DECEMBER 22nd

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Soon,

                        there will be no more springs.

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           Winter will take to earth, frozen

time soldiers marching

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                         to the sounds of porch steps.

                December 22nd will repeat over

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and over again. The live oak,

                             your red prickly poppy,

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               the dog houses will crack

crumble              convulse

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                           and you stepping

                onto that front porch,

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slipping on the first

                      icy step. This time,

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                                 when I reach

                      for the phone,

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          I’ll try not to

                                dial the numbers

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                              and refuse to carry you in,

                 through our front door –

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               Brush memory away

& weld it shut.

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EASE

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Six years of living and already strapped to life.

Ease escapes you. Time on the kitchen table,

sand of the hourglass, suspended, hovering,

              needing to move.

Outside while all the plants turn blue,

you like to watch yourself

on death’s bed, cushioned by the Indian

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paintbrushes your mother favors.

Unsure where the water and land

meet, but the frogs are signaling.

You got out of the bogs of one hometown

           to be trapped in another.

Wrinkled now but the mind is fifteen. I mean really,

was the only solution to find another human shield?

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I know how you used to stand outside in the dark

             and freeze, how

you would foam at the mouth when you cried.

Stuck on your own fixation for wanting things

to stay the way they were and yet hoping for change.

            Go on, little one, and stand

on so many more years wishing.