prayer for my legs

Carry me back to the Umbrian countryside,
its sunflower fields and coils of hay.
Return me to that restaurant spilling
to the cobblestone street, the wine
we drank slowly to make the money last.
Bring me to the dark courtyard where a family’s
weekend laundry hung and we shared
an impromptu kiss that reminded me
summer wasn’t yet over.
Walk me to the moonlit bridge, the ancient, ambient river,
the carnival, the cones of gelato faltering in the evening heat.
Deliver me to the farmhouse villa, the bread oven
breathing out drifts of red onion and basil and garlic.
Guide me poolside, then in, for leisurely laps
until four o’clock signals our siesta.
Wrap your inches around her torso, the teepee
of her ribs, her supine back.
Lead me to the beach where the water-foam
recedes to reveal a whole city of pale, pink shells.
Hurry me up the train platform just before the whistle blows.
Shuttle me down the aisle of a plane
that will cross the Alps.
Pull me through the apse of a thousand-year-old church,
the Uffizi’s snake of tourists, the fragrant chatter
of a late summer farmer’s market.
Stomp me through puddles of new rain, fresh snow,
a thick pile of maple leaves.
Stay with me through a hard-earned win on the court,
a bike ride along the California coastline,
a peace march, the zigzag down Lombard,
the Green Street stairs, afternoon rollerblading
under the Golden Gate, the climb up the trail in Fairfax
that ends at a waterfall.
Anchor me to gravel, to a surfboard,
to the 31 steps from my kitchen to the front door.
Bend me to the whims of yoga and snowshoeing and the Lindy Hop.
Follow me through six hours of a holiday party,
a babysitting job, an interview in heels,
the elliptical machine at the gym, the blocks
to the butcher’s, a morning of blackberry picking,
the rise of Chenery Street toward cinnamon rolls,
an impromptu jog around the stadium track.
Tiptoe me through the room where my nephew sleeps,
past a family of deer, through a field of the season’s last harvest.
Hold me through long lines at the movies and crowded
downtown trains and gondola rides
to the top of Heavenly.
Fasten me to water skis and costume boots.
Glide me on the ice rink come winter.
Slip me under the tongue
of basketball shoes.
Come. Follow me. Stay close.
I have so much still to tell
even though
I keep forgetting
to thank you.

pear

These last weeks, it’s been the pomegranate
stealing her attention with its circus of bright seeds.
She has made fancy drinks with it, crushed fistfuls
into a shaker glass, stained
the last millimeters of her fingernails.
Prayers have been made
in her midnight kitchen, tiny jewels
fed into the waiting mouth of a lover,
the counters flecked crimson,
summer swan-diving into autumn,
everything in her flayed open.

When she saw the pear,
she did not take it home thinking it would buy her
time, a better career, more money in the bank.
Though it would be easy to lavish praise
on that first bite, its tart smack against her teeth,
it was not a bible or soothsayer or a pile of stones
pointing northward.
She could extol its hippy silhouette on her windowsill,
but she did not imagine her reflection in its burnished frame.

Still, she could tell you something in her transfigured
before that particular section of the produce aisle,
how among the dalliances of citrus and artichoke,
the set stages of broccoli and purple cabbage,
the comic blunders of peas,
what she saw was an army
of mothers.

signs of autumn

the first day the scarf comes out
apple cider on the stove
heather grey
rust orange
aubergine
clouds like drifting punctuation marks
the couch
a good book
the coffee table kissed by heels
deep sleep
dreamless night
slow mornings
breath
hands pressing on the car heater
soft skin
chapstick
midsections
casseroles
long embraces
the magic carpet of a leaf pile
children and the first runny noses
store windows announcing Halloween
letting the jaw go slack
wrist-warmers
thick socks
the wind kicking up a notch
the view from Mt. Monadnock
movie rentals
Rt. 128 North
Rt. 2 West
the train tracks in Leominster
Bursey's farm stand
results from the algebra test
tryouts for the winter play
Parent's Weekend
soccer games
wool
afternoon light
a path in the woods
time like gold crystals
the slim margin between evening and night
letting go
winding down
turning in
saying yes, come here,
come here.

Breakfastor Meditations on love

1.
Butter. Thick cuts of it into a pan.
Two eggs. A white bowl.
The kettle onl.
Espresso teaspooned into a French press.
Twenty rotations of the wrist,
the eggs poured in.
And then, all of it, waiting.
It is a matter of time, of course,
but still. Waiting.
I am waiting.

2.
I do not want to order the complicated pancakes
with the sour cream batter and the stone fruit compote
or the omelet bulging at the seams
with a small farm of fall vegetables.
It’s a shame. This restaurant is known for such specialties.
The chef has won praise in the local press,
a legion of devotees, a street named after him.
The tourists keep coming, the menu keeps growing,
the kitchen staff forced to keep up with the demand.

3.
My father was a magician with maple syrup.
He made it, from scratch, every Saturday morning,
while the French toast soaked in its egg bath.
Water, sugar, maple flavoring.
It took me years to realize this wasn’t the real thing.

4.
New Year’s Day. By the stove, a stack
of crepes. On the counter, smoked salmon,
three kinds of cream cheese, bagels,
fruit salad. Bottles of Prosecco chilling in the fridge.
I am ready.
In minutes, the house will be full of hungry bodies.
The disassembly will begin.

5.
When we drove across country, my sister and I disagreed
on only one thing.
She would rise, grumpy, not hungry at all.
I insisted
on breakfast.
While she sat and I ate, a silence swelled between us.

6.
On a friend’s refrigerator door, family snapshots.
A magnetic alphabet. Drawings from preschool.
A shopping list. Coupons. A reminder from
the dentist. Birthday cards from a recent party.
On mine: a calendar too small to write on.
A schedule of gym classes
I have no intention of attending.

7.
My mother eats an apple every morning.
“I want to be an apple,” she says,
and at first I'm confused because
the only words I can think of are “round,”
“ruddy,” easily bruised.”
But then she elaborates.
It has something to do with the tree.

substitutes

When I want to remember I am not alone,
apple cobbler.
When I want to act like a teenager, or a kindergartner,
throw fists against a pillow,
four double-chocolate Milanos.
When I want to know that God is listening,
Earl Grey with honey and cream.
When I want to forget the argument,
cucumber, sliced on the diagonal.
When I am ready to face the fear,
lemons.
When I want your teeth in my neck,
a ribeye steak.
When I am ready to say goodbye,
cast one last glance before the daisies fall,
Montefalco at the kitchen window.
When I want to swim the wide channel,
stay parallel to shore,
a fistful of grapes, a thick wedge of Manchego.
When I want silence,
a glass of Armagnac.
When I want noise,
two raspberry-peach Cosmopolitans.
When I am tired,
cold milk, cornflakes in the orange bowl.
When I am impatient,
tangerines.
When I want to make everything disappear,
climb back into the womb,
a trip to Mitchell’s for mint chip.
When I want the moon a little closer,
carrot-ginger soup, a dollop of sour cream,
an intimate pinch of chives.
When the light is too much to bear,
scrambled eggs, wheat toast, apricot preserves.
When I’ve had enough of the rollercoaster,
the ache of the climb, the precipitous pitch into the abyss,
ice water, grapefruit, multivitamins.
When I want to start over,
white rice and butter.
When I couldn’t be happier,
wild salmon, fresh ginger, radishes.
When I miss my mother,
broth, maple yoghurt, sautéed cauliflower, unsalted almonds.
When I miss my father,
Rainier cherries, roast potatoes, fried chicken,
a single square of dark chocolate.
When I miss myself,
tomatoes, mozzarella, basil,
drop after drop of olive oil.

first love

In her mind’s eye, she is perennially 12, eyeing the basketball court, white sneakers on parquet, shorts hugging her thighs, just before the shot clock begins, all that electric possibility. She is a dreamer yes, but there is a fierceness to this particular dream, a kind of clinging. Her body, fluid but precise, her legs purposeful, trustworthy. She was not a dancer, but underneath these fluorescent lights, before an accordion of bleachers, she could dance. She remembers the strides she took down-court, how it felt like slow-motion even though it wasn’t. She remembers an animal certainty about where she needed to go for the shot. She remembers the ball like home, her body squaring to meet it.

You could say this was her first love, her first contact with something both outside and inside of herself. It was that kind of symmetry. It was that kind of longing. On Saturday mornings, when the games were held, she would arrive at the gym with a small tremble in her gut. The gym was large and loud. There were islands of chaos everywhere, but she steered through them. Game buzzers and referee whistles cut rudely through air, but she didn’t hear them. She maneuvered through these minefields as if nothing in the world could touch her, and found a spot on the sidelines to tighten her laces until she could feel the tongue of the sneakers groove into the tops of her feet. She remembers the smell of the waxed gym floor. She remembers the waistband of her shorts against her stomach. She remembers the prices burnt sienna of the basketball, its thin black stripes cutting into eighths. She remembers her hands like sticky tentacles. She remembers the freckles on her calves, the beginnings of hair on her shins and knees. She remembers the three blue stripes on the top of her socks. She remembers how hungry she was.

Twenty-five years later, she takes to the court like a cautious mother. There are others there, younger, sprightlier, braver than she. It is hard not to worry that she will get hurt. It is hard not to worry that she will get tired. It is hard not to notice the dim wash of pain in her hips, the hiccup of her legs. The sneakers are cement, trapping her ankles. Her shorts swallow her thighs. She is tall and exposed a willow tree. Now she notices everything – the hollow echoes of the gym, the harsh spotlight of the overheads, the heft of her opponent – and she has become the unwitting distraction, the perilous island she must navigate around, her body in a kind of raw anarchy, the parquet too slippery, a scene of possible disaster, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, her love stubborn and exquisite as ever.

strand

Last night, a single strand of her hair
surfaced on my pillow. All day, on the boat,
as I tried righting myself on waterskis, and failing,
I had begun to convince myself
that whatever momentum that had carried us all year
was beginning to sputter and topple.
I gripped the rope as if my life
depended on it, and still, it flew out of my hands.
On deck she was as beautiful as ever. It was not hard
to keep falling in love. When she took to the wakeboard,
her skin gleaming in the Delta sun,
it was almost heartbreaking how easy it looked.
She was floating. She was an angel.
I wanted to dive in after her like a dolphin, follow her trail.
I couldn't.
After all of my attempts to rise above the surface,
I was shivering wildly, my grip
reddened and sore. I climbed into my towel and stayed there,
head down, legs goose-pimpled. She rubbed my back
as if I were a child.
I was.
I told myself it would always be like this,
me trying to hold on to such an unwieldy ride, and she
already aloft and steady, eyes pinching the horizon.
When I came home, I thought,
Maybe this is the beginning of the end, and I began
the terrible act of curling back inside myself,
reeling my heart back in, stowing my memories in the dark.

But no.
I pulled back the cover of my bed, and there it was.
A strand of her, a slim remainder,
a micron of her body resting squarely
where her head had been just last week,
as I lay against her on a Tuesday afternoon.
And I knew
that something of her was still with me,
singing me to sleep.