Everything is new:
my mother’s crude husband,
this small Alaska town,
my unknown
fifth grade classmates—
including Larry Sefrovitch
who wants to fight.
A crowd circles us on the playground
as we flail fists.
Only after a teacher
separates us
do I cry.
I can’t stop.
Seward, Alaska, 1952
(No. 62 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
She wandered with Pazanne,
her German shepherd;
tended secret campfires
along the Olympic coast,
dipped naked into Cascade lakes,
opened to the datura mazes
of Southwestern canyon land.
Along the road she gathered songs,
traded them for rides.
She would come calling
when her path brought
her back to Seattle.
Late one night I returned
to my befuddled cabin
after a starry walk along the Sound.
Curled in my bed, [...]
When I was seven
my father offered his secretary
a ride home.
On the way, he pulled
to the side of a country road,
slumped over the steering wheel, died
of a cerebral hemorrhage.
That night my mother tells me
he is gone forever.
I numb, suspend
in dry shock.
-Remember everything he taught you.
-He taught me exactly how to dry
between my legs after a bath.
I’ll [...]
We haven’t seen each other for years.
At tonight’s gathering, it’s take-out
lasagna and tired salad.
My step-nephew chats
amiably, sunglasses atop
his constant baseball cap. His mother
says Steve’s been traveling—
launching nephew into storied visits
to the Vegas adult entertainment expo.
He fetches photos to illustrate reported
marvels—pendulous latex breasts,
perfect be-thonged bottoms,
astonishingly realistic
woman dolls.
Pictures pass over cheesecake
and decaf in murmured appreciation.
When they [...]
My mother’s husband,
easily confused,
sat at the restaurant table
in tears,
nerves imploded.
He pleaded with her for help,
to make the conversation
stop.
We acquiesced,
he quieted,
his soul a
corpse-brown
husk.
Twelve years later
he and my mother are both
dead. Last week the family
restaurant where we sat
burned
to the ground.
(No. 65 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
For decades
I’ve returned
to this rocky outpost,
sat beside this lodgepole pine,
gazed across Rosario Strait.
With wife, daughter,
subsequent lover—
now with only
this borrowed dog.
Sun blurs my tears
into star flies
that moisten lichen,
and call forth a trumpet
of Canada geese.
Somehow
it all makes
sense.
Orcas Island
Near Mount Cruiser
we abandon trail,
camp among creamy bistort
under the teeth of
Henderson ridge—
gateway to backcountry.
Exhilarated, we
join our bodies.
At this exact
moment
Ariel Meadow
steps through silent
vast, crosses
trackless snow,
into our lives
forever.
I made my worst mistakes
because I was so afraid
of being alone.
It was unusual for my mother,
then in her 80s, to name a personal
demon.
She sat to my left on the couch,
my grown daughter to the right.
Certain as a strand of DNA,
the named fear snaked through
us. It left the same steely flavor
in our bellies,
and we each [...]
Most nights we read aloud,
sloped against each other on the
afghan covered couch.
Through Narnia and Earthsea
we cheered Good’s
endless battles with Evil.
One night, when it was time,
we placed Air’s homemade
super kiss bookmark at
chapter’s end.
She climbed up to her bed
built over drawers and low closet.
A guardian angel looked down
from the low ceiling,
and glow-in-the-dark stars absorbed light
for their upcoming [...]
From dusky fir
ascends the heart break
of the Swainson’s thrush,
gray-green movement
stirring the summer twilight.
At meadow’s edge my infant daughter
sturdily answers the woodland voice,
La-a-a-a-ahh; alaah!
Again and again.
Soundless tears stream,
my constricting fears
of fatherhood
released.
(Number 4 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
