Today, August 31st

My father died while eating
peanut buttered toast and sliced bananas

Before he finished his last bite
his head fell back as if to inspect
a cobweb on the ceiling

This is how my mother found him
when she returned to the breakfast table
carrying her toothbrush smeared with mint paste

“I felt for a pulse at his neck, but
there was no beat,”
she explained for the eighth time

Neighbors flood the phone lines
and stuff the refrigerator full
of wild rice hot dish, tuna salad, and slaw

Instead of his arms hanging limply
at his side, Mom described how they were spread out
palms up, his devotional still open on the table

Like a skydiver prepared to take flight

Time in a Palindromic Lesson

You don’t notice that time has passed
Unless
You aren’t having any fun
When that happens
It won’t help to tap on your watch

Measuring sky by sun might work, but
It’s best when you ignore time altogether
Throw away contingencies because
Time will escape you if you don’t

(this poem can be read line by line starting with either the first line working down or the last line working up)

I’ve learned to notice

I’ve learned to notice where water comes from
Down from the sky, caught in cisterns and saved,
then used by the single scoop-full to flush a toilet
or poured by the bowlful to take a bath

I’ve learned to notice how skin is covered
out of protection, not modesty
out of practicality, not frippery
a sign of age, a mark of adulthood

I learned to notice where my foot is pointed,
how not to step over someone
or touch their head
even a yang-sow of the night has an honored head

I’ve learned to notice
every other place in this world
is the center of their universe, too.

-a poem about being a foreigner

Memory

That was a bright and bitter day
The phone rang
She called, for the last time,
simply to say, "I love you"
and nothing more.

It took me a moment
to grasp her message
the way her breath caught
like snowflakes on lashes
a thistle seed on argyles

But when at last I understood
her meaning,
it was too late.
There was nothing left
but an empty dial tone.

Felicity

Felicity was the girl everyone wanted to pick
on because she was slow that way,
you know what I mean.

And one time, when she was playing
right field, she wet
her pants.

She didn’t yell at us or
anything mean, though she did walk
away crying

her blond hair sticking out
of her head like
straws in a haystack

her nose snotty and red
using her sleeve
for a Kleenex.

How many times had she heard the words,
be a good sport,
so she was.

Felicity was the girl everyone wanted to pick
on.
So we did.