Slow Down When Sick

Popcorn
Thunderheads fill my bowl. Whole
Skies of storms, many nights'
Worth - an epic flood's worth - sit
Still, waiting to be plucked
One handful at a time for Mom.
For R.J., they're removed singly and
Given names (her game):
Juliet, Jeremiah, James (not
Stormy or ominous). I bite
The tops off of the biggest
Clouds so S.L. can eat them; food
For a baby with no sharp bits. The
Soft puffy insides start to dissolve
Like snow in my warm mouth.

Heat expanded air and moisture,
Forced particles to burgeon outward into
Bulbous mounds larger than
Mountains - smaller than
Hailstones.

Popcorn Cloud

 Apple
I'd always heard it was a star, but
No: a tiny flower hides inside the
Core of the apple I'm eating. A sculptor
Cast a lily in wax, pulled out the delicate
Petals, and left behind an empty
Cream-colored impression wherein dark,
Fertile seeds rest encased. My thin knife has
Slid through the crack in the
Door and unbolted the lock: now
They fall with gentle clicks
Onto my cutting board.

Apple Flower

Bergamot Flashback

We're fast approaching Christmas,
and the choir has practiced the song
for maybe three weeks now. "Listen
to the recording at home,"
the director reminds us. Warm tea
soothes my throat while I knit.

The red sweater was done by Halloween, knit
with click-clicks and slow breath, full of mistakes, yet in time for Christmas.
Maybe Mimi will make peppermint tea
again, and this time my song
won't have to be, "Sick! So sick!" Away from home,
yes, but not pregnant this time. The choir will sing; this time, I'll get to listen.

The heater comes on in the house. Listen
to the cold rain hitting the roof and knit
while my daughters sleep. Tastes sweet to be at home -
to know the lights for Christmas,
on their timer, will glow while we're away - to hear my daughter practice her song.
Breathe. Today it took a cup of Holiday Chai tea

to get past the afternoon slump. Today's tea
I kept hidden from the girl; didn't have to listen
as she asked for some and return my sing- song
"No, no. It has caffeine." My hands itched to knit
today; I've almost finished the gray hat. And Christmas
makes so many demands on my time at home.

We won't be at home,
so if I want the gingerbread tea
I'll bring it in that little tin. We leave after both Christmas
choir performances, mine and hers. Nana can listen
if I record my daughter's performance. I'll wait to knit
my green sweater; we need to practice the song.

Once, two college girls, on guitar and piano, sang a song
together at one girl's family home.
One had taught the other how to knit,
and had made her soy milk-infused Earl Grey tea
before they sat on the bedroom floor in their apartment, where one girl could listen
to the other read a fantasy story and rest in the comfort as cozy as Christmas.

She can still knit with those skills and can still hear that song:
At Christmas time in her own grown-up home
she smells Earl Grey tea in a bottle of bergamot and stops to listen.

I recently attended a house concert where I had the privilege of hearing my college roommate and friend from many years ago perform her own beautiful music. A singer-songwriter who plays guitar, she always had an interest in creating, writing, and singing, and she always had a knack for turning any space into "home." It is an amazing experience when one brief moment - such as listening to a song or smelling a specific scent - recalls to your mind years of previous moments, and they all get bundled up together into one new experience that you can open like a gift as your present circumstances seem to be put on pause. The past moments take on new meaning as you see them through the lens of all your current life, and your current life is blessed, as with a refreshing shower, with the sweetness of the memories. At Christmas time, especially, I think we experience life as being circular, so that our past and present can affect each other in our perception of them, and each can imbue the other with new flavor and richness.

A sestina, with its recurring words presented in a new order in each stanza, is very circle-like, and seemed to me the perfect form in which to attempt to express this experience of memory.

Furniture Un-Success

September 30, 2016

I want a space to myself:
pink, with a blue desk that doesn't
smell like cigarette smoke.
Isn't almost-the-right-thing
worse than
nothing-at-all-yet?
And what am I to do
with the drawer that sticks
and stinks even though I tried
filling each cavity with the thick scent
of lavender oil,
using tiny, handmade sachets?
All that work
for nothing.
That drawer didn't stick
until I had painted the thing.
And it all sat outside for a week, collecting
extra bug parts and mysterious
white clusters of malicious, minuscule eggs.
Sun and air were supposed to work
magic.
Nothing.
And my husband says it's all in my head
anyway, but what does that matter
when you want a space
all to yourself,
pink, with a blue desk for the
sewing machine your mom gave you,
a space for silence and whirring and
needles?

Ring

The back of my left hand presses
pleasantly into a cotton blue pillowcase. Through my squinted
eyelid I see
soft edges of a flattened crescent that must have been
cut from back-lit clouds: it is that white -
almost pure light. This
light-shape
sits on my gently upturned finger. I can feel it
cool
in the narrow hollow
where finger meets palm

             a dove
             hiding itself
             in the cleft of the rock

and this
shape lights
the sphere of my sight, making peripheral
the cool, dark masses of the furniture and shadows that
inhabit the room where
I'm lying.

The Hinge

She works - silent, invisible -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

The children move her
back
      and
forth;
she pivots, affixed to
their flexing muscles and electric minds.

Her husband - standing still -
      stills her.
She has so tightly pressed into him
that an indentation in her own shape
now marks him.
Except he splinters, or
she erodes, they are an inseparable
      one.

When she wearies - sore -
she groans, complains, yet still turns.
What she needs:
      free
      cashmere touches,
      free
      orchestral words.

With or without,
she remains - moving and working -
      between
husband and children, the chores.

Need

God made me a child and said,
   "Rest in Me."
But everything was beautiful; I couldn't see a need.
God put me in high school and said,
   "Rest in Me."
But I got it all done; there was not a need.
God put me in college and said,
   "Rest in Me."
But I guarded my sleep; I hid the need.
God moved me to a new city and put me in grad school and said,
   "Rest in Me."
But I hunted for answers and killed the need with desperate prayers.
God gave me a husband and said,
   "Rest in Me."
But someone showed me a good example, and I thought I had rested enough.
God gave me a child and said,
   "Rest in Me."
And I couldn't find myself, and I said,
   "God, where am I? Hold me."
And He was.