The soundtrack of our mornings went like this:
Paul Harvey on the radio,
lunch money slapped onto the counter, 45 cents
{a quarter, two dimes},
plastic bowls still swimming with milk dropped into the kitchen sink,
the metallic clink of your wedding band as you gripped your cup of tea,
the diesel engine of a school bus rolling down the hill,
and our footsteps marching off -
one by one -
to fill in the blank spaces.
Nine lives
are not nearly enough
to do it all,
I whispered in your ear, complaining.
You turned your head on the pillow,
told me,
"You don't have to do it all,"
as if those words could comfort me.
Their blanket smothered me instead.
I closed my eyes.
But what if I want to?
Storms
come and go,
but the waves of you
are endless
and swallow me whole.
Summer,
with your slow rolling days,
your green, green - yellow, pink!
with your wildness and bare feet,
you.
You will always be my favorite..
Happy birthday
to my brother -
that mysterious figure
closed off
by eight distant years.
Happy birthday to that man
I hardly know
but can feel pulsing in my veins
as our history
writes itself.
There is still censorship
in my mouth.
But my heart
rooms free.
Oh, it roams free!
I am made
of mountains and valleys,
oceans that roar,
deserts long dormant,
and a map I tore up long ago.