1.
No better way to soothe the soul
than by walking on the beach
the waves in and out
in and out
no other sound
a dog fetching a ball.
I wonder what my parents
in my vintaged memory
gone to scalloped edges
the kind you sometimes find at thrift stores,
each card wrapped in plastic,
would think of me.
I have so little to go on—
the smell of my mother’s yeast cake,
my father steaming up the shower,
then leaving for Orchard Beach, a break
from dipping his hands all week in chemicals.
Each time I see a family
barbecuing or camping
or walking together
on the sand
I feel a pang of emptiness
a place that never got filled with batter,
a goodness I could scrape
my finger along the edge of a mixing bowl
like a greedy child
wanting more.
2.
Two empty shopping carts
side-by-side at the end of a trail
in a few days they’re reclaimed,
the wind chases a potato chip bag
across the lawn, something
about returning
emptiness to its former state,
the way my mother would read epitaphs
from gravestones at Joseph Rodman Drake Park,
himself a poet who shared space with former slaves
and auto repair shops.
A few blocks away
you hung our laundry with wooden clothespins
on a rope that reached to the other side
of the apartment building across a dark chasm
always afraid I’d fall out the window
when you asked me to wheel in the socks,
a rusted pulley moaned until the wash
came close enough to grab, holding my breath
long enough to rescue the last one.
3.
Tempered glass is known to shatter spontaneously
if not cooled properly. You left
before I knew who you were
before I knew how to ask
formed a bridge from the old country
to New York City
got as far as subways
and eating cheese danishes with coffeee
on weekends
held it together long enough
to raise three girls in one-bedroom
before I knew who you were
before I knew how to ask
4.
At the Oregon shoreline
traveling home after six weeks
in the Pacific Northwest,
so unlike the Bay Area
where years ago
I used to fall asleep to the sound of rain.
I pretend you sit down with me
near the Columbia Gorge beneath a waterfall,
or more like Mt. Saint Helen’s
where the land is healing itself
in an easel of fox glove, Indian paintbrush,
and yellow cat’s whiskers.