Interview in Poetic Bloomings

I know everyone who visits this blog has probably already seen this, but just in case . . .

Put out

She breathes fire
the smell of singed wood
the subtle soot
sitting on happy words 

It lingers
in the corner of her eyes
an insatiable heat
burning into her thoughts

The burdens
The book
The smiles
The love

Lost

You could see
in the corner of her smile
a wet sigh
extinguishing the fire in her soul

 carried in the flames of her laugh

 --

Archived from Feb. 11, 2008 on Rising from the Ashes

i can entirely her only love

i fell for you
before time was time,
as we tumbled through the summer grass
and back yard sprinklers.

i unlocked your smile
on secret adventures
into closets and blanket-covered
couches-turned-tents.

i laughed
as we trick-or-treated
in kimonos and
Wonder Woman Underoos.

i fell for the
wondering woman
navigating the twists and turns
of an emerging adulthood.

i smiled unlocking
the still-giddy girl
hiding her secrets in the creases
of adventure-seeking eyes.

i laugh
at the face i see
in the fogged-up bathroom mirror,
sweating in the summer heat.


Poetic Bloomings #72 -- At First Sight

Back to Jack

Back to Jack

The way my father tells
it, Great-Grandpa Jack
was a lawyer in L.A.

back in the days when
the city was
really beginning to take shape.

He walked out of the
courthouse one day,
fed up with the system,

and across the street to
a construction site
and asked for a job.

He never looked back.


The way I remember it,
it was hot
where he lived. He was

frail and his head shook,
a subtle nodding,
as he smiled at me

and my little baby sister.
I squirmed, not
understanding why we were smiling

and sweating at this house.
Perhaps they knew
that death wasn't far off.

We drove away and never looked back.


I was 6 or so
when Dad whispered
to my mother in the

upstairs hallway that Great-Grandpa Jack
had passed. "What
does that mean?" I asked.

"He died. Funeral is Thursday,"
Dad said. I
wanted to go with him.

He couldn't understand why I
wanted to mourn
a man I barely knew.

Perhaps I just wanted to look back.



--

Poetic Bloomings Memoir Project
Part 8: Death, be not proud