My baby is the size of a question mark.
?
Five Weeks
My baby is the size of a question mark.
?
Category: Poetry
Mistaken Identity
Almost Like Closure
Just one step closer to closure at a time—
one more court date over,
one less long wait slower—
one more inch along the way
toward happily afters and all better now—
or maybe grief is more a door
that never closes like a lock.
No permanent click,
no absolute end,
no gavel drop of perfect justice
to put the heartache behind bars.
It comes, and it fades,
and you learn to live
with a shadowed nuance
that sits on your shoulders on certain days
more so than others,
finicky like fog.
Over time, you learn to use your headlights
and pull your way carefully down the road,
even inside the densest cloud.
You might drive twenty-five miles an hour
when you have to,
but you never stop, not now.
You have somewhere to go,
goals shining like cities on the maps of your mind,
and you know that the light
always clears up later.
You squint through the grey
and the unanswered questions,
the rage and regret,
memories that won’t settle,
and in spite of it all
your foot hugs the gas.
You keep driving forward,
your heart full of past.
Which Comes First
My husband is moaning with headache,
and I sit in noon stillness
and hold him close against my shoulders
till his breathing calms.
I do not move,
though the minutes do,
because he needs this rest and these arms.
And my ravenous boss
and the curse words steaming up from customers
and the deadlines and the hours
and the phone and texts
and the coming recession
are all screaming from edge to edge
of my psyche
that I’m off task,
I’m lost, I’m indulging in a luxury
and we both just need to suck it up
and keep working,
keep giving myself to everyone else
to achieve a higher reach,
a wider stretch of influence,
but I have decided to disavow
myself of the lies.
This is my family,
my life, and my right.
I don’t have a cradle or a kitchen
big enough to fit all the homeless and hungry
and angry and sick,
but I have this one hug I’ve been saving up
for someone just his size,
and he needs it now.
You can keep the infinite, exhausted sea,
because I’ve got my one starfish,
and he’s an ocean to me.
What I Do and Do Not Know
I don’t know what gave you the courage to feed your fear so completely, to let that single moment turn eternity-permanent. Maybe it was the demons who had caught you with claws and with shudder, forced your head under a spell that you couldn’t resist. Maybe the despair said a curse that you couldn’t unhear, and you believed it, those lies of never and better off that your friends never would have believed about you, if only you knew. Maybe you didn’t really mean to— you were thinking about it, but you didn’t think that you’d do it, until your finger slipped too close to an accident you couldn’t undo. Or maybe it was just a stupid mistake, like we all make, only bigger— like the fib we find ourselves defending, the one drink too many, the best friend unfriended, the baby in the belly at too young an age— you did something stupid in the heat of a moment, but unlike us lucky ones, you picked the one scar that the years don’t let go of. I don’t know why you left me. I can’t even fathom what you must have been thinking, but I can choose what I’m going to go on thinking about you, and it’s not this. I refuse to frame your face with a casket; I will not define you by your dumbest regret. I know who you were, friend, despite what you did once, and that’s what I hold onto in the aching wide space that you left. You’re laughter that crackled bright songs past my static, kindness incarnate, gentlest friend, and with you, I could stare down an enemy army cause you’d have my back no matter what attack fractured in. That bullet? It happened to you, yes, but it’s not who you were. I know your name, and in my memory, you’re still shining the same.
Financial Planning
These days, I stop and wonder if the truth still includes Matthew 6: the birds with no barns, the men with no money, the Father who feeds them just for seeking His kingdom. Soon, He might have more birds under His wings than He does usually, neither sowing nor reaping. These days, I sometimes worry if He’ll lose count and let some starve to death, till I remember He said He knows a lot about bread. He was seven years ahead of the game when famine came for a pagan Pharaoh, sending him dreams and a prophetic slave so Egypt could feed all the nations with grain. Then in the desert for forty full years He kept every Hebrew belly brimming morning and night with manna and meat, not merely organic but miracle-made. Both David and Elijah had to flee from the tyrant, hunted like dogs though they’d done nothing wrong— one He met in His presence with holy bread, while the other received deliveries, banquets sent by raven beaks. And when Elijah’s cup dried up, he remembered the lesson and told a widow whom he found baking her last meal, one last appetizer before she set her teeth on death, not to fear: her jar of flour would fill itself. And she went and she did as Elijah said— and her household ate for many days. This is the same God who fed the five thousand, the same God who said He Himself is the Bread. He took it and blessed it and broke it and passed it, and we eat, every one of us, and on our tongues it is sweet. Soon, we may look more like lilies than men; we might be unable to labor or spin, but I guess that just means that even King Solomon won’t measure up to the glory with which we will sit down and feast.
If You Trace New Constellations, the Stories All Change
Moonlight drizzles over the eaves
as I stand under stars,
mosquito free
Every secret of the Milky Way unwinds,
unfurled across the sky tonight;
every nebula proclaims its name
in inky haze and cursive light,
and the strangest surprise
is that nothing is biting at my neck
as I incline my soul toward splendor.
I can’t comprehend it;
I’ve lost the language
for beauty sans pain.
I’ve spent my whole life
soldiering through so much blood sacrificed
for every ounce of glory gained—
a hundred mosquito bites per leg—
that I almost want to pull away
from this hint of a gift
with no shadowed price,
the air too comfortable, too calm
for me to trust
this type of bedtime story.
Some say that God’s heart toward me
is all goodness and gladness
rather than suffering.
But I don’t know how to hold that.
I look past the galaxies
into the blackness,
and that’s how I see God:
I squint past the obvious grace,
the neon joy
and the bright splash of planets
to focus on those parts of my past
where I floated in darkness,
lost in the gaps.
Suppose that God
isn’t the one
who sends me mosquitoes.
Suppose He tucks the stars
under my chin like a blanket
and blesses me into bed,
holding His breath
to see if I’ll relax against His chest
and sleep. I was never prepared
for a religion like this.
I’m still tense, but I’m trying
to lean in a little,
to know Him more in
quiet twilights and caramel drinks,
less in duty and grief
and Holocaust war.
A Supplication
Oh God, give us courage,
but don’t make us use it,
give us peace in a lullaby land.
Give us truth with no lie
that we have to stand up to,
no deception we don’t understand.
Make our enemies flee
before we even meet
and our friends always think
that we’re cool,
and though we break it freely,
make our families
always keep the golden rule.
Yes, we accept that
at times we’ll be tested,
and we know we’re supposed to rejoice,
but that will be easier
if You only expect us
to circle some multiple choice.
Make our dreams come true,
make our ministry grow,
make us feel like the heroes we are;
give us so many blessings
we’re no longer tempted
to envy the Instagram stars.
We’re only asking
with pure intentions
and worship-centered hearts—
we do want to follow,
but we’re so out of shape,
and You’re moving too fast and too far.
Velveteen Lady
At least I’m honest about it
you say, like it’s a small thing,
a participation prize
that we all know hides
a pitiable case of insufficiency.
You wear honesty
like spit-up staining
the sleeve of your t-shirt,
a little embarrassed
but aware that it’s there.
Sometimes I forget you’re serious,
sincere in missing the obvious—
so let me say it like this:
the truth is all there is,
the universe, the only gold,
the missing link, my trembling soul,
sacred starting place of hope,
but most of the empty hearts I know
will kill and die
to deny its light
because they’re too insecure
to be seen inside.
Yes: the lies end up lethal,
every time,
and if you don’t believe me,
try on friendship with a mannequin
to see if it fits—
tell her your secrets,
cry once or twice,
wrap your arms around her waistline tight
and speak your dreams,
your fears like you think she feels
anything along with you.
Hold her like a lifeboat
as your heart goes under,
gasp your last breath,
and then tell me again
that telling the truth
is a minor accomplishment.
All that we have and all that we are
is the truth,
bloody and human
and lovely and raw,
and it’s all that I want from anyone.
I’m not impressed by the perfect mom,
not holding out for any diva dream,
just hoping to find
any set of eyes
that will actually
look back at me.
I want someone real.
I hold far more respect
for the grueling tests
of courage and humility
than any white-toothed perfection
or college degree,
because I want relationships
more than mere rankings,
which makes safe people
the resource most precious.
I know that you know this,
but you also don’t.
Not enough yet.
If you can’t see
that the greatest gift you could ever offer
is your own bold heart, open and free,
all I can suggest
is that it’s time you learn
to be even more honest,
to finally acknowledge
the treasure you are
|since that, too, is the truth,
in spite of all spit-up,
regardless of flaws.
I have seen nothing in you
worth being ashamed of,
just a woman who climbs mountains
in her sleep
and then wakes unaware
of her heaven-close height.
Glass Half Masked
We grasp what scraps of summer we find
and wrap them around our fingers like rings.
Even the beach holds its breath.
Even the seaweed dreams.
Backyard Apricots 