Brother
No one knew
his name
to write
the email:
his brother
died.
It was sudden.
Morning.
Tinkering.
Then dead.
The email went out:
“his brother”
“passed”
“thoughts”
“condolences.”
But I know
him.
And his
brother,
Mike.
Ceviche
Always one to walk up the mountain,
scraps of food in his pockets
to treat every stray along the way.
Until they are too broken to climb,
old buddies traveled with,
ending at whiskies and coconut water.
On Three Kings' Day, candies
would fill his pockets to gift
the kids who ran up to him
orange knee’d with the stamp
of the clay soil that choked flowers,
yet held a palm tree firm.
I tried to climb that mountain once,
but it was too steep, and my
flat feet were not used to the pound.
He laughed and said, ok, you stop here
and I’ll catch you on the way down,
we’ll have a nice glass of wine.
My name always rolled off of his tongue
thick with accent and an old English-
cultivated in the life of his island home.
Once he put on the counter all of the
makings for his specialty dish:
octopus and shrimp ceviche.
Come, he said, I will show you how,
some garlic, capers, onions,
chop up the tentacles chunky.
Mix together with olive oil and vinegar,
ah, this is the best, from home,
we’ll have wine and maybe some whiskey.
“Ann has expired.”
Hearing
the ring first
in the
middle of sleep,
I slipped
the phone
into the
cradle as
my mom
spoke
to the
stranger.
Crawling
back
into the
twin bed
between
my sister’s
two to
safe harbor
from the
October chill,
I
wondered what
I had
heard meant.
I was
sixteen when she died.
My
memories of her are
rich,
embellished, fine;
she was a
sable fur that
lay
languorously across a
settee on
Park Avenue
for
someone else to store.
She
helped us escape
routines
of dull suburban
Saturday
afternoons
enchanting
us with meanders
through
forest and untraffic’d
roads in
a 1968 red Mustang,
stopping
for cones or root beer floats.
Her nails
were polished pink, her cologne: Chanel.
My
grandmother has come back
to me
thirty-six years later
on a
motel’s note paper
that I
don’t recognize.
Her verse
betrays her heart,
and in
images that I don’t connect
to her,
she comes alive in me
as I
wonder about the presence
that
inspires gorgeous feeling
in a
fantastic merry-go-round
love that
she writes about.
She was a
poet.
To this I
cling, thrown back
to the
narrow child’s bed
in a dark
room full of
my
younger sisters' sleep
undisturbed
by the night call.
Grief
finds me now
when I
can’t fathom
who this
woman was that lived,
too
young my sweet years then
to wholly
know.
Jen’s Grandma
She was dead. As
a door nail.
But she looked
great. Really.
Her tiny nails
polished red,
nose powder
dusted.
They found the
dress she
wore to her
grand-daughter’s
wedding in the
back of the closet:
black velveteen
with sparkles,
she’ll be
dancin’ in heaven surely.
In her repose,
her memory found
its way back –
her brow free of
loss and
confusion. Pretty settled.
Even her
spectacles magically
resurfaced to
find her face.
Mourners chatted
easily about,
her life was
lived long and
they were used
to her in it,
but I’d never
seen her before and
there is no
doubt about it,
she was dead.
But she looked good.
The Box
An inheritance
arrived in a
box,
thousands of
letters
and photographs
too heavy to
carry.
In his journal-
I was in third
person.
He drank
himself to death
found days after
his heart
exploded.
Then,
I did not
warn him
of his
indulgence-
blind to
influence
to make a
difference.
We were young,
love
came like
quicksilver:
willful fragile.
We spent time,
his other time
wasted.
She calls every
night
I am the
connection
to a dead son:
did the box arrive, dear?
I don’t pick up,
how
she never called
him.
Now,
he stands in the
corner
watching my
sleep-
safe from his
demons
I suspect.