unalike

the golden salmon sky beckons
before the orange orb emerges and the blue arrives
i call you to the glass doors for the eastern view
but you move with an intentional, sabotaging slowness,
without the respect, the urgency
that ephemeral light and beauty require of us

that’s just one difference between me and you,
i am keeping watch, i stay ready for some thing holy,

and you, you clock-watch for the mundane:
for the mail, for dr. phil, a rush only to ever get “it” all over with — the chore, the trip, the holiday, the ceremony, the meal, the dishes, even the damn dessert and bedtime prayer /

nothing ever truly experienced — or savored by you

save for your anger, your resentment,
and that ever-lasting gobstopper of hate, that you nurse in your cheek, its bitterness, sourness, leaching down into,

embalming, your still-living heart

how did i be-come me with you as a mother?

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an open letter on a 65°f primary election day in Michigan | day 145 of Israel’s acute genocide of the Palestinian People

good afternoon:

i feel like i should have started my heirloom tomato and chiltepin seeds on New Year’s Eve, but i haven’t even ordered or sorted seeds yet;

that I should’ve picked up a bottle of mineral facial sunscreen and given myself a pedicure yesterday;

that the swimsuits overwhelming retail spaces are not for spring breakers and resort goers but for anyone headed to North Avenue Beach in Chicago or Silver Beach in Michigan today;

and that i wish i didn’t know that the Thwaites Glacier is hanging on by fewer and weaker pinning points;

do you respect or even revere military service? i know many of you certainly do/

Continue reading “an open letter on a 65°f primary election day in Michigan | day 145 of Israel’s acute genocide of the Palestinian People”

postpartum

fetal cells
remain in a mother’s body for decades
they know this
particularly
because of mothers of sons

son cells discovered
co-mingling in their mother’s
blood
and marrow
long after their first breaths of atmosphere
and for far too many mothers,
long after their child’s last

we mothers, in-secret chimeras
29, 50,
years after birthing /

no wonder

he breathes
1,191.582 miles away from me

as the crow flies,
as the monarch flies
as the hummingbird flies

and still, i feel the cells of gold i alchemized

for 42 strange, wondrous weeks

in my crone bones

postpartum is forever

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