trinity parkway

they've cleared the wetlands

for housing development

my brother-in-law wonders

where did all these rats come from?

i bet the rats wonder 

the same 

i used to smoke cigarettes there

by the levee with my friends 

kissed a boy, standing there in 

the darkness 

the boy and his friend

lit the hillside on fire one july fourth

i used to visit the egrets on my own

and climb into the large scrap metal yard

someone left in the open field

but now the houses, uniform

block out the view of the wetlands

the tiny fish that somehow end up 

in ponds are dead.

my sister's yard is a plot of concrete.

her children speak to the birds,

the rats, the raccoons, the opossums,

the cats, the high flying geese,

the spiders, as their father sets

traps. i tell the kids, i used to play 

in the wetlands. and there were rats. 

 I got muddy. the sun set

into the tall grasses and reeds

like an egg yolk, and left the skies

purpled and golden, and the geese

would fly overhead, and i knew it

was time to head home. 

Student

A year ago we sat across from one another drinking coffee in someone else’s dining room. If I remember correctly (your memory was always sharper than mine), you had just returned from a run, and I had made us breakfast. Something with eggs, toast. Filled with the promise of morning and young love, we played a game. I asked you, What is music? 

You rolled your eyes and answered, sounds organized with the intent of producing an effect. Good music, you explained, demands surrender and self awareness – turns the listener into a child strapped into the backseat of a car lost to || the || undulating || blur || of || forest || and the \\ thumping // windshield \\ wiper // swish. You were trying to convey something about the debris of the past 

but I was distracted by the commanding union of your four fingers as you spoke. How compelling you were. You leaned away from me, your voice grew louder. Seemingly so detached, you clamored after the cascade of ideas that poured from your mouth. I delighted in your bumptious self-interruptions, your slipping into this beat or that, your silent echoes and your sideways breaking-aparts. I felt you there as a whole body and more. Much more. And distinct. You said you prefer the whale’s big bellow, but I’ve always been taken by the cheer of a robin. 

Earlier today I was reading Mary Oliver’s Poetry Handbook, trying to understand the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. I couldn’t. Something about a heartbeat, that buried regular thing, so impeccably organized until it is not. You know, my cat wanders rooms and screams. She screams at every dusty corner and empty wall as if to tell me you will never really be a poet and that’s ok. I am content to remain the child in the backseat of beauty. 

What I want to say is, I am sorry that I doubted your happiness. What I didn’t understand then is that happiness is like the top of a mountain. Only with the hot burn of muscle and hurting faith do you arrive, but you do arrive. You drink water. You take a photo of heaven’s edge. You stretch your sight to the horizon and graze your fingertips against the twirling sky. Eventually the light is drenched in blue, and hazy, and you turn to face your own descent. But the mountain never goes anywhere. The mountain is always there, humming. 

Perspective

I am trying to learn something 

about the distance between 

us. On my shoulder 

you placed your hand and 

I mindlessly kissed it. Skin,

yours, strange and somewhat cool,

felt like my skin. Later, 

I crept by the purple house. 

Fourteen blocks could not have been further 

from the truth. Like, driving I see 

Mount Rainier on the southern horizon, 

and she looms larger than 

anything in my life. But 

I’ve climbed her. I have been 

so close to her peak,

I’ve seen her snow sweat 

under late summer heat. 

How impossible. That was 

the same mountain I see now

speeding home, speeding

towards nothing important. 

Oh how quickly your memory fades

1.
I was still saying goodbye, or trying 
to ground you here beside 
the curtained window and the steady rain 
and the warm pulse of my body

while outside the neighbor’s daughter trotted 
circles in the driveway, echoing the dizzy flume of 
supposed-to-be-southbound birds
black in the roaring sky but

you were already elsewhere.
Your eyes like eggshell blue but 
burning they hollowed two holes 
through the white walls we could not follow.

2.
there is liberation in remembering 
the difference between death and the airy 
movement from sunflower to snow 

but my heart is still hooked 
on the callousness of peeling 
hard-boiled eggs in the parking lot

 
one hour after I curled my fingers into 
your gray nest of hair and held you

as raucous breath rocketed 
your chest to the ceiling, I held you 

as the stench soaked through 
your yellowed skin, I held you

and as foamy brown waves rushed 
against the shore of your lips, I held you 
        

        whispering 

oh Mary, may you be free of all this

        whispering

god help me

        whispering 

goodbye.

3. 
The wind spins darkly outside my window
like a spider winds her prey.   
Telephone wires intrude upon the 
wild dance of douglas firs 
along the island highway.
Tonight the moon must fight
for its place in the piercing sky, 
and the stars are left behind. 
I hardly notice my unremembering
your wrinkled brow when I asked 
have you ever been in love? 

for Mary