Some Writing

I have written a thousand poems

about the light. Seeking it,

leaning into it, being assured

it will come. Today, I watched

a moth batter itself into

my screen door as if my living

room held a meal, a mating partner.

It was too needy, the moth,

rampantly starving for glint

and flicker. Now, it's inside,

attached to the gold of the

computer room, realizing

the wall is not the sun,

like I do so many times feasting

on quick or false bright.

Earlier, when I was at stopped

in traffic, a monarch flitted across

the lower edge of my windshield,

swept up the driver's side,

then flirted with my window

dipping towards me, then away.

It turned and darted to the back,

making a circle around my car.

I don't know why I cried, but

I did. And now, seeing the moth,

its second-cousin, trapped here

in my home, I know why. Light,

with all its allure, pulls you

to it, demands your allegiance.

But freedom, wily and generous,

allows you to find your own way.

Fifty some first graders squished into a Google Meet,

the screen lined with boxes of six and seven year olds.

They were listening to a guest speaker talk about

well-digging in Haiti. (We talk about those kinds of things

early at school. Every student knows we are sharing

the planet and water is one of the things we are sharing.

Every student knows we strive to be open-minded

and caring, we learn by asking questions and we live

by being principled. Yes, they know that word before

they lose their baby teeth, principled.) With the dust

still settling from Wednesday’s insurrection, these babies

smooshed their eyes to the screen, learning about

the clean water underground and the way we need

to dig deep to call it up, the way we need to lock the door

to the well shed to protect what is precious, the way

we have to use buckets with lids to not contaminate

or lose our crucial resources. We talked about the

company who sponsored the digging of the well.

At the end of the talk, during the Q and A, one girl

raised her hand, unmuted herself to ask this: Does

that company dig wishing wells, too? The adult faces

melted on the screen, our hands reached for our hearts.

If only we could dig wishing wells and stuff our pockets

with wishing pennies. If only we could be six again,

knowing hope is as important as water. If only we could

dig that pureness out of us, if only we could dig that

deep, that easily.

Last night, little league under the lights.

Five boys crowding second for the throw

coming down from the catcher after “Balls in.”

Another skipping around left field unaware,

the batter in the on deck circle adjusting

his helmet, tugging on his batting gloves,

just like the men he has seen on tv.

And there, a quarter turn on our planet,

men locked in a cage and drown in a pool,

men on their knees with explosive necklaces,

men chained into a car with a missile

aimed at the gas filled engine.

Or, across our continent,

a man shot for selling CDs outside a gas station,

a man shot with his baby girl in the backseat,

a man shot down for wearing a hoodie,

a man shot down when he ran away from the police.

Since I teach fourth grade, so I knew when the pitcher

needed to pulled off the mound. He’d walked four,

then five, the runs were all his fault. He kept looking

to his coach, stoic against the chain link fence.

Maybe it’ll be good for him, I could feel his thinking

from across the diamond. We all need to face adversity.

Then another walk, and another. The coach

did not move, believing hard helps. The boy tried

to hide his tears, tugged his shirt over his face,

pulled his hat down, too. I squirmed in my

discomfort, the bleachers stiff beneath me.

Finally, the pitcher just stood there, like we do

in times like these, arms extended, palms up, looking,

desperate for someone to see our call for help.

This table was sanded by someone

I don’t know. The eggs, which are coming,

by a stranger too. The road I drove on

to get here was made by men I’ll never meet,

and smoothed by miles and miles of cars

driven by people who don’t know my name.

This book, moving and challenging me,

was written by someone a friend knows,

but she and I will never cross paths.

I wish they could know of my gratitude:

the carpenter, cook, road crew. The printer,

prose writer, and publicist too.

We are all so essential and still not-seen.

The tree planters, kiwi pickers, the soldiers

and architects who level the land.

The miners, pipe fitters, the seamstresses

who thread machines. What around you

was not lifted by another’s hands?

Only the earth and its reckless prizes.

Yesterday, I felt the pulse of my life

in the choral thrum. Today, while

realizing this about others, I don't feel

it for me. This morning, a friend

asked us to describe her in three words,

I chose reserved, unyielding, and

generously appreciative for blessings

and bad. I want to beg for your words,

more desperate than she, but I’m afraid

no one will know what to say. I am my work,

and it dissolves, sweet like sugar in rain.

The right thing to say would be this:

there will come a day of bones and teeth,

when these fingers will do nothing

but lay stagnant then burn to dust.

There will be a day when all that

you have done has melded into

the greater good. How right and

humbling it is to realize that

everything matters and it all floats away,

untethered to nothing but time.

And still, in this truth, sleeps ego,

the one who wants to be assured:

Have I built a table from my life?

Paved a wide and beautiful boulevard?

What from me, if anything, will remain?

It’s so easy to think they are grown,

the way they zip around the computer,

click clicking their way to a twenty slide


presentation with imported graphics. 


And so natural to think they are always 


steady and sure when they solve this: 


4(x + 5) + 5 = 21 without hesitating.


I always assume that they’re mature


when they write with words like multiple 


perspectives and satellite maneuvers. 


But today, while talking about the causes


of childhood obesity with the fourth graders, 


I saw C spinning something around his finger. 


After narrowing in closer to take it away, 


I saw it was his nurse necklace, 
a small

molar-shaped plastic box
 attached

to a thin blue twine. 
Every kid gets one

to make sure 
the tooth lost at school

makes it home
 for the tooth fairy.

It stopped me. 
Stopped me cold, purposefully.


I looked around the room, saw 
each of

those shiny new faces, 
some with

their weekend haircuts, 
others doodling

superheroes in the margins
 of their workbooks.

Gentle, I thought, 
go gentle with these dear ones. 


Their bones are still growing, 
their hearts

are just barely 
bigger than sweet tangerines.

First, you have to understand the geography of fine dining. If there is steak, more than likely there is salad - far left fork, smaller than the entree fork - and a water glass - an inch above the knife. The wine glass off its shoulder. The desert fork might be lodged up there, above your plate. An eyebrow. Don't touch that until it's time. When your plate comes, it should arrive from the right side with the filet at six o'clock, easy access. But don't count on it these days. No one knows who Emily Post is anymore. But me? I can still see the light blue book worn from use, the pages yellowed, the spine cracked in certain places when my mother had to show me something more than once. There are rules, you learn far too early, about knives and napkins, answering a phone, speaking when spoken too.

My mother decided it was time for me to cut my own meat when I was eight, brunching at the Pittsburgh Press Club. It was Mother's Day or Easter, I’m not sure. I know I wore an embroidered dress that ribboned around the waist and knotted in the back. Shiny shoes. Short bangs. My front teeth so crooked I had given up smiling. I held the heavy warmed plate and inched my way down the line. Deviled eggs. Radish roses. Broccoli smothered in Velveeta sauce. A stack of Eggs Benedict. Then the carving table. Ham, if I wanted it. Lamb, which I always walked past. Prime rib anchoring the table, the prize, it seemed, for having to get so dressed up. I asked for a rare piece, happy when it flopped over the rest of the food. I pushed my plate towards my dad, who had always cut my meat into smaller pieces, but my mother said, "No, not today Jean. You need to cut your own, if you want to eat."

It would have been easy to grab my fork in a fist and trap the beef as if it had been speared. I remember when my first girlfriend did that on our third date. How she stabbed her falafel wrap like it was a threat to her. How, smiling, I recoiled. How I knew she'd said she and I came from the same background, but I knew she was wrong. My blood ran bluer than hers.

It would have been easy to do some modified child's version of cutting, but I knew this was a test. My mother lifted her fork and knife like they were drumsticks, I did the same. With the prongs facing down, I greeted the prime rib, then my knife, politely, sheared a small bite. I knew to put the knife down diagonally on the right corner of the plate. Shift my fork to my right hand, lift the first bite to my mouth. Her eyes on me, watching that I was doing it correctly.

My Milwaukee grandmother's favorite meal did not need cutlery. Fried bologna sandwiches, pickle chips and stick pretzels. I don't remember eating with my other grandmother, the one in Cleveland, because her favorite meal did not need a knife and fork either. All bourbon needs is ice.

I have eaten alone more than most people have. Watched, from the twotop with a nervous waiter hovering near me. Families brimming with children, hands reaching over hands, plates circling to the right so that everyone can try a taste of everything. Other families stiff and formal, the day weighing on their faces. I have watched couples eat. Some never talking, their eyes glazing out into the space between tables. Others leaning in, scooping hummus from the same dish, sharing the same lime torte. Loud chewers, open mouthed chewers. People who burp in celebration. Women raising china tea with their pinkies proper. Pizza cheese stretched towards a ready mouth. Hands wiped on blue jeans. Grease swiped from lips with the back of a shirt sleeve.

I watch people eat with the same way I sit on the lip of a conversation, my ears swatting away errant sentences. Him and I went to the baseball game. They made the wild rice soup for Julie and I. Even on tv, the newscasters can't get it right. I know my mother was preparing me to be properly prepared in the world, but these rules are one reason, among a silverware chest of reasons, that I spent so much time on the edge of the circle.

The first two days after my mother had a severe hemorragic stroke, she could still eat yogurt. Peach yogurt. My brother and I fed it to her in small spoonfuls. She oo'ed and ah'ed after each bite. Lifted her chin so that we could scoop the spills from her face the same way you'd maneuver globs of carrot puree back into a baby's mouth.

And when Johanna was dying and asked to receive her last communion, I scoured the hospital, finding white bread wrapped in single slices for that night's meatloaf dinner and pomegranate juice. I fed her the juice on a sponge that she had to suck, the bread in a tiny pebble that she let disintegrate on her tongue.

No please and thank you for these meals. No tearing off a piece of dinner roll and buttering it chunk by chunk.

As I am writing this, clouds are sliding across the sky to Lake Superior. Pine trees are standing silent vigil in virgin forests. A loon is resting its voice. Another is singing its song. Wind and sea have no etiquette. Just bending and flexing to work with each other well.

When my fifth girlfriend and I sat down at her table to eat our first meal together -- saddled on either side by her daughter and son, the taco fixings lighting up the middle of the table -- I saw her pick up her fork the same way that the first girlfriend had. Stab the steak fajita. I thought, here is a second chance. When her son looked at me and said, "Where are you from, Jean?" his mouth ringed with 2 percent milk, I thought, what a good question. When no one gave me a napkin, I stood up and got my own. This is messy, I thought. Loving, living. I picked up my taco, and when the hot sauce dribbled down my chin, I let it sit there a while before I wiped it away.

Darkness overcoming light,

Thin cold air, burnt edges of red

on the leaves. These signs place

us all on the steep slide to winter.

It’s so easy to think death, dormancy,

to think of the heavy coat of guilt, shame.

But these are the months when fruit

freely falls from the trees, when it

aches to be gathered, eaten. See the

harvest moon, how it shines down

on you with a richer light and clarity.

You don’t have to work hard to know

what is asked of you. There,

your honey crisp hangs – all of the

sweet and delicious ways you are you.

There, your sassy McIntosh.

Your winesap, fermenting

your goodness all summer long.

Your ginger gold. Your gala.

Even your Granny Smith nodding

her old and wise head. Here,

here is your basket. Here is your hand.

This is the time to harvest what feeds you.

When a friend came back from Israel,

she said picking cereal in a grocery store

was overwhelming. So too, selecting

the new color for my house, which

has been a little girl's yellow for forty years.

At night, I hear my bungalow mumbling

to herself. How can I pretend any longer,

she asks. This happy yellow, when life is so

much more disobedient than a primary color?

When I bought my house, I was young

and hopeful, and now, I am old and hopeful.

That may sound like the same thing,

but those of you who are over fifty

know the difference, don't you?

Old hope is rubbed in dirt, shadowed

by unexpected pop quizzes and temptations.

Broken bones, fractured hearts, farsightedness.

Old hope has scars on her knees, age spots

on her hands, which, despite what they've

held and pushed away, still open and reach

for the glass knob on every front door.

This is the thing about the coming of hope:

it comes when it wants. You can't cajole it,

speed its journey, push it in the small of its back.

It crosses the street to greet you when

it's good and ready. Or you are good and ready,

free from distraction and burden, levied

by a release or some newly created space.

It may not happen for me until February

when that first crocus pokes through the grass,

or mid-July. Heck, light and renewal

may miss me altogether this year

and next, but it will come. I have faith

it will come, for in this slow and steeping

darkness, I see a star shining in the distant east.

It does not retract its light or its shimmer.

Someday, I'll make it there, swim under

its faithful and persistent illumination.

For now, I will put my head down,

press my spirit forward, lean into the hard wind

of living, tears pinching out of my eyes,

as I squint for the thing I cannot yet see.

When Kim asked what the highlight was,

I did not say the singing, which was loud

and strong and full of conviction. Nor

did I speak about the trifolds that looked

better than the ones made for eighth grade

History Day. I did not mention the

applause I heard spilling out of every room,

or the comment, “I am a grandmother

and I have been to many many Shaker events

in many years, and this one was the best.”

I told her about this moment, when the kids

got carried away giving Isaac Smith high fives.

They started rushing the edge of the stage,

and I swept in, stood in front of them,

my back to the audience, and with my eyes,

I said no, no, this is not going to happen.

All seventy-five at them looking at me,

seeing that I would not accept less than

their best. Kim did not quite get it, how we

really are in loco parentis, how we step in

when a child is crying and offer the nest

under our wing, how we sit down at eye level,

just as instinctively as the best father or mother,

and nod our heads as kids tell us how it just

is not fair or right. How, when the song

is done, we wipe tears away from our eyes,

tears made of love and pride. How, even

when something is heading south, they can

look at us, and, just with our eyes, and

the relationship we have built, we can say,

you are better than this. You can shine brighter.

You go to hear a poet read,

one who is so much better than

you could ever dream of being,

and he speaks to you about the family

of flowers in his Southern Indiana farm.

You do not know the mulberry bush

or the goumi berry. You do not like figs,

like he does, but you do know the juice

of a juicy plum, not eaten with your father,

like him, but with a woman you used to love

and think of still. You know flowers,

but they are more simple flowers, names

taught to you by your mother, now gone

nearly nine years. The crowned daffodil.

The reedy narcissus. The geranium, always red.

Your garden is packed with children.

Andrew who walked with his hands

in his pockets. Angel with a pout begging

you to hold your stance. And their mothers,

who stop you in the grocery store,

when you are just trying to run in and out,

with some almonds and a honey crisp apple.

You do not have a garden, but you know

that you and he both tend preciously.

You know that you and he have both

watched trees bloom and bear fruit.

You and he have planted seeds

from the tips of your expectant fingers.

So, when he talks about peonies, how

the ants lick the sweet nectar that holds

the blooms together, you begin to cry,

knowing you have urged hope

from the strangest places too.

You have crawled over a landscape

of white to find an edge. You have stood there,

unwavering, determined to lick the petal free.

This is what a good writer does:

tells you about his garden, the way

his father’s ashes are buried under a tree

so that you can know your garden

and sink into the soft place where you

have tucked your failures and love.

Jane Hirshfield looks like a poet.

Those quiet eyes, that crinkled hair.

You can just tell she ate quinoa

for dinner, eggplant and lentils too.

Wiped her tiny mouth politely, never

gulping the water, her wine. I look like

a PE teacher who is about to gorge on

a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon,

have two refills of diet Dr. Pepper,

which is true, but not defining.

I've just read ten of Jane's poems

to ready myself for tonight's reading.

I especially liked "Rebus" which spoke

about the choices we make, how

they fold in on each other, some like

a ladder, some an anvil, or a cup.

If I were a poet, I would write about

the choices I have not made: The epic

No Thank You of 1981, the Battle of Austin,

the Treaty of Dellwood Road. Tonight,

Pluto is overhead. I know this, but forget.

Tomorrow, my skeleton will launch itself

to vertical again, but I won't feel its strain.

How much of life, I wonder, goes unnoticed,

what if, long ago I would have said yes?

Would, then, the ladder be a symbol of rising

not fear? The artichoke be a tongue not a sword?

If I think about the lives I have thrown away,

the years I spent silent with poems itching

my fingers, I can only wad my hands,

then shove them into my tight pockets.

I’ve lost my voice nearly completely,

my throat is raw, my head pounding.

Needing lunch and dinner because

the fridge is empty, I went to Chipotle.

(Weird choice, I know). I mouthed

my requests to the servers, imagine

my lips moving, “Bowl to go, chicken.”

The first girl completely understood,

and just started pointing? White rice?

Fajita? I nodded once then twice.

She asked about the beans, I chose

black, but, by then, she and I were linked

and she would’ve done anything to help -

jelly beans, baked beans - if I wanted them,

they would have appeared on my plate.

She told the next server about me,

and I got the same perfect treatment.

Me mouthing and nodding, our eyes,

like with the last, completely on each other.

Picture us smiling too. How could we not,

seeing each other and helping so clearly?

I want to say this: those two young women

gave me profound hope for the future.

If I had a big corporation, I would have

hired them both, no further questions.

Good people pay attention, and these

two were very, very good. And what,

you ask, does this have to do with God,

This, my friends, is God, is Jesus.

They aren't on some mountaintop,

circled by angels and archangels.

God is with us and Jesus is off the cross

roaming our streets, selling us shoes, perhaps,

providing us with legal counsel, and even

slinging tomato salsa and cheese into a bowl.

It must be spring, and by spring you mean

a new incarnation, a new incantation,

spring as we have never known spring before.

You can hear it in the halls today:

the volume tweaked up a bit, the smack

shoes galloping to get somewhere fast,

dozens of water bottles filling after recess.

And you can hear recess too, not winter recess,

which is more muted by the snow and

the sheer effort to stay warm.

Spring recess is scatty, dappy, fatuous.

You can hear chasing and cavorting,

even here, by the front of the building.

You can hear that thing that bubbles up

in March - after some the birds have

made their way back home, after snowdrop buds

are dotting flowerbeds, after the sickness

so strong and persistent starts to fade -

you can hear impulse, you can hear yen,

you can hear us all running to our ransom.

The handle broke on the toilet,

and that will cost 400. I lost

all of my writing on my iPad.

My butt hurts and I don’t know why.

Kim almost broke up with me

for a reason that is still unclear.

And, I dyed my hair – a permanent color -

without thinking about that,

and now I am going to be

one of those goddamn women

with a skunk stripe down

the middle of her part. A week ago,

I was in Ralph Abernathy’s church,

very much believing in a God

and a destiny and a purpose

and now, this low grade disappointment

in myself and my life, is something

that will last forever unless I flee.

Unless I sell it all, throw my nets in the sea.

Find a messiah, whatever

that may be and pledge my life to it.

I thought crossing bridge would

make me into a goddamn golden

big bright bridge, but Highway 80

runs west and east, not in one direction,

and my car, the big car of my life,

keeps driving me from light

to darkness, over and over,

with no rest stops along the way.

Just a now, a small girl in the hotel breakfast area.

Her two-year-old hand
 on my leg as a way to say hello.

She speaks Chinese, points at objects.

When she 
points at my glass, I say water.

When she 
points at my napkin, I say napkin.

Her parents
 are trying to whisk her away,

but I could talk with her all day. 


She knows the secret of naming, 


that's a game I stopped 
playing long ago. 


How much easier it would be if I simply

put a finger in the direction of what I do not know.

After pointing, 
someone would tell me what I see.

Pointing. 
Love. Pointing. Friendship. 


Pointing. Good fortune. 
Pointing. Last chance. 


Pointing. Don't forget. 
Pointing. Water. 


Everything around us 
water, water, water.

My father smokes in my presence,

the exhale often flying right at me,

and I did okay, except for that one time

I yanked my turtleneck above my nose.

I’ve held the door 863 times, even

though that rarely was reciprocated.

I tipped a bad haircut generously,

so too that waitress at Tommy’s who

always looks like she could use an

extra twenty in her pocket. I listened

to the same story four times forty

because it was the right thing to do.

And I clapped for sixty really bad songs.

I could name dozens of people who

overlooked, disregarded, ignored,

helped, aided, assisted, gave,

forgave, excused, and pardoned me too.

Especially that woman whose car

I hit in the pool parking lot, who

could not have been more conciliatory.

What if we flooded the IRS with these

acts of charity, what would they do

with a country this bold? And who would

we become if this mattered as much as

writing the easy check and attaching

a stamp which no longer even needs a lick?

Here are our deduction lists for 2020

dear tax man, acts in kind, no depreciation.

I love a woman who lives far away,

and, even though we have known

each other two years, it’s a new love.

We’re still learning things about one another,

big and small. We’re still getting used

how to move around each other

and when to stay still. When to speak,

and how to hold the tongue in graciousness.

How the past shapes us, and what we

need to change and move on from.

I don’t know what size pants she wears,

though I could guess. If I tried to make her

favorite meal, I might be a tad bit off.

We’ve never bought toothpaste together,

She probably does not know that I use

Sensodyne upstairs and Crest 3D Whitening

downstairs, because I want my teeth to

feel good and be attractive too. Last time

I was at her house, my shampoo

and medicine stayed in my backpack,

because, soon enough, I would be leaving.

Once, a very long time ago, a woman

I was seeing came to visit my apartment.

We had a good day, talking together,

eating together, cleaning up after the meal.

When she headed to the guest room,

I went into the bathroom to ready myself

for sleep, and there, in my toothbrush holder,

was her brush and mine, together in one place.

The tops facing each other, as if our heads

were touching. When I asked, weeks later,

if she remembered that, she said yes,

she had done it on purpose. She wanted me

to know that feeling, the feeling of not living alone.

Jesus probably cleaned his teeth the same

way the contestants do on Survivor, rubbing

them with a stick, poking the gums for stuck food.

Maybe even bones and bird feathers, too.

I’d even imagine he did not have all of his teeth,

and, surely, they were not sparkling white

like pictures hanging on Sunday School walls.

But, he did know this: When we are lucky, we get

to put our vulnerability next to someone else’s.

Get to stack our bowls in the same cabinet,

rub ointment on our tired feet from the same tube.

And, at the same time, we all are walking around

alone, our bones in our bodies, hearts thumping for one.

Jesus knew the mysterious union of love and alone,

and that is why - that is why - God knows too,

and is always there to be with us. In every moment.

When we are rubbing the sink with Softscrub,

when we are kissing the foreheads of our children.

When we sleep, and even when we are standing at

the mailbox, sending our Valentine miles away.

I woke up at 10:21, and when one wakes up then, the experience of the light in my bedroom is different. The experience of light in my bathroom is different. Today, I noticed splashes and splotches on my mirror.

Last week, at school, when the girls had made a bloody mess of the mirror, I cleaned it with soap foam. I pumped a lot into my hand, splayed it all over the mirror, then wiped clean with our recycled brown paper towels.

This morning, I did the same thing with my mirror. Didn't use Windex, didn't use some sort of all-purpose cleaner. I pumped some grapefruit Method hand soap into my hand and covered the mirror with suds. Then I wiped it all clean with toilet paper. It looks perfect.

It struck me, this phrase: washing the mirror.

Instead of trying to wash myself of my perceived sins and faults, instead of getting stuck in any thoughts of wrong-doing or self doubt, I should clean the mirror. I could wash away the way I see myself, instead of trying to fix who I am.

It’s about changing the perception, not the source.

So I stood there in front of my washed mirror, really looking. My sleep hair, which I love. My short haircut, which I love. My face, which I love. Honestly, I think I have an all-star trophy winning face. My dark old eyes, which I love. My thin gentle smile, which I love. My waddle chin, which I don’t love, but don’t need to hate. My wide shoulders, which I love. My silly social distancing shirt, which I love. My strong body, which my friend Leah at the pool points out quite regularly. She says, “Jean, I don’t think of you as fat, I think of you as strong. You work harder than everyone here.” My hands, which I love. My new nails, which I love. My marbles, so simple, which I love. The Gees Bend quilt postcard, which I love.

I’m not kidding you. I was not trying to coerce myself into thinking that way. I do love these things.

It would be so easy to look at the same picture and hate it all - and, believe me, I have felt that way on and off again in my life - but I washed the mirror. I washed away that way of thinking this morning.

The phrase: Washing the mirror, not “cleaning the mirror,” seems like a good title for a book, or a poetry collection. Or some sort of women’s retreat, offered seasonally for $99 to some of my closest and not closest friends. Either way, after this morning, I came away wanting to write again. Another resurrection gift.

Washing the mirror. Tuck that into your brain. Onward we go.

My plate was empty, but I was not sated.

Talking about racism, the ability to truly

empathize with another, the range of

experiences sprung from the same event.

We never moved from the dining table

for three straight hours. Mining, we were

trying to extract something valuable

from the deep veins of hard rocks.

Somewhere, years ago, my plate was fired

in a kiln one thousand degrees hot. Kaolin

turned the porcelain white, feldspar

made the sheen. Did you know feldspar

can be metamorphic, formed by a quick

catastrophic explosion, or sedimentary -

stagnancy, stillness, pressed over time?

I felt like I was eating both, something that

could change quickly, and something that stays

the same over hundreds of long centuries.

But I ate, we ate. Forks were raised, cream and sugar

was passed. We said please, and thank you

as we lifted pick axes, made the first cracks.

We labored together one hard swing after another

as shards of truth splintered off the surface,

then laid there, dangerous and beautiful.

I always saw this story from my point of view. I always saw this story from where I stood. From deep in the lockers. Out of my twelve-year-old’s eyes.

My brother, mother and I would often go to the outdoor pool late in the evening during the summer. I remember the long driveway, the roundabout, the parking lot ahead, the long brick wall where we stood in line with our passes. I remember the passes, small metal codes sewn to our suits. Different shapes and numbers each year. I remember the turnstile, the cement floors, the turn to the right to left depending on your gender. I remember the locker room.

There were some lockers to the right, a narrow space divided by the wooden bench. A tucked in space, where I always went. There was a larger area, where women stood in the open, disrobing and putting on their suits. That’s where my mother always went.

I remember the light streaming in from upper transepts. Those cartoon book sun rays. I remember mom always seeming to stand smack dab in the middle of one. I remember being far into the corner, my back to others, somehow figuring out how to take off clothes and put on a suit without ever showing skin. My shorts off. My underwear off, my suit pulled on. My arms scooped back through the armholes, grabbing the suit and pulling up as my shirt came off when my shoulders raised. The whole thing took less than a minute, I’m sure.

Mom stood in that ray of light. Took off her shorts and underwear. Folded them carefully. Took off her shirt, her clownishly large white bra. Folded them carefully. Completely naked. Mom had a belly. Now, I’m sure she weighed 240 maybe 250, but then she was always just the biggest mom. That did not matter when she had her clothes on. Everyone loved her with her clothes on. From my deep corner spot, I looked at her whale belly. I could not believe she stood there, in the light, that way.

When I go to the pool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I walk into the locker room and take a left, away from the lockers. I go to the handicapped stall to undress and put on my suit. No one else does that at the pool. They all sit in the locker area, with their wrinkles, their droopy boobs, their stretchmarks and hair. Me? I’m still tucked into a safe corner.

After mom was dressed, her suit always bright yellow or bright pink with a flossy skirt, we would go to the pool deck. Always the same spot, on the right side near the first lifeguard chair. I remember mom’s scalloped bathing cap. I remember mom’s breasts in her well-supported suit, sticking out like ray guns ready to shoot out the sky when she did backstroke. I remember backstroke, her short slow strokes taking her all the way across the pool. I remember freestyle, her short slow strokes, bringing her back. Other women sat in lounge chairs, other women chatted with friends. My mother swam.

I have always told this story from my point of view. I have always been the child in this story. I had always typed it with twelve-year-old fingers. But today is the fourteenth anniversary of my mother’s death, and I want to tell the story a new way.

When mom and dad rented a condo at Amelia in their seventies, they stayed at a place with a pool, and even though the pool was smaller, mom wore her loud suit and fancy cap to swim every day. I have no doubt she would have swum their first day there in 2007, but a stroke changed her plans. When I visited Amelia, I would swim and mom would swim, but everyone else lounged by the pool. Some kids came and went, playing Marco Polo and jumping in from the no-jump edge. One visit, some tweens were making fun of me and my large 240 pound body. Not quietly, enough. I swam over and told them to stop. Their parents got all riled up about me speaking with them, and I repeated exactly what they had said to me. That shut the whole pool up. I went back to swimming.

I have always told this story from my point of view, crippled in the corner, shame on my skin, shame in my eye. I have no idea why mom got dressed in the main room, I have no idea why or how she was able to stand fully naked, dressing for the pool. I have no idea why she - a very social person - chose to swim instead of do what all of the other women were doing. But she did.

That’s the story I want to tell now.

I remember the long driveway, the roundabout, the long wall, the cement floors, the left turn into the locker room. I remember my choice to huddle in the corner. I remember my mother’s choice to stand in the light. I remember her careful disrobing. Her tender care with her clothes. I remember her pulling her stylish bold suit from her swim bag. I remember her holding it out in front of her, admiring. I remember the way she bent over to take each step into the leg holes. I remember the way she shimmied the suit up, making sure it fit just right. I remember her tucking her breasts into the sturdy cups, something that always took a little adjusting. I remember seeing her smile at the person next to her. I remember her sending a compliment to the person to the right. I remember her nodding in my direction and swinging her head to the pool. I remember her going from the light of the transept, through the dark canal to the pool, out into another summer golden hour. I remember my other pulling her cap onto her head, tucking her bangs under the front ridge. I remember her gently dropping into the pool, holding onto the edge, taking a big breath. I remember her pushing off, backstroke. Her belly to the sky, her eyes squinting from the western sun, her face smiling as she worked her way purposefully down the lane.

That is the way the story should be told. That is the way the story should be remembered.

I went to the store to get butter,

but when the magic doors opened,

the florist department was blooming

to my left. For no particular reason,

I had not bought or received flowers

in a year, maybe more, so I pulled out

five gerbera daisies, one dollar each,

wrapped them carefully in green tissue

and held them so the stems would not break.

All day, I have been thinking about

the deer I saw hobbling across

South Park with a crippled back right leg,

and the coyote that scurried through

the cars on Lee. The man in front of me,

in the grocery line, was wearing

patchouli and, even though he was

sixty-five, maybe seventy, he had a

grey man-bun atop his gay head.

Trying too hard, I thought. But

aren’t we all? The deer, the coyote,

the kids in my math class chewing

their nails. This man, and me,

answering emails until midnight, calming

myself with tv and too much sugar.

Aren’t we all working too hard

to cross the finish line at the end

of the day? Striving too earnestly

to be cool or loved or simply

stay alive? Buy yourself flowers,

then. Lay down in a comfortable

chair in the sun. Get leather seats

in your new flatbed truck. Close

the door of your bedroom so that

you can have some time away from

the kids, especially the one who

is lying to you. Paint your nails pink,

let the taco juice drip down you

chin onto your favorite shirt.

Wear your fat pants, wear them

out in public. This is a short life,

there are many roads to dart across,

many bones waiting to be broken.

For now, do something good for yourself.

Do something that will simply

make you happy, not because you

deserve it, but because it is there,

like the whole world. Waiting to

serve you, delight you, take you back

to the beginning, when all you wanted

was more, more, and then some more.