The First Way to Foster Children

by | Jul 18, 2011 | Blog, My Poems

I remember
how your hands were

filled like small

wheelbarrows,

lacking
their legs,

lacking
days,

days filled with poems –

*

like the one where you find
one of your manuscripts

in the garbage –
you look underneath a box of Krispy Kreme

and there is a stack of your poems –

in the order you had placed them,
followed by a section break

you entitled “Seagulls.”

A few corners bent
under the weight of coffee grounds

rather than a reader’s
dog-earing.

*

I wanted to take
your heart
of diamonds

and fill it
until it was clearer,
darker

like blood,
resembling something
we all

could touch.

*

I remember the summer when
the inflatable mattress

rose

like pregnancy
and air.

Broken tent springs.

She watched you
over the fire,

her hair
almost blue,

evening flame
hanging over her neck.

Your eyes never met hers,
carefully,

your pupils, small monsoons
of summer shade.

These are the secrets your hands were filled with.