Breathless

"Grief is stupid."

To feel nothing.

At least grief reminds us
that there are things worth losing,
things worth dying for.

To feel nothing
is to die from a random bullet
in the countryside.

To grieve is to hear that your husband
was shot by a gambler,
much handsomer than he.

"Take your top off."

You would, most of the time
because you only ever felt
his full attention
when you were making love.

He spoke, always with a cigarette
smoldering in between his lips,
eyes darting towards the pregnant phone.

To love him was to lose him.
To not love him was impossible.
Somehow his compliments would derail
into praises of foreign women's faces

and asses,
but the way he called you charming
sent shivers down your slender fingers.
Try to see your smile from the side.

"Cowardice is the worst flaw."

Worse than recklessness?
Worse than infidelity?
Worse than betrayal?

Cowardice is the acknowledgement
of the tiny creeping voice
that asks if perhaps you are wrong.

Bravery is stepping on that voice
until it's screams are stifled
so that you never need
to think twice.

Stern Commands

To father is to captain
the tall-masted ship
through dark and icy waters,
emerging from your quarters

only to bark swift orders
at the blind and sunburned crew.
Navigate the foreign seas with gusto
as if you are certain of this direction,

but at night you stand alone
at the bow, staring into the sky
searching for polaris, the only stable star.
All you see are shapes of noble women chained,

awaiting the jaws of the sea monster Cetus
or the sword of some bastard, orphan hero
Perseuing immortality. She waits, immobile,
with galaxies swimming in her eyes and hair.

You retreat below deck, stepping around your sleeping crew,
pause before the youngest, watching his eyelids quiver as he dreams.
You pull the salty blanket up under his chin and hope
he will be strong enough to someday steer this ship in circles.

family gardens

To mother is to cut off your finger,
plant it in the garden.
Wake up everyday, crying on the soil
as the sun rises.

Tend to the cuticle bushes
and knuckle stalks.
Regurgitate lunches onto gaping sprouts,
sit in the lawn chair all night long

guarding your seed from scavengers.
Watch the blossom of brilliant
reds and yellows exploding
on the face of what was once a mere digit.

Helpless as passerbys stop and breathe
deep your disembodied fragrance.
You struggle with one stranger,
who tries to prematurely pluck

the narrow stem, and a sharp thorn
or blade of leaf cuts deeply
and you withdraw, shocked. To mother is to surrender
your flesh to undecided freedom.