21^st Century American Birthday

You know you’ve made it
as a consumer and a modern American
when the bulk of your birthday texts and emails
are automated.

Happy birthday from Starbucks
come in for a free coffee.

Happy birthday from Hertz
get one day free if you book your next rental now.

Happy birthday from your optometrist
don’t forget to schedule your annual vision check-up
and be sure to look at our new frames.

Happy birthday from your dentist
don’t neglect your annual cleaning
make a vow to floss regularly as you age.

Happy birthday from Jiffy Lube
come get your free oil change
and a twelve point inspection.

Happy birthday from your physical therapist
does that shoulder still hurt
book now for ten percent off
don’t forget we’re out of network.

Happy birthday from your current employer
and your last employer
they value your contributions
and wish you a great year ahead.

Happy birthday from your insurance company
home and auto
are you happy with your coverages
have you looked into life insurance?

Happy birthday from your bank
they hope you have a wonderful day
are you interested in some new type of checking account?

Happy birthday from the tire shop
don’t forget about your rotation and
check our holiday special for tires
remember winter is approaching
don’t forget your snow tires.

Happy birthday from some website
you don’t remember
you bought something off of years ago
what even was it.

Happy birthday from your credit card company
use these rewards redeem these points
thank you for being a loyal card user
don’t stop spending.

Happy birthday from this social media site
and that one too
make sure you do a post
or a story
or both
share your birthday with your friends
share share share.

Happy birthday from this big hotel chain
and from Air BNB
and from that little bed and breakfast
where you spent your final night with your last lover.

Happy birthday from this restaurant
and that restaurant too
come in for a free birthday dessert
come in for a free birthday drink
come in for 20% off
come to our restaurant
no ours
go to all of them
you can eat 5, 6, 10 meals on your birthday and
maybe, finally
you’ll feel satisfied.

Winter Wind

You stay in bed
during the first winter wind.

It slices the window
behind your head
at a higher pitch
than in summer.

It sounds cold,
as if it could cut through
the pane that separates you
from the morning air
at any moment.

Featured image: Social media addiction, Doctorxgc, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

PEONY BUD

a sphere as round
as earth     multifoliate—

petals folded
into possibilities

ovate leaves the backdrop
waxy with the future—

jade pigment—
the outlines

capture impatience
like waiting rain

the main event—
the pink of peonies

unmatched by roses
or clematis     what pink

was invented to express—
not a color really

but a gap in spectral light
in faint tracings

of blood     in tongues
in our labia that need

to be named and have
a voice

XERCES BLUE

The first insect lost
to human impact. The color
of Alice Roosevelt’s

famous gown, Diana’s sapphire
ring, & profusions
of forget-me-nots that still bloom

on the same San Francisco dunes
where the Xerces lived.
The males had iridescent wings.

They survive in photographs
& in our minds’ eyes.
One quarter of all

papillons 
mariposas    farfallas  
have vanished.

Featured image: Nikita Karasik, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My Mother Sizes Me

You come to me shaking, cradling tissue
in your palm so carefully that I didn’t recognize
your softness, open to me for once. Do you like it?
you asked before unwrapping. I don’t know
where it came from. I knew the minute I saw it
slim and pale green, impossibly small. A perfect circle
that would never fit on me again. Back then,
I bruised myself to take it off
would have smashed it if I loved it less.
That summer I was angry with you over
everything, not knowing where to put it
or the bracelet, except away in your makeup drawer
with Clinique and Estee Lauder, each bag open
and overfull with palettes and powders,
promises to highlight, enhance, define. I knew
you’d never find it, knew you never wore makeup
after you left the mall; no one ever looked as good
in their own lighting. I didn’t understand what it meant
that we could only bond over beauty counters,
bear each other more easily with our lips smacking
in front of mirrors to shades of Black Honey
and Bruised Plum. Now you can only stare and wait
wanting me to try again, so sure the bangle still fits
but it sticks at my knuckles, my body stubborn
to the past, your will. You grab soap in one hand,
my wrist in the other, and my laughter is
the only lubricant I have for this failure.
I could hide it again, slip the jade under
concealer and compacts, the free gifts
we spent weekends chasing and forgot.
I wonder if I could face you, and still we’d end up here:
heads bent over the sink, letting you mold
and make me, breaking myself to make it fit.

Early Mornings at the Kitchen Table With My Father

Your hands tented like prayer, you said
you hated to see me drive into work so early
come home so late. You hoped differently for me
but it’s too late for hopes and too early
to answer. I wondered if you thought I came by it
naturally, or if you were remembering how you left
always before true morning, the sun, and breakfast
with your family to make something of a day
each day turning into a lifetime of goodbyes
your wiry hours winding down to so little.
This was what it’s like to see you go:
you drove away in trucks that housed
what you loved—your instruments, massive
blueprints, and those enormous spools of cable.
You wound up on the same couch each night
half-asleep, too tired to move but with a half-smile
asked us what we’d learned today, before
you set off into deep sleep, dreaming
of what you’d build tomorrow. At night, your screams
frightened me into your room, to stand guard
at the foot of the bed, not to wake you
but to witness your secrets, what you never
told us about the war or day or how you felt.
I learned to keep silence from those nights next to you.
Your hands folded across your chest,
the ones that might have waved goodbye,
but never woke us up in time, are not the hands
that held mine today.  They begged for more time
such a little thing to ask in such a tight grasp
but what can you do with psoriasis-eaten hands
that embarrass you. You know that they
embarrass me too. The hands that used to build
now gnarled at the knuckles so we can’t let go
even if we wanted to, and you can’t pry me loose.

Featured image: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Neon Reverie

The suit wore him—too white, too new.  
A cigar flared; smoke curled in balcony air.  
Penthouse whispers steeped in carat gold;
his voice like opera—loud, aware.

We drifted down to F. Scott’s
jazz hung heavy in the air.  
His laughter thinned to smoke and glass,  
martini spills on borrowed flair.

I was fresh out of school—  
too young for his tired game,  
carrying shadows I couldn’t name.

A day later, his smoke still climbed.  
Two days on, the wind swept the city clean.

The Email

The inbox blinked.  
Summons I couldn’t ignore:  
papers are ready.  

One sentence split the room—  
the air went thin.  

I called for his voice;  
silence pressed cold  
against my skin.  

The phone clicked off.  

Grief rolled me  
in soundless thunder.  

A clarion call—  
calm, steady,  
threaded through the wire,  
cutting clean through fog:  
the storm subsided,  
a fragile shift  
between what I was  
and what I could be.  

In the hush that followed,  
I learned to breathe again.  

Each breath softer,  
each heartbeat mine

that mirror light in hue,  
and dance the Danube waltz again—  
my heart in time with you.

Featured image: Andrzej Barabasz, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons