Child’s Sestina by Water
We stand in shallow whirlpools, freshwater
ankle deep, throwing smooth stones
pushing and laughing friends
until, tender from soaking, our feet are worn.
The sand is soft on your shore. The water ripples.
We must never think of death.
At home I will see the frogs’ little deaths
and catch them. Across the glass water
you net tadpoles atop your stone.
We jump like frogs until we are weary and worn.
You sat still on a rock, unmoving as a friend
to see if the water wouldn’t ripple.
There is brotherhood in the consecutive ripples
of a skipping stone.
Three circles echo as the middle befriends
the first and last, which aren’t acquainted except that water
I realize, bonds all things. And death.
Water and death and everything is worn.
I remember what was worn
by my father in the water
that day I resisted death
by learning how to swim better than the stones.
He showed me that people can make the most ripples
but then, he was my only friend.
Before you were my friend
Father said he needed a gemstone
to give to Denise because she was worn
with us. So I dove under the ripples,
but she never came back and that is the meaning of death.
I looked to you then for life across the water.
Sitting on the gravel pile by night water
with salt-cracked hands, his eyes worn,
Father’s face was mine when I think about Denise’s death.
I wanted to be like you because he needed a best friend
and when he had his elbows on his knees and ripples
in his cheeks I offered up to Father my precious stone.
Worn and fallen to my knees, I can feel death
rippling in these waters
as you, my friend, stand casting stones.
Return to Water
December 25th 12:00am
They’re waiting for those
late arrivals, the processional clustered
by the arched wooden doors twice the size
of a man. Each looks for one to follow—reader,
altar boy, purple-robed priest. Follow the aisle
toward a gold-cast Christ blooming
above poinsettia gardens red as torturers’
robes, and no sign of Peter weeping at his feet.
But by the pond,
brown blood burns your tongue, your throat,
tickles your stomach like soft feet.
You say it’s the latest the old
folk stay up all year to avoid the church
crowds tomorrow. You throw a stone
to tell me your father is lonely, it’s not a vacation
for your sister in Maine, even your mother
has lost her faith.
You cast in arcs; the stones touch one surface
and sink.
Two Imagined Deaths
The first time I imagined your death
you left the house for errands
saying you would be back in an hour.
When it passed I turned off the television and dreamed
that was when you died.
Some minutes later you found me mourning, returned
like one mistaken for dead who opens the front door,
hangs her coat like any other day and thinks
of the dry cleaning that needed to be picked up
or the uncut grass. The family waits,
saying how they expect her to walk in the door
and knowing she won’t. Only she does
come in, calling I’m home
without looking up, and hearing no response,
looks to see her family at the kitchen table,
lost for words like you were a child born
of a virgin. You couldn’t understand their grief,
even when explained, because you had never left.
But you’d be wrong. You were gone
and were not coming back.
So I waited on the couch, TV off, five years old
wondering how I would tell my brother or
explain to my father that you had died.
It was fear then, death was to be feared alone
because it could be avoided, always escaped,
something that was only an accident.
Now though, when I lay awake imagining your death,
it is never fear, never the terrible pacing,
but dread. Thinking instead of dreaming.
Night
and my face and to my breathing.
She breathes my rhythm
because she cannot beat it in her chest.
The roses on the wall curl downward, color of dried blood,
and another bee dances itself to death between the windowpanes.
In the morning my arm will be blue,
the pen exploded in my sleep
trying to scratch my dreams
into my arm.
Searching for a word, or a name,
between smeared fingerprints and cat scratches,
I’ll ask did I say anything, she’ll say
you never do.
How long could you watch me writhing in the sheets
before you touched my hair and whispered
it is nothing darling
it is only me?