Julie

February 8, 2014

Julie 

Tractors.

That’s how she starts the story,

her mouth taking a shape between

grin and grimace. Tractors.

I see her mind working

backwards, trying to recall

each detail as it was

or should have been

the first time. This

was not her first time

“at the rodeo,” or so she termed it,

so after a few boring hours

sitting on the couch in his parents’ house,

watching TV and occasionally making out,

she lets him lead her up the stairs to his room

where they find each other

under the cover of sheets

and darkness.

Afterwards, rolling over,

he reaches for a lamp that for some reason

revs like an engine, then illuminates

the room in bright John Deere green and yellow:

John Deere wallpaper, John Deere

photographs, John Deere models

on the dresser. Tractors

everywhere.

She might have yelped in horror, might have hid

her face in a John Deere pillow.

Me, I would have laid back and laughed.

How perfect this was, what a testament

to the sharp thrill of gasoline,

an engine’s sudden excitement,

to fields plowed fresh and new.

University of Virginia, Gymnasium

February 7, 2014

University of Virginia, Gymnasium

What about her made you stop

and notice, in a gym full

of sweat and clanking weights?

Was it something about her eyes, or her muscle,

or the way her hair was pulled back

as she did her set of bicep curls, or squats?

The way you tell it,

you had just been saying to a buddy of yours

that you were done with the dating scene,

that you were ready just to find a girl and settle down,

when you walked into the gym

and found her.

I’m sure you didn’t know then how this would lead

to joyrides in her beloved baby-blue T-bird,

or taking sunny pictures together in front of the Leaning Tower,

or raising three blond children whom you would call raccoons,

or owning a big blue fifteen-seater van good for road trips and wind-surfing excursions

and moving your family across the country, twice.

But in that moment, I think I know

what it was that caught your attention:

it was her mouth.

Not the small bump below the lower lip,

which you would grow to love

(and which I would inherit),

but the way her teeth were gritted and her lips were set,

a thin line of determination

against gravity,

against any natural force,

against the thought coursing through her own blood

that no, this is impossible as she made her muscles move

again and again, weight after weight.

It was her mouth that showed the moment

when ease ends and strength begins.

It was her mouth that made you stop and think,

“I could get along with a girl like that.”

Evolution

March 9, 2014

Evolution

I never want to stop

noticing the intricacies of life.

If I ever start to, I must tell myself

to bite into a grape, then look at its insides,

the tiny, complex striations, microscopic sections

of fruit, fractally structured; or I’ll go

outside and examine a bird’s feather or beak,

wonder how its body creates such different pieces,

some dense and hard, others fit for flight;

or I’ll go to the aquarium and try to count

how many scales a fish has, looking at how they attach

to its skin so cleanly and precisely, how each

muscular swimming creature has adapted

to just a slightly different environment,

together forming an entire, self-contained system;

or I’ll go to the zoo to watch the incredible,

unthinkable dexterity of the elephants’ trunks,

the giraffes’ tongues, the snow-leopards’ tails.

I look at a child’s hands.

I look at my own hands, notice

each of the bones and tendons,

fitting together so perfectly.

I notice the fine lines across the palm.

I stretch out my arm and marvel

at how far it reaches, and then

how far it has yet to go.

There's something I need to tell you

March 1, 2014

There’s something I need to tell you

I want to tell you

about the caterpillar.

You know the beginning:

the creepy crawly caterpillar creature

inching on the ground, munching leaves, growing,

growing, shedding skin after skin, until

one day, she hooks herself to the soft underside

of a leaf, and peels off her final skin

to reveal the chrysalis hidden beneath.

You might think that metamorphosis

is like hibernation, that the caterpillar curls up

snug and asleep, and in her dreams

she sprouts one wing, and then another,

until she awakens and finds

her butterfly body

has simply bloomed.

But this isn’t so. Instead, I want to tell you how,

without hesitation, without doubt,

the chrysalized caterpillar dissolves herself,

bit by bit, all soft muscle, each tiny foot, breaking down

into a swirling white-yellow mess of cells,

and, somehow, these cells

reorganize themselves, restructure themselves

into something completely new, something

previously inconceivable, forming antenna after antenna,

wing after wing; each nerve and fiber,

each piece of the heart,

re-imagined;

rebuilt.

And the old crawling creature, whose body

has been transfigured—this being has not died!

No, miraculously,

this young winged thing remembers

the thousands of leaves she herself once traversed,

the broad blue sky she once longed for,

and everything she ever learned

in her caterpillar days.

All of this I need to tell you,

all of this you need to know, because

what I’m really trying to say is

for you,

my love turns butterfly.

Caterpillar

October 15, 2012

Caterpillar

Caterpillar, you are full of thought:

as every day you crawl across the leaves,

you traverse the pages of the world

and notice everything.  I find you pacing,

tracing lines across the supple skin

of apple blossoms in the delicate spring,

with each slow step remembering their design.

You overlook no detail, miss no trait:

no beautiful thing ever escapes your gaze.

Then at the end, you shed your final skin

to reveal the inevitable chrysalis beneath.

gone, the careful movement of your eyes,

the strange off-rhythm of your tiny steps

as you dissolve into a mess of cells

and then emerge, condemned to chase the sky.

I drag this tired body through the day

with bones that ache and creak, dissatisfied.

an ancient winged thing I have become,

so blind, so distant from the lovely earth.

The Meridian

June 10, 2012

The Meridian

To me, we could be lost at sea, with only the illusion

of land in the distance. The shades of water meaning

nothing to me, I saw only dangerous colors

of unknown depths and darkening clouds. The light

above our sails began to fade away as wave after wave

rose up, close, close beside us; I thought of what a fool

I was, knowing nothing about a storm. But the sky could not fool

my father, who pulled taut the lines as though the clouds were an illusion,

the darkness nothing more than a trick of the mind, and the waves

just the water’s joke. Somehow he understood the meaning

of the seagulls flying above us, knew we had time before the light

disappeared, before the lake put on a foamy dress the color

of midnight, and of stars. My father’s eyes were the same color

as a clear sky in June, and as the sun shone on the water like fool’s

gold, I watched his gaze, navigating our way like a seabird. The last of the sunlight

sparkled on the spray and on the thick, wet ropes, creating illusions

of rainbows. But my father’s corded arms and tough hands knew the meaning

of a hard day’s work, and I knew that no matter how the waves

grew, we would be safe. And sure enough, a buoy rocked and waved

just within sight, a beacon pointing us home, its bright red color

a happy change from the never-ending seascape, a sign meaning

we were close. The dark storm behind our sails, however, would not be outfooled

by the likes of us – the gusts of wind grew strong and fast, sweeping away any illusion

of escape, making the sails billow and snap. As the light

faded into gray, we could just see, on the distant buoy, a seagull had alighted.

Then the storm struck, its heavy rain lashing at us, its wind tossing us about, its waves

crashing into the hull of our sailboat. But once again, the illusion

of the lake did not frighten my father. His face was the strong, solid color

of determination, his jaw set in the effort to evade the inevitable, to fool

fate. I yelled to him through the rain and wind, meaning

to help, if I could. But he looked back at me calmly, and I knew the meaning

of his gaze: the Meridian was my father’s boat, even in light

of this storm’s power. It was his, so he would protect it, no matter the wind or the waves

that faced him. The storm struggled on, but so did he, and soon the harbor was no illusion

to be chased away by a howling gust. I looked back at the water, and perhaps I’m a fool

for thinking so, but it seemed that this was the way my father saw it – its colors

all wild and alive, the meanings of the waves

clear and lovely. Way up through the storm clouds, the sky was the light color

of a gull’s wing; not even a fool could think that this beauty was an illusion.

Adirondack

June 6, 2012

Adirondack

I clamber over rooftops,

perch on lighthouses, to watch

the dawn as it breaks, overlooking

the rocking masts in the harbor,

a few early boats with their sails up and full

of the morning breeze that swells

along the lake’s glassy surface.

I lie in the ferns at night with the does

and fawns, white-tailed and calm

as their felt-furred bodies settle into sleep.

I sing to the birds as they dream,

as I slowly number the trees

and the stars. The breathing

of the forest is hushed

and soft.

I gallop through the ravines,

the glacier-torn canyons,

a hand along the worn-away, pock-marked

granite or sandstone sides. I

touch all the splintered trees, war-wounded

and crutched, where lightning struck or fire
raged or floods ravaged.

I chat up the waitresses in cafés

and bagel shops, sitting out on the patio

at a black metal table, talking about the weather or

how lovely the water looks today. At the bar, I lean
against the solid, polished oak, tracing

its knots with my nails as the bartender

and I stay late, discussing the meanings of things,

and the sun drowns its sorrows in the dark lake

behind us.

I walk along village streets, gazing into

cheery little shop windows, all bright and lit

with color. I’m counting the thousands

of cracks in the concrete, visiting the soup

kitchens with their old and cobbled stone,

pounding the stakes of foreclosure signs

into the soft earth.

This place,

I become its wildlife: its predators

and its prey, padding over entangled roots, drinking

from cold streams, diving down

the waterfalls. I cry from its canopied leaves

for more, more, more, because

nothing I have is ever, ever enough. 

epithelia

December 10, 2011

epithelia

my hands, you could never be strangers –

more familiar are you to me

than the beating of my own heart.

rough as burlap or smooth as eggshells,

how is it that your calloused palms spell out fate

when every day you work to carve out

a future of your own? 

you might open like lotus blossoms

to hold another hand, or

a gun, or

the world as you would a child.

every wrinkle and crease of yours

tells a history I can only dream

of remembering, but then,

quick and wise as you are, your pale

half-moons fumble in the cold

not with ancient questions

of right and wrong, but only

black buttons

and ruby scarves.

when the night sky

is just an inky reflection of earth,

you reach up to send ripples

through all of the stars;

the few golden leaves left

on the late-autumn trees

are planets on an infant’s mobile, suspended

just above the cradle,

and when you set them in motion,

each independent part spins

in harmony with all the rest.

the heavens go round and round;

the newborn falls fast asleep.

garden snails

May 21, 2011

garden snails

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

their small bodies are translucent

and wet

across my thick palm,

over each of my fingers,

cracked dry and desperate

with evaporated mud.

one has a shell of swirled amber,

a crystalline fragment

of some heavenly design:

tiny,

and perfect. 

curious little things,

content to make maps

of the landscape of my skin,

sometimes turning back

in methodical circles

to make sure each crease is accurate,

each wrinkle precise. 

their smooth bellies cool my hand,

which still burns from the friction

of careful, violent tugs

on stems and roots.

I look up for a moment:

the green earth glistens

with sunlight and the work

of a thousand garden snails. 

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

and oh,

how my fingers tremble.