Prayer from Gray’s River

Prayer from Gray’s River

When a mother kills the light in her son’s eyes
god moves stone like water for miles
and ash rains for months.

I collect mudstone from a bleached river bed
exposed by floods that come
most winters. I build

a cairn on my window sill. If I leave
the cairn sit memories leach
away so sometimes

when I’m strong I take a piece and taste the grit.
The last time I admonished Jack
I can’t recall my words

but under a glaring sun, I see his flushed cheeks,
his sweat-matted hair brushed back. I see
tears as he watches me

instruct him to work harder with the same eyes
that challenged his mother. It’s not like
I’m going to die!

he vowed two nights before she drugged him and
drowned him with a pillow.

The memory is unlithified--I return it
gently--undo only the slightest
flake with my breath.

(previous draft: click here.)

Approaching getting louder

Approaching getting louder

Listening from other rooms

to half answers half heard about school

I close my eyes, think of trees

and husband my fathering opinions.

I can ignore a car backfiring,

the curdling screams of bleeding cats,

the helicopter throbbing overhead,

but news about her hard day

or planned family outings

sends me readying. Listen.

My ringing ears hear gasoline drip

in every mothering voice.

Prayer at Gray’s River

Prayer at Gray’s River

When a mother seizes one life
god moves mudstone like water
for miles toward the Pacific
and ash rains for months.

I build a little cairn from mudstone
crumbling along a bleached river bed
exposed by floods most winters.
If I leave the cairn sit,

Jack’s memories leach away.
So sometimes when I’m strong
I take one shard from the top
and taste the grit.

The stone is weak, unlithified,
like my memories.
I place it back gently--
undo only the slightest fleck

with my breath. The last time
I admonished Jack
I can’t remember my words
but I do see a glaring sun

and his cheeks flushed from drills
his sweat-matted hair
brushed back, the tears in his eyes
while he watches me instruct him to work harder

with the same eyes that challenged his mother,
It’s not like I’m going to die!
he vowed, two nights before she drugged him
and drowned him with a pillow.

an Ars Poetica

an Ars Poetica

Mother says unless you have something nice to say …

she struggles now to finish

to say anything at all.

Mom stopped watching news a long time ago.

Maybe she will watch the weather when there's a storm in the Gulf.

If my sisters push her hard she’ll watch an Antiques Roadshow

and wake smiling when some hidden gem is unearthed

people are happy then.

Dust is wiped away.

What mom didn’t say was that if I had a rock

bleached almost completely white

tumbled smooth by decades of breaking waves

so smooth you can see a glacier’s heart beating inside

and if behind one line of cloud

the sun was setting

and if it was warm,

and if the road was empty,

and if a young crab clasped the culvert grate

and an osprey surveyed the salt marsh from its perch

so that the only noise I hear are pebbles

rocking in the gentle surf and H’s breath.

And if H chose the rock

for a photo she sent her daughter
wishing she were near

what mom didn’t say was

that if I have that rock

I have a poem.

Biting Orange

Biting Orange

I pushed a thumb into the rind.
Its bitter tear stung my eye.
I didn’t like the work an orange required.
The seeds, the sticky pulp, the pale flesh
under my nails like chalk.
Smelling limonene all day?

A dark veined sliver of ivory soap
slipped down the kitchen drain.
My skin’s oil failed an essential’s onslaught.
Strong reagents in mother’s classroom
or stranger brews beneath the sink
unveiled a cleaner smell,

shaving the weeks a human takes to shed its skin.
I want simpler fruit than she provided.