3 Poems

What she didn’t say:

Is I. I am not your hand
which I know, as it checks
for water, pats your seat once,
then twice. I am not
what you ask for when you
look for what you
need: something with palms
open or head hung.
She didn’t say: I didn’t say I
will be here when you
come back. But I will. Be here:
come back. I didn’t say I
am thirst or I have thirst
as you are not
my water. Didn’t say
I am small, thin as this instant
or over. I didn’t say don’t ask
for that, or if you do
lift your goddamn head.

Talking to Statues

You said, being with me was like waking up with glass legs.
I said, this house is not a home. Not your home, not my house.

There are many things I am afraid of: Mostly, I am afraid we’ve forgotten
too soon, or worse, remembered all the wrong things too long.

In the last year of your Grandmother’s life she believed she was Dorothy and her family
the lion, the tin, and the straw.

Because there was nothing left for you and I to do, we wrote down everything we wanted on a slip of paper and burned it.

Crinkled, pale, and absorbed into flame, because who knew how the universe worked, if it were up to us, it just might work this way.

Family Remains.

I did not build the pew in which we sat after, as a family, without you.
I have never built a thing.

The difference between marmalade and jam, you told me, has something to do with process.
A followed recipe, you told me, has something to do with finality.

The place you left us, fit like belt notches- Tight. Tightening. Tighter.
I have two sisters.

One knits sweaters the color of maple leaves and
the other trades in a currency that leads directly up.

Butterflies hover—Round my mother cause they love her.
My father cuts the sleeves and legs of his winter shirts and jeans at the first sign of sun.

Seasonal materiality, you said.
They are the most resilient pair of denim

One sister wears the watch that once belonged to our mother.
No longer tells time, but the face is her face. I have a feeling.