Today Means Amen Read online

  her face like an astronaut’s helmet

  as if to say, I am not of this, I am only

  a visitor. As if to say, if you’re coming

  for me too, then don’t you dare miss.

  Change, it moves like a bullet and

  you already pulled the trigger.

  For My Niece Livia, Age 8

  After Amy Gerstler

  It is 90° in Los Angeles this morning

  and I am drinking hot mint tea. So much,

  in fact, I have probably peed at least six times

  in the past two hours. My voice is sore

  and not ready to face the day. My throat

  is a field, a cavern, a hill up which

  a hundred words crawl. Sometimes,

  it acts more like a waterslide—thoughts

  running to the top only to slip back down

  on their bellies. Livia, I realized this morning

  that one day soon you will be old enough

  to read my poetry. A scary thought

  for your parents but no more alarming

  than the fact that soon, your child body

  will swell and stretch like an unfamiliar

  dress, a building uncollapsing. Soon,

  you will realize that everyone in the world

  is afraid of looking stupid, and therefore,

  you too will become afraid of looking stupid.

  I want you to know it wasn’t always like this.

  Once, you entered the bathroom while

  I was brushing my teeth. Mid-conversation,

  you pulled down your pants and proceeded

  to sit on the toilet, your tiny feet barely

  brushing the tile floor. No pause. No

  embarrassment. Quite literally business

  as usual. You made soft grunting noises

  as your body did what every body does.

  I know that when you are old enough

  to read my poetry and you find this poem,

  the one about the sounds you made while

  shitting, you will probably be embarrassed,

  perhaps even hate me a little. I’m sorry.

  Maybe it’s the quirky aunt in me. Maybe

  it’s the poet who finds something thrilling

  about unapologetic sounds, the dashing glory

  of childhood that curdles at the arrival of shame.

  How, in that moment, you reminded me of

  my own animal, my heirloom fear of being

  wild. How you, plank-legged fairy, princess

  of wolves, have taught me to screech like

  an owl or its witch. Livia, I am warming

  my voice today and I feel like I am lacing up

  my armor. I feel as though I am off to fight

  the dragons or better yet, befriend them.

  I am trying to teach poetry in school districts

  that only know how to starve. I am trying

  to show my students, who don’t know

  how to spell, how to write their lives

  in anything but blood. I am trying to learn

  how to give and foster forgiveness in a body

  that wants none of it. When you are finally

  old enough to read my poetry, I think

  we will have a lot of catching up to do.

  I have enjoyed relearning you as you age.

  Every year unwraps a new layer. Every poem

  is a different thread of me. Soon, you can

  read each crude, screeching, slimy,

  heart-wrecked line. My sweet firecracker.

  My toothy walnut. Your mother has already

  given you a bookish vocabulary, which

  includes words like feeble, specific, and galactic—

  abnormally large for the average 8-year-old.

  Livia, your words are weapons; your voice

  is the strength it takes to wield them.

  Better yet, let’s free ourselves of violence

  as you have only ever been a valiant

  champion of tenderness. Livia, your words

  are lightning bugs. Your voice is the darkness

  that allows them to glow. Please know

  every sound you have ever made and will

  ever make will always lead to grace.

  So, until then, until we can swap poems

  and cartons of ice cream, I leave you this note:

  I am thinking of you on this scalding day

  as I drink my tea. I am imagining your skinny

  legs and your simmering laugh and your bursting

  eyes and the way you climb confidently into

  my lap to snuggle with your aunt, even though

  you are getting so big and so wise and so soon,

  you will be old enough to read all this.

  A Thousand Pieces

  My mother does not write in her diary,

  too afraid someone will read it. Instead,

  she writes on scrap paper, rips it up

  into a thousand pieces, throws it away.

  Once

  my husband slammed

  a thousand pieces

  the screen door

  the house thousand shook

  pieces fell off I shook—my children

  are the only pieces things

  keeping from killing falling

  a thousand into

  pieces my daughter is

  stubborn like

  the dishes

  I can’t

  broke

  the thousand

  pieces

  leave.

  Progress Report

  A found poem from an e-mail written by my grandmother.

  He is in a wheelchair and

  is pushed wherever he needs

  to go. He no longer gets

  physical therapy but they

  walk him if he wants to.

  It takes two people to walk

  with him. He has been

  eating quite well on thickened

  liquids and mechanical foods.

  Their goal is for him to

  gain weight—has gained

  two pounds since being there.

  He participates in the activities,

  especially the musical concerts.

  He has not been roaming at night—

  that phase of dementia is over.

  It’s okay to bring him candy.

  We have been bringing

  peanut butter cups (a favorite)

  but I suspect anything sweet

  is good. When Cindy visited,

  he responded with “yes”

  or “no” answers. He didn’t

  remember Julie was there

  yesterday with her new dog.

  He thinks he’s in a hotel

  and that’s alright. He holds

  tightly to our hands when

  we say “good-bye” but doesn’t

  try to stop us from leaving.

  In the Train Station in Munich

  The train is late, a woman says to me, except

  it is in German so I just smile a confused smile.

  I am sorry—I only speak English. Her face round

  as a pastry and dark as molasses or something

  that isn’t edible but still illustrates how she differs

  from me without making her consumable.

  It is cold here in Munich today, she says,

  and she wouldn’t normally take the train

  but she doesn’t feel like walking. Originally

  from Ghana, her accent wraps each word

  in a thick, wool blanket, her English
stuffy

  but warm. She tells me her daughter jumped

  from the highest building in Las Vegas. No,

  not suicide, she says, she was tied to a rope

  and bounced right back up as if the earth

  rejected her. Language is the passing of water

  from hand to cupped hands. Impossible

  not to spill, we lick the bounty off our wrists.

  But I could never come to America, she says.

  Your police, they are too aggressive. I imagine

  the boy, the child playing with a toy gun—cowboys

  and Indians, the game every white child gets to play

  without being actually scalped or shot. I think

  of the unarmed dead. I think of the families.

  To hear a mother howling is to believe all humans

  are animals and all animals are built to grieve.

  No, I do not want to come to your country. I tell

  all my family in America, do not resist the police.

  Do not question. Do not reach for your wallet. It is

  the only place where your money is no good.

  Thanksgiving, 2011

  As we began our drive home

  from Iowa, up the long sigh

  of the Midwest, full of turkey

  and the kind of fruit salad

  that’s made with Jell-O, talking

  aimlessly about the desserts,

  the tacky upholstery, I did not

  expect you to turn off the narrow

  road onto scattered gravel,

  the parking lot of the graveyard

  sagging out like the bounty

  of a cornucopia. It would

  sound too cliché to write

  how the trees slouched just so,

  the stone stumps like corn

  scattered by some forgotten

  god, the green green grass.

  When I realized where we were,

  where you brought me with

  no warning, like death, my tears

  came instantly—not because

  you learned too young what a body

  diluted looks like but because

  I knew this was the moment

  I would meet your mother, or

  at least, where you lost her for

  the last time. Back to the earth:

  the farmer’s wife, who bore land

  and harvest and six strong sons

  before that last, long winter.

  God Bless Your Fingers

  Ten sugar-dipped strawberries. Ten humming sailors. Let the church say amen. Let the chapel doors open and open again. Ten gentle explorers who found my body buried inside itself. Who can see in the dark. Who can baptize me from across the continent. Let the church of my legs say bless. Let the church of my breasts say oh god. You have found the presents I hid from you. You have grown in me a basin I can never fill. Ten wise men. Ten pilgrimages across my stomach. Ten lit candles. Ten holy ghosts. I am a séance. I am a séance.

  Your Love Finds Its Way Back

  One day, it just showed up on my doorstep.

  Honestly, I don’t know how it found me again.

  The last night we spent together, I lured it

  away with a trail of breadcrumbs—a necklace

  swallowed one pearl at a time. Such a hungry

  little bloodhound. I led it deep into the forest,

  fastened its legs with twine. Dug a hole.

  Said I will jump if you jump and it did,

  just like I knew it would. And now,

  here it is again—on its submissive back,

  its pink underbelly exposed and I cannot say

  I didn’t want this. That I haven’t waited

  by the window. I sculpted your body

  from the dust on the doorknob. I’ve hoarded

  your name in my mouth for months. My throat

  is a beehive pitched in the river. Look!

  Look how long this love can hold its breath.

  Missouri

  The man next to me on the train

  smells like cigarettes. Not just one.

  He smells like twenty years of smoke

  in a house with no windows. I don’t

  normally talk to strangers but for some

  reason, I ask him where he is going.

  Missouri. His mother’s house. Divorce.

  Says she never treated the kids right.

  Asks me what kind of woman ain’t

  meant to be a mother? He speaks like

  he is unraveling a scroll in his mouth.

  The flat body of Illinois floats past us

  as if we were underwater. The train

  becomes an eel drawing itself across

  the bottom of the sea. We talk about

  traveling. About the four states he has

  yet to see: Alaska, Hawaii, Washington,

  California. I tell him I’m sorry for

  his unhappiness. He says he isn’t

  and I shouldn’t be either. Just another

  ride that’s taking too long and it’s time

  for him to get off. In Missouri. Missouri.

  He says it twice. Lets the taste of it

  simmer in his mouth. Misery, he says.

  Huh. Never realized it sounds the same.

  Remember

  This is your wife, Barbara.

  This is your son, Scott.

  This is you, in your Navy uniform,

  waiting for the train to come.

  You always said you only chose

  the Navy because the uniform

  matched your eyes. Remember?

  My grandfather coughs. I hand him

  a water bottle. For the past hour,

  we have been alternating between

  a photo album and me reading

  aloud to him from his 400-page

  self-published autobiography.

  When he fumbles, I open the bottle for him.

  Our hands touch and his cloudy eyes

  look up at me, wet with recognition.

  The first page of the album contains

  a note from the nursing home staff.

  In big kindergarten letters, it reads:

  You have a disease that affects

  your memory. We are here to help.

  Look, Grandpa, this is the house

  you grew up in. The farm.

  You told me your sisters used to

  put on extra layers before milking

  the cows in the morning so the smell

  of manure wouldn’t follow them to school.

  Do you remember your sisters?

  His words come out like shy children,

  slow and hesitant. He tells me

  he remembers but does not say more.

  I read somewhere that people

  with dementia might lie or pretend

  to understand to avoid embarrassment.

  I try not to think about this

  and turn the page.

  This is you and Grandma

  playing guitar. You always said

  that she played bad and you

  played worse. I remember when

  you taught me my first chord.

  It was the G chord. Remember?

  The bathtub is slowly draining.

  The photograph is developing in reverse.

  All those words just floating about.

  His mouth an empty mason jar.

  The fireflies just out of reach.

  My grandfather picks up his autobiography,

  holds it up in awe as if handing it to God

  and says the most words he has said all day:

  Did I actually write this? I don’t reme
mber.

  If dementia is the body’s longest goodbye,

  then let these be the last memories

  it pries from your fingers:

  This is your wife, Barbara.

  You told me the summer you eloped,

  her skin was sunburned the color of a cherry.

  This is your son, Scott.

  He has your eyes, navy blue.

  This is the house you grew up in.

  This is you, teaching. You were

  a teacher. This is your wife singing.

  This is your granddaughter.

  She wants to be a teacher like you.

  This is you. This is it. In the end,

  this is all that is left.

  The memories, the moments, the people

  who love you to the body’s unflattering end.

  Just yesterday, it seems,

  you were waiting for that train.

  It’s here, Grandpa. It finally came.

  PAY THE BOATMAN

  Happy New Year

  If the entire existence of the Earth—

  all 4.54 billion years—were condensed

  into just one year, accordioned together