To my son

 

without a second of hesitation

You offered to pick me up, after already having spent

Many hours of driving, 

already, that day, 

You offered to drive another three hours for me to 

Spend a bit of time with my brother

Who was laying in a sterile hospital bed in an

Anonymous suburb far away.

We drove in the dark, through the congestion of rush hour

Until we reached that small sterile room where my dear brother,

Looking so old, so frail, so vulnerable, 

And you were with me, my son, the one I brought into this world,

And feel too often that I don't see enough, that you have launched

So far away, but here we are, together, in this moment, in this so 

Terribly vulnerable moment.

And I watched you be so amazingly you, pulling the stroke

Chart off the wall, finding a permanent marker and a post-it pad,

And I knew there was no one else that I wanted to be with me

In that moment but my son.

And when my brother looked at us with his sad quizzical eyes and 

Said What the Fuck between streams of unintelligibility

- we could only laugh, and harder yet when

He could not read back the same words.

But with sadness, too.

The drive back was shorter, lighter, WTF 

Let's see what tomorrow brings. 

Writers - and Readers

 She's one, too. 

And the guy over there, the one that bakes bread,

I read his book and gave my copy to a friend

Who doesn't write.

But her, oh, she recommends the most amazing books like the one

About the man who walked across a wire from the North to the South Tower.

All those people who were watching on the ground were connected,

Like the wire, bouncing along in their disparate lives, almost falling, then

Catching themselves at the last minute.

This is AMERICA

They crowded me, big men, brown men to each side, 

I offered my armrests, as I am but a small person in the middle seat.

Victor had seen dead bodies at the side of the road at age six

(Running from home to school in El Salvador) before escaping to 

AMERICA.

And EdGAR, (he says to accent the second syllable) headed North as well, to 

AMERICA.

Guatemala offered nothing and papa was dead.

Their bodies took up space and their words filled the cabin

With stories of escape and deliverance, the deep rumble of their

Trucks on American highways, the smell of the loads of recycled cardboard,

How the young truckers don't respect anymore, stealing gas and materials from 

Others.

Victor shared fantastic tales of Tribulation of the religious variety, 

EdGAR of tribulation of the difficulty of renewing his truck license in California.

This is 

AMERICA, 

Where anything is possible, anyone is possible, anywhere is possible

As long as you are present to see it, hear it, feel it.

this is AMERICA. 

Finding the correct tool

 I hadn't read the recipe, quickly perusing the required matériels 

To participate in the "cookie making", the event at the big house

Past the locked gates, situated along the winding, narrow road.

It was very dark.

The recipe surely included flour, butter and perhaps some eggs, but

Would the batter be too thick for the whisk, or too thin for the kneading

Bring both, she said, she, who had forgotten the details

(Written in German, yet!)

Imagining that we would share the KitchenAide mixer, the pink one

(That my husband had bought me for Valentine's Day),

And finding that everyone brought their own.

The hostess diligently instructed us, and I watched her, 

Deciding to do the mixing very differently, 

And of course, choosing to cut shapes in the dough, 

Completely differently, with animals shapes instead of stars,

Without the nuts, so I could get them done more quickly and 

Retreat to my small house, situated in a crowded neighborhood

Where anyone can go, where anyone can walk, where no one will 

Notice that you are not from here.

Old age and infirmity

Three down, one already down, chronically down.

Blood clots and vertigo, AFIB and Parkinson's

the Clan is down.

Older brother's screams fade to the steady hum of pumps,

Four days pinned to a bed unable to move his legs, a fake smile

shows up for a photo.  

(taken by his wife as she balances on her knee scooter)

Younger brother's foot drags on the ground, a contrast to his relative youth,

his exuberance, running in circles with his teenagers.

My world spins, a half-full garbage can placed at my side

In case.

Older sister was walking

Until she wasn't, her steady and reliable life

dancing to two sets of heartbeats, uncertain which way to go.

 Oh!  All our plans so perilously stacked, perilously and we did not even know it, how can we forget how

delicately we dance on this Earth, this beautiful Earth.  

Bird by Bird

bird by bird

word by word, first draft

worse by worser, confidence flies away.

bird by bird,

seed by seed, 

watching them drop to a squirrel

who will catch these words, 

bird by bird, who will gather them and reform them

word by word

into second draft, and third, line by line.

she said it's torture, but made it funny,

how many words by words, 

birds by birds did she shoot down with

the gun at her side, in that quiet countryside

before she said these words

bird by bird

word by word.

 

vertigo

 we are not meant to be in a spinning world,

having never noticed the fine structure of the gym floor,

i now notice that the speckles are circles of color.

and the ceiling lights, suspended above me are spinning

at an alarming rate, but the struts hold.

My stomach protests and I call out weakly,

without wanting to make a fuss and try to turn

towards the floor, to force it to stop spinning

My face is burning, my stomach wanting to retch

this is vertigo. 

one moment, thinking about how hard my workout will be, 

the next, knowing that there will be none.

the one moment, thinking about how to always stay busy in the beloved flow zone,

the next, knowing that it's not possible and that when the world

stops spinning, I will have to stop, too, 

and tolerate that state of "not doing"

There is no choice.