March is just another ache –
to be thought of, held in beauty
longer than my beauty holds, I
wonder, do you still remember
the way my smile found you
in those hallways we stumbled
into, haphazard becoming, so
very simple to find a poem
among the blossoms of our aching
hope, white-knuckle stubborn,
the stains beauty pressed
into the wallpaper.
Sun splashes the sidewalk
and the optimists dress for the
beach, yet by evening the
cynics will cackle, snowflakes
bundled like an onslaught of
tiny parachuters, we
scramble beneath awnings
and watch, pant, through the
eyes we had as children,
counting down, three, to
the sprint, two, the
burning of, one, breath,
go.
In black, in white, my
grandmother loses herself
in her Westerns, I watch
her watching, wonder how
she houses her hope, her
grief, her infinite stories, I
remember her prayers all
those bedtimes, bits of
Crayola in a cookie tin,
I want her to know I still
hold her, young, awake,
wanting for more light
in the day, wonder if
her eyes looked like this
as a girl, watching Westerns.
Remember how, by evening,
the grass swelled turquoise?
Jeans stained green at the
kneecaps, tuckered out,
the sliding door and
we were home? Remember
everyone you loved
just within reach? The
light, incandescent, spilling
out into the world?
michael king 