Mama Didn't Know Best

 

Like they did most afternoons, the two went on a walk—Mama in a dress, pushing Baby in a stroller.

Two months old, babbling in spurts of improvisational monologues.

This was a dreadfully brief leave for maternity.

It was safer at work, but Baby wouldn't be able to stay there with her while she served the public.

Mama dreaded to think what would happen to Baby when she wasn't home to monitor.

She didn't yet know the elongating sucker of the breast pump,

the excruciating pressure,

or the scent of the isolation ward, cold and stale.

But home was its own breed of isolation ward. It was the sheer opposite of sensation.

An antisocial space.

Feigning mindfulness, she told herself that now was now—on this walk, she had full control.

Mama knew that baby sensed her fear when Papa advanced in a rage, looming over her, looming over them.

Despite his lack of enormity.

On the walk, the green and brown stroller was camouflaged. It was safe.

If only the two could camouflage at home, blend into the walls, fade into the furniture...

Mama looked across the valley to the hills where she had once hiked, pink-cheeked with pregnancy and hopeful that things would get better at home.

Baby looked up with his tiny face. 

What was going to happen?

Mama didn't have an answer.

So on they walked. Home.

Sigh Of Time

 

Within a mere sigh of time

Exhilaration laughed 

out loud

at lift-off.

We were clouds, falling 

through reflection in the lake sky

Water and trees teased mercilessly 

the upended mounds of earthen bowls

Revealing her thrills, a sly mellow haze 

leaned against us in no gentle manner

Outside was hot, sunny, clairvoyant

Big golden eye burned its way 

across the horizon, 

In search of thirst-quenching blue

And with agonizing tremble, 

our shattered hearts clamored, 

scattering shards across cold marble breath

Within a mere sigh of time

Scorn Fields

Scorn Fields

Why are your hands empty?

After so much reaping, 

you should be full with harvest

Even though the grass is dry

and the feline mouths thorny,

you wait for the replenishment

Wondering how the world

got like this, just like this,

so plain and cruel

They say it’s all about perception

They say many things

and you listen, out of habit

Your hands are tired

but you hold on to the hope

that the wait will be worth it

Believing that a canyon

full of ferns might turn

into a flatland of crops

You remain, incredulous 

and they don’t care

And they never will

So release your air cups

your plates of sand

and crumbling journals

Take to the hills, the lake,

as your exhales dispel

the iniquity of their scorn

Before I Knew Myself

It has been hard to let go. Difficult to process and seemingly impossible to grasp. I was holding on to those caricatures of old. Layers of lifetimes revealing the sluggish evolution of reluctance. 

The figures stood stoic, leaning in too close, backing up, shouting, 

whatever they needed to do to hold tight my attention, 

my concern. 

It became clear that the barn with the sacred window yet lived within me, candles burning in a circle round, and so many people in exquisite colors, goats bleating in the background, blackberries growing sharp and moonlit against a horizon of dusk. 

She was in the meadow. I would someday be her.

Such places were served to me—gifts given as if in apology for the violence of the ownerships, 

avoidance between family, and way too many 

secrets. 

Trying to make up for the discretions shattered and agonies repeated because they were the only way the kindred torrent knew how to 

breathe. 

In: defense. Out: offense. Over and over. Circular and exhausting. 

But when they saw what they had created, it was too late to turn back. 

A tree with infested roots part-way uprooted. 

Could they make up for the displacement with money? With time? With compliments? 

No. 

She ran into the forest green and soon the men trailed behind, standing on the sidelines. 

Waiting hungrily. 

Upon.

 The Velcro lady, ready for the hooks. Dreading those beasts as much as 

she did the fairy on the bomb. 

Dream world begets dream world and just like the merpeoples’ fungi mouths crumble, figures fade into the sand above which our stories sink. Meanwhile, soilent battles holler across the vacant valley. 

Striking down with derision and might. 

Me.

and my

Peach nightgown.