Untitled I

Waking dream, call to Prayer

Hallucinations of your breath giving me air.

After years, a mended heart beats

Between layers of skin and bones that won’t quite meet;

Beats the rhythm of the city outside

The paper windowpanes where millions once died,

And have been buried or dried in the unforgiving sands

Beneath the same sun that warms our homeland.

I think of you here among the yellowing tombs where

Children are mourned and born and the air

Hardly moves.  I know you once walked

Your feet among these copper pots and bits of trash and you talked

Your mouth to the men holding tubes in their jaws

About the meaning of god and the writing of his Laws

With your face turned upwards to the oxidized gray—

Puff and sigh—smoke ring memory floats away.

We used to talk of picture book places far

From the bucket seated, frosted windowed car

You drove me home in, crunching the ice,

Leaving tracks of mountainside mud in winding slices

On the road leading to my dark house where

Nothing seemed to change. The leaves turned and fell, the air

Barely ruffled as they floated to the ground

I waited on, hoping silence would turn to sound.

The nights when we talked of our plans—our pain—

We dreamed of our futures (separate, yet always the same).

We looked at the city below blinking and bright

And you marveled at the beauty of electric burning lights

I knew you’d leave: first love barely come and already lost.

I had heard, even then, what they said about rolling stones and moss;

But I would have stayed for you, followed you, done

Just about any or all, to wake every morning to the next sun.

Years later, my feet have walked the same miles

Stood on the same stretch of street overlooking the Nile—

The history here, longer even than the road

Stretching between the adolescent hands we used to hold

Without ever touching skin to skin to skin.

Here, between the governments and monuments, among the dirt and the din

I can’t help but remember your eyes when you

Finally said – too little too late to really be true. 

The Lawn Chair

When I was littler I used to cry a lot.  But not anymore, I don’t cry now.  Now I’m seven, and a big kid.  And big kids don’t cry.  That’s what my momma says; she says big kids don’t cry. Sometimes I still want to cry, when I get scared or hurt, but I learned that if I close my eyes really hard and bite my teeth together tight then no tears come out.  So that’s what I do, I shut and bite and I don’t cry.  Momma is real proud of me, I know ‘cause she’s coming to see me, that’s what she said.  She said she’s coming to see me when I talked to her on the phone.  I talk to her on the phone every Saturday, and she always tells me she is real proud that I don’t cry anymore, and that means she loves me.  I know.  She’s my momma, so I know what she means.  I know my Momma, and sometimes she doesn’t say what she means to say, sometimes she has a hard time saying stuff, but it’s okay.  Sometimes I have a hard time saying stuff too, but I know what she means.  She never has to tell me twice, I always understand.

I used to have a pink bed when I lived with Momma.  The covers were pink, not the bed part.  Pink used to be my favorite color, but not anymore.  Now I like yellow.  But I liked that bed, the pink one.  It was soft and cozy.  Momma said it was cozy.  She used to come and lay down with me in bed when I went to sleep, and she would always tell me it was nice to be so warm and cozy.  That meant she loved me.  I liked it when she used to sleep with me, but she only did sometimes.  Some nights she would leave, and some not.  Sometimes she used to sleep hugging me like little girls in movies fall asleep holding their teddy bears.  I don’t have a teddy bear.  I don’t need one; I’m too big for teddy bears.  Sometimes, she would cry.  I don’t understand why she would cry, ‘cause she told me that big kids don’t need to cry.  And Momma isn’t even a big kid; she’s a grown up.  Maybe since the grown ups make the rules they are allowed to cry, maybe I’ll be allowed to cry when I am a grown-up, but I don’t think I’ll need to.  I don’t cry anymore. 

I wonder where Momma sleeps now when she’s sad, and who she hugs.  I live with Daddy, but I don’t like it here as much.  My bed here isn’t pink, and it isn’t yellow either.  My bed here is dark blue, and it’s too big for me.  Daddy never comes and sleeps with me, and sometimes I get scared at night.  And I miss Momma.  When I miss her I want to cry, but then I don’t.  Not anymore.  I try really hard, but sometimes, even though I shut my eyes so tight and bite my teeth together as hard as I can I cry a little bit.  But no one ever sees me because I only cry a little bit when I’m all by myself in my bed that’s too big when I miss my momma at night and Daddy isn’t home.  I think Momma would be mad at Daddy for leaving me home and going out.  She used to get mad at him a lot when I was littler.  She would get mad when he would come home late.

I remember them yelling; they used to yell a lot.  It used to wake me up, the yelling.  But I never told them that, they think I kept sleeping when they would yell. And sometimes when they were done yelling, Daddy would leave again, and Momma would come in to my pink bed and cry.  That was before she told me that big kids didn’t cry, it was before she made the rule.  No one ever told me where Daddy would go when he left, but I would hear the front door slam shut the way Momma used to tell me not to and then I would hear Daddy’s car.  I don’t know where he would go so late at night.  Some days he wouldn’t be home when I would go to school.  I didn’t like those days, Momma was always really sad.  I remember when he stopped coming back at all.  No one told me why, just one day Daddy slammed the door after he and Momma yelled for a long time and woke me up, and he wasn’t there the next day when I had my cereal.  And he wasn’t there when I got home from school, but that happened a lot.  Daddy never came back to my house.  He would drive up and I would go and get in the car with him, and we would go get French fries and ice cream.  Momma never came out of the house when I went to Daddy’s car, she stay inside after kissing my head and telling me to have fun. 

Daddy and I don’t go and get ice cream anymore.  Now when I come home from school in his car, he goes into his office and closes the door.  I’m not allowed to bug him when the door is closed.  So I go and play by myself downstairs.  I’m good at playing by myself, you have to be good at playing by yourself when there’s only one kid.  I’m the only kid, and Daddy’s always busy with grown up stuff, that’s what he says.  He is busy with grown up stuff, so I am good at playing by myself.  Sometimes I read books, but the books Daddy has are too hard for me, but I try anyway.  Other times I watch TV.  Momma doesn’t like it when I watch TV so I don’t do it too much, but sometimes I get bored when Daddy is in his office for too long so I do it anyway.  And I always do my homework.  I promised Momma that I would always do my homework even though I don’t have my desk anymore.  In my house I have a desk, a desk for grown ups.  I like my desk.  It is in my room, next to my bed.  Sometimes I miss my pink bed.  I don’t miss my desk ‘cause it’s not cozy.  But I still like it. 

Today, when I was eating my cereal I asked Daddy when I get to go home and sleep in my pink bed again.  He got mad at me and told me that I am home.  But I don’t think he remembers, my house isn’t this house.  And I miss my house.  I told him that I have to go home soon, that I miss Momma and my pink bed.  He looked mad and went into his office and shut the door.  I was late for school.  Whenever Daddy gets mad, I’m late for school.  My teacher doesn’t like it much.  She asks a lot of questions like the ones Daddy used to ask when I was still living in my house.  I never liked answering Daddy, and I don’t like answering my teacher, either.  She always sounds mad, like when I come in late from recess.  She doesn’t like it much when I do that.  She always tells me she’s not mad, but she sure sounds mad.  I don’t tell her that I’m late because Daddy got mad.  I told Daddy that Momma was sad and then I had to go and live with him.  I told him that and then he came into the house and they yelled a lot.  I wasn’t even pretending to be asleep when they yelled that time, I was standing right there.  They kept talking about me, but they didn’t remember that I was right there.  Momma asked me to go to my room and put my clothes in my backpack like when I go have a sleepover.  I stayed in there for a long time ‘cause they were still yelling a lot and I don’t like it when they yell.  Daddy came and got me and told me it was time to go.  He said it was time to stop dallying.  I told him I had to go give Momma a hug ‘cause I always have to give her a hug before I go someplace.  That’s how she knows I love her.  Momma was in the front yard.  She was in the front yard sitting on the old lawn chair that I like to play on.  Momma doesn’t like the old lawn chair, she says it’s tacky.  But she was sitting on the lawn chair by herself.  I gave her a hug, but she didn’t hug me back.  She was crying.  I didn’t cry though, and Momma was proud of me. 

I waved the whole way down the block, but Momma didn’t wave back.  She was mad at me for telling Daddy that she got sad.  And so I don’t tell my teacher that Daddy gets mad ‘cause I want to go back and live with Momma again.

 I get to see Momma tomorrow.  We’re going to see her, and we’re gonna play at the park.  I like the swings best, but I’m real good at the monkey bars too, even though I’m still little.  I can go on the high ones with the third and fourth graders even though I’m only in first grade.  The other kids get scared ‘cause they are so high up, but not me.  I don’t get scared.  Maybe the park where we’re going will have high up money bars, and I can show Momma that I’m not scared of them.  We aren’t going to the park by my house ‘cause Momma said she’s going to be somewhere else.  She said she’s staying somewhere else.  I don’t think she wants to stay in my house ‘cause I’m not there.  When I’m not there she doesn’t have anyone to put to bed or hug.  I wouldn’t want to live in my house if Momma wasn’t there.   And maybe they’ll have big swings too, and Momma can push me on them.  That’s my favorite, when grown ups push me on the swings.  And maybe she’ll make me pancakes for breakfast.  Tomorrow is Saturday and on Saturdays Momma and I always have pancakes with blueberries in them.  You have to be careful when you eat the blueberries though ‘cause they get really hot when Momma cooks them, and they can hurt your mouth.  But they’re still my favorite even though sometimes they hurt my mouth. 

I went and saw Momma yesterday.  There weren’t any monkey bars or even any swings at the park.  It was just a real big front yard all around a really big white house, and a lot of grown ups.  The house looked like a castle almost ‘cause it was so big. And a lot of the grown ups were wearing the same clothes, the boys and the girls.  They were all blue and looked like jammies. They were sky blue like one of the crayons in the big box we have at school.  Not Momma though, she was wearing her normal clothes.  I was the only kid there.  It was a long drive to the big house but I listened to my princess music and I sang along.  Singing in the car is my favorite.  Daddy didn’t come with us.    Momma was real happy to see me.  She hugged me for a long time and asked me lots of questions.  I told her that I always did my homework and was real good about playing by myself when Daddy was busy.  She liked that.  And I told her that I don’t cry.  I don’t know why but that seemed to make her sad.  She started crying, just a little.  She told me she was sorry a lot.  I don’t know why.  I asked her if she wanted to play for a little while, and we did even though there weren’t any swings or monkey bars at that park.  Momma said that I can go home soon and sleep in my cozy bed again.  I can’t wait.  She even said that we’d have pancakes for breakfast on Saturdays.  Momma couldn’t make me pancakes yesterday ‘cause you can only make them at home ‘cause they’re special pancakes.  She said that other people made breakfast at Saint Frances Institute.  That’s the name of the big house: Saint Frances Institute.  Only really big houses get to have names.  I had breakfast at Daddy’s house and then went over to see Momma.  I had cereal ‘cause Daddy doesn’t make pancakes with blueberries.   We had to leave before lunch time.  I still miss Momma and I want to go back home again.  Daddy can even come too if he wants to.

I get to go visit Momma again tomorrow.  I bet she’ll be outside waiting for me.  That’s where she waits for me.  She waits outside ‘cause she’s so excited to see me.  That means she loves me.  She’s so excited to see me ‘cause she loves me.  I know.  She never told me, but I know.  I always know what Momma means.  She never has to tell me, I know ‘cause she’s my momma.