There are certain ones they
keep—
my grandmother's chamomile hair,
my father's rosemary tattoo,
the dill feathers in the hat of my Aunt Jackie
growing taller with each month she is beyond.
But some they like to give away,
like the feverfew that grows two graves down,
Eliza Mulberry now wears small
daisy-like flowers sprouting out of her lapel,
a baby who died at six months
has foxglove reaching towards the sky,
a dozen small white rattles,
a dozen broken hearts on each lip.
I wonder if Fred Wiggins knew that one day
his headstone would peek out of purple sage,
an herb that healed so many,
now soothes the soul of his old tired grave.
Originally published in
Crab Creek Review Summer/Autumn 1999
ANNIVERSARY POEM for rose agodon
Night changes things.
Fields that tangle blackberry bushes
in daylight, unwind with the moon's
pull, thorns turn and hide
as the earth slowly reveals
the first layer of morning.
The ripeness once concealed
beneath shadows, now drips dawn-tinted dew.
This moment,
with twelve years hidden
between the lines of your smile
and in the cracks of my palms,
can silence us.
We are nothing to stars and sun,
or the morning we find comfort in.
Instead, we are to each other
what words are to vespers,
a promise as the world awakes,
turns on the lights in the kitchen,
while cradled in daybreak
your eyes tell me more
than your mouth could ever say.
BLUEGRASS
Your father's ghost
rides the red horse across the farm,
jumps the small pond and keeps on going.
Do you think they can see you
sleeping in the old cemetery?
The lump of grass below his gravestone,
now your pillow,
the cold bed you slept on
in the drafty part of the house.
The weather will cover you—
wrap yourself in willow and wind,
when there is sun
imagine his hands on your face.
Back in New York,
you live in your own mausoleum.
When was the last time
you tried to unlock the door?
Farms can open the backdoor to anything.
Even the largest corporations shiver
when their top executive says, I'm taking a trip to the country.
They know that barns heal and the air
might come between you and them.
And if you stop by Uncle Walt's Bar
and hear the whispers of bluegrass slipping
into your soul, you may not return.
Say goodbye to the gravestone
you've already chiseled for yourself
above the noisy, taxi-filled streets,
stay in the old cemetery
until there is enough blue sky
to sew yourself a quilt.
The red horses stand
on the side of the road waiting
for you to hold out that first apple.
We all stop for ghosts.
GIRL IN GREEN PATINA
In my city, we hold our umbrellas
tight, as if our hearts were raining.
Our stomachs billow with storms,
rumbling beneath thin clouds above.
With skin stained moss,
we blend with the landscape—
pine and hemlock are relatives
in the back row of our family portrait,
the rhododendron that we begged to shed
its thick leaves holds on through another wet winter.
Maybe its simpler being part of the weather
recognizing that what we wore yesterday
could never keep us warm today.
A piece of fog slips into our pocket,
we hold hands with an old friend
and walk these streets alone.
Originally published in
Spindrift, 1999
MORNING GLORY
Nurses in white
attend the trunk of the sick
Yoshino cherry tree,
wrap around branches
where pink petals
are only a memory of spring.