Issue/Publication:

Poem

March 3, 2007

for Ariel, Ocean, and Angeline

My house is filled with women

once children under my care.

Blood daughter and friends from birth

commune-raised mothers now

capable hands slicing slick melons

pale cheese and rough nut bread

cradling and small jouncing heads

shirt-fronts stained with leaky milk.

Married well and happy, blossoms

rooted 30 years before when we were

loamy with intention for a new world.

Returning from hospital this morning

with a heart that could not snap its fingers

better than the clumsiest white boy

I ponder time -- my own and theirs--

an addition, first smiles and sounds,

the greyness of lost sleep,

dreams of skinned knees and sweet kisses

expanding into an open future

a red balloon rising in still air

Scarred but steady now

my lumpy heart nests in the soft

laughing curves at my table,

delight in this aggregation

this clicking and rustling

pretty shells gay in frothy surf

elation rising

departed from the ward

on my own two feet.