After Dad died
Mom taught me her sauce-
olive oil, garlic,
whole tomatoes I crush
like hearts on her cutting board.

I remember his palette,
cinnabar and vermillion,
while she screamed over the stove
and he disappeared
into the attic light.

She was an artist once,
before I lived in her body,
before she hemmed my dresses
and cooked her life
into someone else’s evenings.

“It was always this simple?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“I used to do it the hard way.
Like Nonna.”
Her eyes don’t leave the simmering ***.

Love left alone will scorch,
turn bitter on the tongue
of whoever waits too long
for someone to taste it
before it burns.

Mom said we’d have lunch
with her cousin Bobby,
driving in
from Jackson Hole, or maybe Reno,
places so far from Illinois,
I couldn’t imagine the route.

She picked me up from horse camp,
two months gone,
and said we’d stay at a motel,
cable, a pool, continental breakfast,
before shopping for school clothes.
I said OK.

Our yellow house waited
on its alley of ratty bushes.
Home had become
a question I didn’t answer.

I wanted Opal,
the sweet white mare,
and the girls from other towns
who smelled like hay
and never asked about the divorce.

Somewhere, Bobby was driving
across the country,
but all I wanted
was to go back
to the ranch.

I watched Dad lift
the stunted tree from a highway table,
ceramic *** hot as a skillet in his palms.
Its roots pressed tight
against their shallow prison,
a life made small,
taught to accept it.

He drove through the Mojave
with the bonsai on his lap,
branches trembling
as if already afraid of him.
I whispered secrets to its needles,
pressed my lips to its tiny crown
the way you kiss a sleeping baby.

In the cabin,
rain thickened the air with cedar and promise.
I circled stones around the tree
like friends around a birthday cake
and waited for it to laugh.

When its *** shattered,
he said nothing.
I held its dangling roots in my hands,
mud soaking through my shoes,
syrup cracking on my cheeks.

We buried him-
a little boy, I said,
at the lake’s edge
beside his mother
whose twisted trunk leaned toward water.
Dad said magic would save him,
hoodoo magic,
forest magic,
the kind that never answers back.

On the drive home
I counted hoodoos in silence
and watched the empty bucket
roll on the back seat
like a heart without a cage.

Today I am broken,
But I am still the person I came as.
I am still strong and I still have strength left to give,
I know you liked to see me crumbling apart,
Left in ruins while trying to find my beating heart.
At least it’s how I felt,
Today is a better day than any to grow a little more.
To repair and replace,
As I rebuild the castle inside of me.

Harry bends over the grill,
beefy with years of drink
and culled anger,
scrubbing until silver shines,
a bullet waiting for my shift.

He believes if the French Toast is perfect,
she will appear in a halo of steam,
peacoat and Mary Janes,
ready to forgive the life they never had.

Outside Brother Juniper’s,
Peachtree Street is a kingdom of the lost:
druggies, rent boys, drag queens,
pimps preaching Jesus
to the homeless in Piedmont Park.
The smell of grease stitches it all together.

Inside, fluorescent light
makes faces soft as wet clay,
ready to be remade by morning.
French fries sizzle like whips,
blintzes bleed cherry onto chipped plates,

and Tati, round as a blessing,
delivers soup to the sobbing girl
whose mascara becomes a confession.

I clock in,
busting knuckles and boots,
young, stupid,
just trying to keep up with him.
I know he wants her to return.
I know she won’t.
I know he’s getting older.

I watch Harry’s grace and sweat,
watching the city believe
in one last plate of salvation.

At dawn,
he’ll stumble across the street,
feed the jukebox Ray Charles,
and search the sidewalks
for her red hair in every stranger.