Memorial Day

The park is a silly place
to go with a 1-year-old
but that is where we are—
my elder sister, nephew, and I—
taking advantage of the baby
swings in the mildly empty
park while families
barbeque and play wii golf.

The baby likes the swings.
His floppy curls hang in the air
and his mouth smiles
and his eyes observe
children doing things he will do
when he is older and bigger.

It takes fifteen minutes
for the baby to stick out his arms
in a way we know to mean
pick me up now, I’m tired of this.
My sister instantly complies
(she won’t let this child want for anything)
and takes him over to a covered slide,
where she coaxes him
intro trying out a new activity.

A little boy, maybe 4,
with a dirty face and a too-big shirt
comes to stand before me,
looking up at my face
and then at the swings.
Understanding, I lift him up
and into the nearest swing.
He wiggles his legs, attempting
to propel himself, but without
understanding the mechanics of it.
So I push him a couple times,
just enough to get him going,
before responding to
my sister’s waving fingers
telling me to come help her.

The baby walks up and down a playhouse
aided by gripped fingers and
verbal encouragement.
The little boy’s swing, I see
from a backward glance,
has stopped moving.
He sits, pouting for a minute
before reshaping his mouth from
a line to an O, shouting, Mom
over and over.

I look around, feeling bad,
and spot a woman with unwashed
blond hair sitting on the hood
of a faded red car,
smoking a cigarette down to the stub.
she didn’t get up, didn’t respond,
but I knew he was hers.
It was a brother, a couple years older,
who finally came over, looking sullen,
and pushed the swing,
shutting up the boy.

They stayed a long time.
The brother helped the little boy
out of the swing and
abandoned him. The boy,
left to his own devices,
sat in the dirt and threw
rocks at structures.
I eyed the mother as she lit up
another cigarette. I had a sudden
desire to pick up that child and
thrust him at her, say
this boy is yours, you accepted
responsibility for him when you
had him and kept him.
Wash his face, buy him some clothes
that fit him, pay him some attention,
and love him. Don’t you know
how important it is to a child
to be loved?

I wondered if I said these things
if she would listen,
if she would care,
if she would glare at me
with those dead eyes and
blow smoke in my face.
she looked like a woman who
could use a little love herself.

The baby was cranky and ready
to nap so we packed up and left.
I didn’t talk to that woman.
I didn’t even say goodbye to the boy.
But I have this image burned
into my memory of that little boy
sticking out his arms,
wanting for everything.

Eating the Night

On Saturday night the shops
close around dark
But their after-hour neon signs
give enough glow
through handsmeared glass
to tint our skin and teeth and clothes.

We are laughing
at ourselves and, alternately,
looking very somber,
for when there is scotch
to be had (and there often is
when people pool their money)
we become prophesizing philosophers,
claiming and renouncing kingship
and theories and the fate of the universe.

It is sometimes suggested,
by one member
of the group or another, that we ought
to write our ideas down,
but of course we never do.
Because if you write something down you
claim ownership of it, you
have inherent responsibility
over it. We will never
act on these ramblings. We will
sleep until noon,
get doughnuts or blueberry pancakes, and then
do the homework we’ve put off.

Monday we’ll go to class and
let, with only minor internal rebellion, people
tell us how to think,
and how is not so very different from what,
and what is not so very different from who,
and before we know it we will
be cogs in the great machine
we once drunkenly denounced.

Some of us
will remember our old ideals
with nostalgia or remorse, and
some of us
will remember them
with astonishment or laughter, and
some of us
might not remember them at all.

But Saturday nights, right now,
at this time in our lives, we’ll
be sitting on a curb
outside a closed thrift store,
eating the night away
with our pungent breath.

Hunters and Gatherers

You were the Gatherer:
patient, smart, reliable,
untrusting of the sword or spear,
of any tool beyond your two strong hands.

I was the Hunter:
emotional, spontaneous, eager,
always stalking that make-or-break scenario,
waiting for something big to come along.

You gathered nuggets one by one,
stored them.
It amazed me
how you could pull them out later,
reproduce your findings.
I greedily sucked at the fat
of everything I took down.
You watched complacently
though you knew I was compromising
the coming winter.

I can wound in my faith in sharp points
but you wound with your faith in silence.

Tomorrow, when the storm comes
and I am unable to go out
you will share what you have gathered,
you will share the comfort of your arms.
I will take both without thinking.

Next month, when the snow falls
and hibernation begins
we will share in our hunger
and I will be angry,
unable to accept that it is my fault
and you will be patient, smart, reliable
and suffer with me in the dark.

Coming Undone

I hate waiting for the mail to come.
Bills run, letters amble.
Where are you dear? I’m coming undone.

You’ve gone away. You promised a letter for me.
A letter to explain; this talk was a preamble.
I hate waiting for the mail to come.

I visited my mother. She asked for a harmony,
But I couldn’t sing; my voice is a bramble.
Where are you dear? I’m coming undone.

I had to get away. I took a trip to the sea.
I talked to a stranger but my talk was a ramble.
I hate waiting for the mail to come.

Your letter finally came. I tore it open happily.
In your careful handwriting, a message to unscramble.
Where are you dear? I’m coming undone.

I wrote you back. My words formed a plea.
My mother said loving you was a gamble.
I hate waiting for the mail to come.
Where are you dear? I’m coming undone.

Things Unseen

I could feel
this bruise on my knee
before it blossomed.

That spot had a familiar tenderness,
a pain I could forget
until reminded
by a brush of the hand
or a bend of the knee.
But afterward, it lingered.

You could not understand
my ability to see something
that was not yet present.
You could not understand
how a feeling
could make something real.

When the skin turned colors—
greens, purples, blues
of various hues—
you said, now I see the pain
that you felt before.

There are so many bruises
waiting to emerge
and every time you misunderstand
or misrepresent or misinterpret
it is like that brush of a hand,
reminding me of things unseen.

Come and Go

Sun-burnt baby
dressed in black:
bikini, denim pants, boots, cowboy hat.
The faint sheens of sunset are on the horizon,
Chelsea tromps through browning grass,
Sister pulls you both along with a blue rope.

That Welfare horse,
brown coat gleaming,
will wander through a broken fence
and get hit by a speeding car,
a car with no conscience, driving away
while she lies there bleeding in the road.

Sister will eventually move away
and comes back crying, confessions in hand.
That horse will die ten years later,
fattened on oats, let to live because of pleading faces.
And you, that girl who lived under the sky all those summers,
well you will grow up too, but not easily,
and when you return it will be with head held high—
triumphant smile and eyes flashing—
knowing you will never again need a sister or anybody
to jerk you along with a knotted blue rope.