Poetry Collection

Ginger

My grandmother is the only person

Who ever fixed my hair.

She would braid my long locks most days,

Summer days, school days, holidays –

Usually French –

Her tan, arthritic hands,

Free of all jewelry,

Would weave my brunette wavy tresses

Into a manageable mane,

Quickly learning

That my hair was unruly, wild,

Had a mind of its own

And would crawl its way out of a braid

Unless wet or slathered in gel.

While she twisted, turned, and pulled,

She would teach me all the French words

For my ballet lessons

Or regale me with stories,

Taking me back to her own childhood

In middle of nowhere Arkansas

After the Great Depression.

Hours spent braiding her own hair

Or playing jacks and gin rummy

With her maiden aunts

With whom she had to share a bed at night,

Aunt Kat’s uneven polio altered body

Protruding under the thin quilts.

While her brothers – now doctors –

Played baseball with the neighborhood boys

And had a room of their own to share.

I sat quietly and listened,

Enjoying the soft pulls on my hair,

Enjoying the stories.

I would pick a spot on the wall

And stare at it,

Like a ballerina in a loop of endless pirouettes,  

Until the wall disappeared entirely and

I was there, on the front porch,

Playing cards

Waiting for my aunts to take me to the library,

My stack of books by the door

Next to the empty milk bottles.  

My grandmother can no longer braid my hair,

Her fingers have become too gnarled

By arthritis, sun damage,

Old age.

I rub her hands beneath mine.

Her thin, tan skin moving easily,

Too easily,

Over her bones.

She lets me play with her veins,

Moving the blood in the blue lines

Up and down,

Up and down,

Emptying and refilling.

But the blood,

The blood always comes back. 

The Middle

Meet and marry.

That's how it works

In stories, biographies, poems.

Love stories, whole lives,

Are edited down

To those three words.

What happens in the middle?

I wonder.

That’s what matters most,

Isn’t it?

How did they meet?

Was it interesting? Different?

Was it love at first sight?

Or was it learned?

The journey – their life together –

Begins when they meet,

Not when they marry.

Sometimes, however,

It ends with meeting

And never gets to marriage.

When my maternal grandparents met,

My grandfather was already engaged

To a girl in Australia.

He wrote her,

After eight short weeks,

And broke the engagement.

He had a new love,

A better love.

And he would marry her –

An Irish girl with big, brown eyes –

Before the year was out.

When my paternal grandparents met,

My grandmother was engaged

To a boy in Arkansas

Who pumped gas for a living

And lived in a chicken coop.

My grandfather told her on that first night,

“You can throw that ring out the window, baby,

Because you’re marrying me.”

My grandmother thought he was an asshole.

They were engaged one year later.

And they’ve been married 56 years.

Times have changed,

But love has not.

My maternal grandparents died

Less than 20 hours apart.

He went first

In a separate building,

Across town.

And, without any knowledge of his passing,

My grandmother slipped quietly away.

We didn’t say a word.

We didn't have to.

They knew.

They knew all along.

Sebastian

I met him in Major English Writings I

Freshmen year of college.

And we had a class together every semester

Until I studied abroad.

But before I left,

We would go on adventures,

Just he and I,

Escaping campus

On perfect days,

Driving around in his truck –

Slowly and without power steering

Because his lift-kit fucked it up.

I liked the way he drove,

Talking to me

While he pretended to get lost

In a neighborhood he knew well.

Leisurely, his foot barely on the pedal,

We drove for hours,

Talked about everything we loved,

Twangy country music on in the background.

I would pause to sing the words

And he would turn and smile,

Happy that I knew the tune

Joining me,

His voice just as off-key as my own.

When his mom called,

I looked out the passenger window

At the quaint Winter Park,

Its brick streets and iron sign posts.

And, before he hung up,

He told her he loved her.

I couldn’t help it.

I grinned.

Full and broad and looking right into the sun.

I knew before then that he was wonderful,

But he kept proving it time and time again.

We talked mostly about English literature.

Our first loves.

Reading everything in reach,

Writing whenever we felt inspired.

Sharing the same creative process.

I treasured our conversations,

Our daily interactions,

The things he would bring me

just because he could:

A banana for breakfast,

potassiyummy written along the side,

Matching smoothies,

A granola bar, or g-bar

As he affectionately referred to them.

Orange tic-tacs,

Poured into my scooped palm.

That I exchanged for pralines from home,

And handfuls of clementines

That we peeled together

seated under the trees on the lawn,

Throwing the skins into the bushes,

Discussing woodwork and hunting,

Antiques and scented candles.

He took me to his favorite hangout,

A bicycle shop that sold home-brewed coffee

And wine by the glass.

One Friday evening,

While our friends went to clubs

And bars,

We sat there over iced tea

And discussed Toni Morrison

Until the chairs were stacked on the tables,

The open sign turned around.

And, even after he dropped me off,

He texted me

Continuing our conversation,

On symbolism and strong female characters.

On a cold Friday morning,

He texted me after Spanish

And I met him at the corner coffee shop.

He brought a rose

A single, long stemmed red rose

Wrapped in cellophane and raffia.

My cheeks hurt

I smiled so much.

I still smile at the thought of him.

It wasn’t meant to last,

Like much of life, I know.

But I still read our favorite books

And remember him fondly

Without any resemblance of regret.

I have my happy college memories

And those,

Those are the things that last a lifetime.  

Apartment 1525

The living room wants to be grown up.

It craves china and books,

People in real shoes,

Wine and cheese parties.

But it is stuck in its college days –

Old carpet whose stains never fully disappear,

Frameless futon mattress on the floor,

Sorority cups scattered across all surfaces

Mostly full of tea and water

But sometimes

Sometimes filled with vodka and crystal light concoctions

That stain a bright red.

There is no TV,

But there are stories acted out,

Like a game of charades.

There are loud voices –

Yelling, laughing, screaming voices

Of energy and youth.

There are loud feet –

Walking through, running by, dancing around.

Slipcovered sofa and futon,

Accessorized with burnt orange and teal pillows,

UT blanket and bears tucked in at the corners,

Unlit candles and old birthday balloons,

Dried flowers in a coffee can,

Artwork on one wall,

A string of Christmas lights on the other

That have never come down.

These are the things that make up a living room

Where four girls spend their time

Doing homework, talking, socializing,

Catching up on their lives,

Napping, crying,

Eating family dinners and drinking from mugs,

Reading books and magazines,

And gossiping about classmates and lost friends.

This is where we live

In our living room

When we want to be grown up

And when we can’t bring ourselves

to face the real world.

More than the sum of its mismatched furniture parts

It is comfortable,

It is home

When home is so very far away.