Моя Сестра

Whispers. We need to hurry on the cake.
She has to be back by nine.

К сожленно, нам нушно уидтй,
мы уже опаздал.

Wristwatches

Я не хочу домой.

Я знаю.

Пошли. Let's go,
Legs under my hands,
head resting just beneath my right shoulder.
You sing-speak
"Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to Kate.
Happy birthday to James.
Happy birthday Miškas."

"James, my present"
I thought she was concerned because of the rain, that
the gift bag she was holding around my neck,
would get wet.
" Kate, my present."
" Steve, my present."
"Diana, my present."
"Miškas, my present."
Yes, even the family cat was claimed as a piece of
her birthday gift.

She could've cared less about the toys.
And did she deserve anything less than us?
Your sister saw profound wisdom, that you saw that God's true gifts were not
puzzles to play with but people.

"Домой, я не хочу. I don't like children's house,
I like Neumann."

Я знаю. I know.
Emma asked if these were all your brothers and sisters, these
other children.

You were so disinterested with cake, songs, presents.
You wanted us. A family your own for three hours two days after your
actual birthday. Father.
Have mercy
on us.

Twenty-Three

Twenty-three is too old for prom, too young for golf,
I've graduated from college, but I'm no adult,
The kids say "that's mad old"
But the elders still see me as very young
And I am restless, I am fickle, I am unsteady, and
difficult to count on. I'm very smart
But hardly wise, my hands and mouth
move like a toddler, learning to walk,
announcing their every thought.

Stephanie says I'm far too young to get married.
The elders think I'm getting old.
Southern parents pressure girls, who
instead want to move to New York.

I think I'd rather hang out with seventh graders, but
I'm no Peter Pan, I want to grow and grow and grow,
And never grow up, always growing softer, old
more childlike than before.

Trains come and Go

Trains come and go
I feel the rumbling down below
I'm hungry, home
Bittersweet contradiction
We were finding ourselves in these last
moments and
Now they have passed along
Aftermath of leavings flooded all last
year and I felt this year
just might spark me to life. It did,
now I am poured out. Tsunami
the ripples lives changed, faces, dreams,
God was speaking, but it's the stillness after the
storm that's devastating me.

Sky shapes, smiles, you saw a heart
I saw a beast Stars golden glow
Homework Godparents Farewells
I wish I listened better
You're such a boy, I'm such a
girl, emotions run red eyes the moment
I have space beyond, duty calling,
and you are gone.

Golden

Regal, resolute, golden sails unfurled in a glossy sky
I, sit at attention, watch the ships turn
Northward, then they drift into the sunrise,
a patterned carpet, blue and white,
and somewhere in the depths, a pearl
sparks morning light.

This harbour, busy as Boston, knows no commerce,
Just the people passing by,
A fleet crosses the Styx, an Augustinian
Armada of yellow leaves like dead newspaper clippings at sea.

Trust

A woman I was considering marrying
(by which I mean, I was going to ask her out to coffee when appropriate)
Made a comment that my love for children made me sound
Like a child molester. I don't think I've forgiven her,
And muttered something about Alyosha Karamazov,
that what I loved about the young is that they are honest,
They don't know how to pretend,
And they are ready and willing to try new things and have fun.
They are willing to trust.
Anyone who is around children knows it's not dreamlike,
Not easy, not birds and butterflies,
Kids. It's more like spit-up and tantrums,
hide and seek, and you can be yourself
Because everyone else is already being themselves.
She felt guilty and awkward and glanced away,
I was still talking.
(by which I mean, I was trying to tell her that what she said hurt)

Cotton Candy Dandelion Sky

Blued sky sweet tart half moon
With a cotton candy coating floating
White bread grey moldy off to the side
Crumbs feel minnows nibble toes
Something is here alive
The flies swing low, disappear below,
Frenzied swallows, choreographed hopes,
Sun blue dandelion gold, red bricks green weeds,
The tide of cars passing and
A muttering silence inside me,
A bouquet of purple thistles and dandelions
More profound than roses
illuminated cirrus manuscript faces
alight with day's end glow.

The Green

You are in the green
reaching veined fingers, a chloroplast dream
Inside every living body.
Sprites and Ents alive
But not me--I am not like the trees
When I shed leaves I shudder wince
I don't know how to die so calmly.
And the grass here--good Scottish grass
Stays lush even with freezing,
I close up shop and wait for spring
While the so-called Pansies lift their
heads under iced beards and bonnets
and the redbuds bend so gracefully
Even under icy sheets.
Even with my Vitamin D, I will be
created merely respiring, expiring, dying
consuming and where you walk
the life firework-springs between even
cement cracks, concrete docks off Staten
Island, and in the empty lots of Manhattan
your wildflowers reign.

We cut down, hack trails, bulldoze
the wild but we are fighting inevitabilities.
And when the new earth comes and we are
gone, the green will tear apart and
muscle up and fill the skyscrapers
and parking lots we constructed temporarily.
Kudzu and clover will reign,
And there will be peace.