Sparrows
We found them after the tree trimmers
had loaded up their machines and gone—
two baby sparrows in the grass, tumbled
like ripe fruit. We placed a shoebox on a heating
pad, lined it with soft cloth, and watched them
squeak and squirm, all purplish crepe skin,
bulging eyes shut. Our mother promised us
she’d feed them when it was time to go to school,
sugar water squeezed from a tiny dropper
into even tinier beaks. I picture her kneeling
over the box every two hours, laboring to save
what could not possibly be saved. Twenty years
later, her pale limbs swollen and still under a light
blue blanket, we too labor, squeezing water
from pink sponges into her slack mouth, more
of it dribbling out than in, love compelling us,
as it does, through the motions of giving life,
as though death had not already made its claim.
Power
True that tenderness never stopped
a bomb, got a man elected
president, or netted billions
in market shares. But when
my father stands in the wedge
between car and car door,
clutching the frame and trembling,
and my brother positions the wheelchair
behind him, grasps him under the arms,
guides him into the nylon seat
for the hundredth time as gently
and unhurried as the first,
I want to bow down.
(first published in Qu Summer 2017 issue:
http://www.qulitmag.com/sparrows/
http://www.qulitmag.com/power/)
dream : logic
Last night I dreamed I was at a party with a house full of people,
and there was only one small cake and a tiny carton
of ice cream and I was raging at the one responsible
for thinking that would be enough then (already
it is slipping away) I was trying to type my name
into a computer to register for something and a man
next to me also typing kept erasing it with his
I was in an airport terminal and my dead mother was
rolling a carry-on urging me to hurry so we wouldn’t be
late to meet my brother who came out of another
terminal rolling a bag amid a crowd of travelers rolling bags
and I wonder what it all means if there’s a lesson:
there should always be enough cake and ice cream for everyone,
and hard as you try to be someone, someone else’s trying might
be stronger, and we will carry a bag with us in heaven and we’ll
find who we’ve been looking for arriving at the next gate.
Fake It
At least go through the motions
of kindness, generosity, love,
working out your prune heart
in reps of ten, then twenty—
whatever makes you feel
the ache of something changing.
Your father peeled an orange
every morning of your childhood,
dropped membraned portions
into your hands, cupped
with readiness. You know how
it is done. Dig with your thumbs,
pierce the pebbled rind.
Peel away the bitter until
the juice below sprays up
and stings the eye.
(first published in The Timberline Review Summer/Fall 2017 issue:
http://timberlinereview.com/)