your coat.

Memories came in sharp jabs.
A scratchy-mustached kiss on the cheek.
American flag suspenders hidden
under the jacket of your suit at our cousin’s wedding.
Hearing aids squealing: Grandma
hollering your name from her chair, letting you know
that the oven was beeping.

It was worse to think of your swollen, purple arms;
the fever burning in your hands and head;
those choked, gurgling breaths, and bloated tissue-paper fingers
that couldn’t remember how to bend.
It was hard to hold your hand – the first time I saw you
all I could do was touch two of my fingertips
to yours.

Mom said when you had gone
she lifted an eyelid so she could see
your clear blue eye one last time.