Trivia
On the train, a woman and her two children
read trivia questions off a McDonald’s bag. What is
a baby otter called? You would have been
about the age of the younger daughter, old enough
to understand if I told you otters play
and how unusual it is to see wild animals do things
that serve no purpose for survival. Your mother, I imagine
at an open window—light off the ocean, impatient
to take you walking in our invented cove.
There we deleted the past and it was you,
chasing plovers into the water.
Listen: there were once two people
who loved you very much; into your sleeping skin
we whispered our wishes for you. What is a baby
horse called? Your fingernails on my palm
as your hand opened and opened.
The doctors let me sit there until your lungs
rattled shut. Then I saw you traveling
some place gauzy and golden, the afterlife
I made up to feel less guilty for how we failed
when you were alive. As I watch, I realize
the children are reading to their mother, who follows,
proud and apprehensive, over syllables she can’t understand.
What is a baby cat called? Listen: there were once two people
who loved you very much and they no longer know each other,
no longer know if this morning the other placed a hand
on the window checking the weather. But you are in me
chiseling out. Listen: there were two people
and one wants to say otters roll in the waves
for no reason except sheer pleasure and the other
wants to say she is sorry, she wishes it had been better.
The girls lean against their mother, eyes closed. She stares
at the bag, face knitted, fingers tracing the mysterious letters.
Is she wishing it was different? Or is she thinking
of stories to bring them, tricks
for how to tell if a pear is ripe?
Listen: there are two people, far away
frightened of each other’s memories,
and they love you so very much
their love just widens and widens inside them.
Mint
after Yusef Komunyakaa
My sister and I are men
hiding in boxcars
when we climb on the brickpile
in the backyard. We reach for mint
that has run rampant, choked the flowers,
pretending we are plucking corn
as the train passes fields in Iowa, Illinois.
At school, we learned that elephants return
to bones of their herd, worry
the ground with their trunks.
Our house is so old
we find handmade nails in the baseboards.
We are five and six
returning to the bleached ribs
of factories crouched along the river.
The mint is tough
and it burns our mouths. We eat it
and are sick. I rub my skin
red against the nail.
We are mistakes--
a lineage coughed up after the Civil War
by a man who shouldn’t have survived
the mud of a Virginia prison.
He had delirium tremens,
arthritis, and visions, but
also one daughter. They are ours.
My sister and I want to travel
without knowing the words for Detroit, Ohio.
In our city yard we feel the rivers
move away from us.
We eat mint and flowers that grow in the shade--
starved fugitive men.
At that age you believe in a boneless past
but we had seen the bank after a flood
and knew what the dark water dragged.
We wanted to follow river back
past the abandoned warehouse
touch the ground where they lay.
On the train, a woman and her two children
read trivia questions off a McDonald’s bag. What is
a baby otter called? You would have been
about the age of the younger daughter, old enough
to understand if I told you otters play
and how unusual it is to see wild animals do things
that serve no purpose for survival. Your mother, I imagine
at an open window—light off the ocean, impatient
to take you walking in our invented cove.
There we deleted the past and it was you,
chasing plovers into the water.
Listen: there were once two people
who loved you very much; into your sleeping skin
we whispered our wishes for you. What is a baby
horse called? Your fingernails on my palm
as your hand opened and opened.
The doctors let me sit there until your lungs
rattled shut. Then I saw you traveling
some place gauzy and golden, the afterlife
I made up to feel less guilty for how we failed
when you were alive. As I watch, I realize
the children are reading to their mother, who follows,
proud and apprehensive, over syllables she can’t understand.
What is a baby cat called? Listen: there were once two people
who loved you very much and they no longer know each other,
no longer know if this morning the other placed a hand
on the window checking the weather. But you are in me
chiseling out. Listen: there were two people
and one wants to say otters roll in the waves
for no reason except sheer pleasure and the other
wants to say she is sorry, she wishes it had been better.
The girls lean against their mother, eyes closed. She stares
at the bag, face knitted, fingers tracing the mysterious letters.
Is she wishing it was different? Or is she thinking
of stories to bring them, tricks
for how to tell if a pear is ripe?
Listen: there are two people, far away
frightened of each other’s memories,
and they love you so very much
their love just widens and widens inside them.
Mint
after Yusef Komunyakaa
My sister and I are men
hiding in boxcars
when we climb on the brickpile
in the backyard. We reach for mint
that has run rampant, choked the flowers,
pretending we are plucking corn
as the train passes fields in Iowa, Illinois.
At school, we learned that elephants return
to bones of their herd, worry
the ground with their trunks.
Our house is so old
we find handmade nails in the baseboards.
We are five and six
returning to the bleached ribs
of factories crouched along the river.
The mint is tough
and it burns our mouths. We eat it
and are sick. I rub my skin
red against the nail.
We are mistakes--
a lineage coughed up after the Civil War
by a man who shouldn’t have survived
the mud of a Virginia prison.
He had delirium tremens,
arthritis, and visions, but
also one daughter. They are ours.
My sister and I want to travel
without knowing the words for Detroit, Ohio.
In our city yard we feel the rivers
move away from us.
We eat mint and flowers that grow in the shade--
starved fugitive men.
At that age you believe in a boneless past
but we had seen the bank after a flood
and knew what the dark water dragged.
We wanted to follow river back
past the abandoned warehouse
touch the ground where they lay.