Pot  Luck

His voice, quiet now, is how

I know to listen

(these hushed conversations are always lovely)--

and he is telling her about this thing,

this ‘Open House’

which is funny enough because after all,

it’s a school--  it’s not a house.

“Anyway,” he is saying, real no nonsense

“you’ll get to see my chalkboard,

and maybe even Sally the Snake”

and she sits there, eyes wider than wide

just thinking of it all.

And then he tells her, real quiet now, about the dinner,

and he says  “you know, 

they call it  pot luck.”

and you can tell he loves the way it sounds

though he is all business.

“It’s called pot luck,” he says again--

this phrase, it bears repeating--

“but I think it’s just a dinner party...”

and she is almost four,

and he is just five

and I race back into the kitchen just in time

to see her eyes come alive,

shoot up to the rack on the wall

where we hang our pots and pans,

then she says “yeah.” and nods, satisfied.

Her eyes are bright brown, they are dancing. 

“Yeah,” she says again, all nodding,

and then she tries it out herself.

“Pot luck,” she whispers, electric,

still staring at the rack,

and she is smiling,  I am smiling,

and we are basking in the joy of it--

the joy of all these pots, the joy

of so much luck.

Three For September

i. Birds

And when, dear one, you are so weary

you are ready to give up,

think then of the Canada Geese—

the way all day

they shout back at the beating, broken

heart of the world

“I am lonely too.

Keep flying.  Keep flying.

I am lonely too.”

ii. Bugs

These days, even spiders

are lovely

and all day long,

I dodge their delicate webs,

and just today I walked the labyrinth with dragonflies.

I’d never noticed how they latch, horizontally, to the flowers—

how they defy gravity,

how their needle noses

play the wild flowers like trumpets.

iii. Blessings

Whoever said God is a man was wrong,

just like whoever said God is a woman.

Clearly, God is September, 

the apostles are goldenrod,

and the psalms are the breeze that stirs the field.

And if, even now, you still question your own belief,

maybe now is the time to take a look at your own sweet life—

the way you, too, sometimes shine and sway

just like those weeds in the meadow,  gone mad with yellow.

Because

Lately  she’s been falling in love everywhere—

at the market, in the pharmacy, always in the cafeteria

sliding her tray over the metal rails,

last week with the hands of the attendant at a gas station.

It’s not right,  she knows, but still, she can’t help it.

Sometimes it happens all day long.

Yesterday at the campus it was everything again—

The way the postmaster, on lunch break, went whistling past,

or how the frisbee players sing the quad.

The way some students stay after class, that usually gets her.

Cashiers, people who sing at stop lights—all fair game.

Cab drivers—forget it.

With ice cream scoopers, with their little paper hats,

it is often love at first sight,

and she will never forget the boy  at the sandwich shop—

the way he said “miss,would you like anything to drink?”

to the 80-year-old woman in front of her,

then when it was her turn said “Ma’am” instead.

Later today, blessed by all this loving

she will make some tea and play a violin concerto

for her dog who is deaf.

She will play the music as loud as it will go

because she can,

and because somehow, he’ll hear it

and he will stand on the porch of the fine yellow house, glowing.

She will be all choked up

because the lawn chairs have never been this white before

and because, tired ears flapping  in a soft Autumn breeze,

the old dog will bark back his joy.

Just Before Summer

The sun is shining on the water not like

so many diamonds, but

like the sun, on the water.

My children, slow to wake,

bodies and minds tired,

murmur together,  looking for socks.

I mistake them for angels,

but it is no mistake.

This June day stretches into its thickness of color.

Green reaches for greener,

blue inhales slowly, exhales bluer,

yellow drapes itself around the morning like a shawl.

Nothing more to say,

just  Yes.  Or  Oh.

Then  Shhhh…

Contract

My old dog is anxious again

all night shifting, resettling,

pawing the rug in his sleeplessness,

and it seems that somewhere in our contract

I have agreed to be restless too.

In their beds through the narrow bathroom

my children stir,

reminding me that they are in this with me,

and the way I love them stings

like hunger can, or sunburn.

The dog is halfway up then down again,

the old hip groping for its place,

and somehow I am reminded of my father counting.

Three different times I heard him

through the wall before I asked my mother;  

she didn't like to talk much--

still doesn’t.

Yes, she said, stalwart and weary all at once.

For months now.

Not every night, but most.

Even at 14, I knew the implications--

stairs, perhaps, or days. 

We never talked about it after that,

except one time, carrying groceries from the car.

Sometimes, she said, he counts backwards,

and she looked at me surprised, the way a friend would,

and we unpacked the bags in a silence

that for once wasn't half bad.

My sister once confessed to me

that she used to hate our mother, sometimes,

because she wasn’t kind enough to our father,

maybe didn’t even love him.

But I knew differently.

My old dog struggling at the foot of the bed,

my father counting through his final nights,

my children murmuring in their room.

We will toss our way through this night and the next

and when it’s time we’ll stumble into morning once again.

For a Student in One of my Basic Writing Classes

 “Not only are permanent good-byes the worse, but it is also

  one of the most horrible things about life in general.”

--Excerpt from a student’s essay, written, by      

   the author’s choice, on “saying good bye.”

May I just say that I love you, Lauren Lonucci,

and that somehow your paper made me weep?

You will find the words, eventually,

you will learn to live with grief.

Surely, your diction will improve.

But your heart—your heart is home already.

My young friend, you got this sentence wrong

about eight different ways—

But that bit about ‘permanent good byes’—

A+, A+, A+.