UNTITLED (an altered sestina)

My father has weather-beaten hands.
When I was young, I would trace the path
across his palm, climbing the callous mountains,.
sliding into the softer, fleshy valleys.
“You are as old as the earth,” I said,
and he laughed, tousling my hair.

He, a child once,
born of the open air,
swam through dirt on knees and hands
(singing Jai guru deva om)
with flowers atop his head
until his mother frowned, and made him take a bath.
He, a rebel once,
drove through valleys
accelerating until he could no longer tell
houses from mountains.

And the houses, and the mountains,
they became concrete bases, bound with wire, where they cut his hair,
dressed him in forest colors.
Valleys became volleys,
and he learned to hold a gun in his still-smooth, shaking hands,
learned to walk a straight, unflinching path,
one boot in the shadow of the last:
“Service before self,” he said,

“one over all,” he said.
Days grow into mountains
behind a desk, following the war's path
(tearing out his hair)
with a pen, jotting down the numbers with hands,
ink-blood-stained hands, tracing the valleys

of line graphs, of the bodies in the valleys.
“Un ab alto.” he said,
but it tasted like chalk on his tongue now. His hands
clench, unclench, try to move mountains
to no avail. He tries to grow out his hair
to no avail.
There is no signpost on this path,

this pockmarked path
he travels now. He takes off his boots and walks valleys,
and tries to shake the scent of death from his hair.
“The deeper you go, the harder you fly,” he said,
and smiled now, eager to climb mountains
he could master with only his hands.

His hair smells like earth, and the path
we take, hand in hand, takes us through valleys
he knows, but I have never seen.
He said: “This is how you climb mountains.”

UNTITLED

We put on slickers, and rain boots, and wield umbrellas
like rapiers, and go out into the day where day is

not day so much as dusk forever. Outside, the cold
nips at our ankles like excited dogs and we keep tripping
over them, it, something. Someone? I can see my breath
and I can see yours too, and I think it's copulating in front of us.

My hands are in my pockets (is that a nickel?) nestled like
bears in caves, trying to keep warm and I hope they have
enough food for the winter or else they will never survive this.
Raindrops kiss us all over, lavishing us with attention,
too much attention, as we cross the avenue and we bow
our shoulders and crawl into our jackets and hope they will go away.

Where is the sun I ask, and you grunt and I feel stupid for
asking because it was a stupid question. I miss her though.

SLIPPINGFALLING(TOO FAST
(inspired by E.E. Cummings)

Slippingfalling too fast
stop,
stop,
stop) into you,
you are so boyskin warm
(letgo)
can you hear (god) my heart?
i can't breathe--
(Slippingfalling stop, stop, STOP)
--can't you breathe for me?
never (LET
GO) let go.

SORRY

I have seen a wild thing feel, truly feel,
sorry for itself.

A small bird may drop frozen dead from a bough, true,
without (seemingly) ever feeling sorry for itself,

but I have seen a dog retrieve it,

all wiggles and shivers and pure dogjoy,
and drop it at his master's booted feet--
expecting praise.

And I have seen the hunter jab

the dog with the butt of his rifle,

annoyed with the pup's wiggledance,
his fuzz-flinging tango.
I have seen a wild thing feel
sorry for itself;
The bird was lucky to die living.

THE ORANGE DAISY
(for my uncle, 2.6.1973 -- 4.5.-2008)

To write about the pain of a family member's death is to try to catch a sparrow mid-flight. One might feel the whisper of a feather against a fingertip, or find a single word, or phrase, but it is never enough. The bird is never caught. The words are never snared. As the years pass, this becomes a moot point: the pain lessens like all pain lessens, and it is better to look forward than back. But, like all things, it is never forgotten in its entirety, and it is never remembered in the same way.

Cormac McCarthy wrote that “You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” I remember a funeral. I remember my uncle's waxen forehead jutting like a hilltop from the silver smoothness of a casket. I remember my aunt's shaking hands resting on her pregnant belly. I do not remember my uncle's jovial smile, or the lines of his face, or the jokes he used to tell as well as I used to. Looking at photographs is like looking at a stranger, somehow familiar but difficult to place in life's undulating trajectory. I tried to write about my uncle –the person, rather than the idea-- many times, but found no words to describe him. I chased after the proverbial bird until my muscles burned, but never caught it. I was left exhausted, crumpled pages in my wake.

--------

I am in a tattoo parlor, and it smells like antimicrobial soap. I have been here for an hour now, and I am stretching; it is nearly as tiring to remain still as it is to run a mile. My shoulder burns, and I trudge to the mirror to look at it, and smile. There, adorning my skin, is the perfect black outline of a daisy. My boyfriend peeks over my shoulder and locks eyes with me in the mirror. “It looks good.” He smiles.

“Do you think Benny would have liked it?” I ask as I twist in the mirror, looking at my inflamedjoint from every conceivable angle.

My boyfriend squeezes my other shoulder, “Of course he would have.”

-------

My uncle, Benny Divita, died when he was 35 years old. The cause of death was never determined, even after an extensive autopsy. His wife was pregnant with their first child. At the funeral, I watched her. She looked straight ahead through the entire presentation, and did not cry so much as dab the invading tears as soon as they surfaced for air. Her palms never left her rounded stomach, as if protecting the child from the pain he would soon know, and would later come to understand.

Rivers drained out of my eyes. The daisies surrounding Benny's coffin blurred into daubs of vibrant color, like a Pollock painting.

------

My tattoo artist returns from a smoke break and smiled. “Ready for part two?” he asked, settling back into his chair.

I nod, still peering at myself in the mirror. I am ready. We begin again, filling the daisy's petals with my uncle's favorite color, the color of pumpkins, and autumn, and warm things.

------

There was a wall of snapshots just inside the doors of the funeral service. In one image, my uncle is young, and blond, and roguish. In another, he is holding a little girl in a pool. The little girl has an arm wrapped around his neck, and a cheek pressed against his. Their smiles seem to go on forever. I stared into those little girl's eyes for a long time before I realized she was me.

At the very bottom of the wall is a photograph of myself and my uncle, on a merry-go-round some years after the first picture was taken. We are posed as before, my smaller form leaning on his much larger form. There are no pictures of us when I am older, and colder, and unable to tell him that I needed to lean on him still.

-----

My uncle's son is two months old before I meet him. He is round and beautiful. I am shy around my aunt, and am unable to say this aloud, so I give the baby my finger and let him squeeze. When no one is looking, I lean down and whisper, “You look like your daddy. I can't wait to tell you about him.”

The infant's lips crinkle, and he blows a spit bubble.

-----

Before I walked into my tattoo appointment, I called my mother and asked her what she thought of my idea. She asked me if the placement were wise. She is, after all, a mother.

“I think so,” I responded, “It feels best.”

“What about your wedding day, whenever that is, when you have to wear some strapless number and get your photo taken?”

I smiled into the mouthpiece, “Benny would have wanted to be at my wedding.”

----

Somewhere, a sparrow takes wing.

EARHART

I read somewhere
that all that is solid
melts into air
like Amelia's
wings, like
the engine exhaust
that curled
behind her
like a
question mark.

They say she
did it for love.

I wonder if
she regreets
the storm, or if she
follows the slope
of his shoulder
and banks left
into the darkness
of his mouth.

THE SILK FLOWERS

He gave me silk flowers
because he knew I hated to
watch a living thing die.

I put them beside the
kitchen sink.
a group of well-dressed
women leaning in
on one another's
fleshy arms, lips
pursed around heated
gossip, chests inflated
like mallards.

I watered them every day
until the glass vase overflowed
and they bobbed like corks.

Sometimes, when
a breeze swept through
the open window
they would dance, throwing
their heads back, and
beckoning me with long
fingernails, painted rouge.

I was curious once,
and touched their petals.
They were not
velvet-skin-smooth like
a baby's blushing cheek,
the flesh of an orange.

Nor did they smell like
earthy things, my mother's
old perfume, the one
that reeked of church
services, shoulder pads,
and hugs that took
your breath away,
choked you.

To the touch,
they felt like flaking
skin, and smelt
like the inside of
a bandage.

I remember the funeral
for the silk flowers,
the one we held in
the backyard.
I said: I hope,
someday, there would
be a reason to love them.

They were never
a glimpse of god.