I remember the way you were always there for me when I needed you, and I feel now the striking void left in my heart by your absence; in my darkest hours, you were my light, my beacon, the one constant I could count on—

—like the North Star. You sent me a necklace once because it was labeled a North Star, and you misremembered that it was my favorite— I don’t exactly have a favorite star, I’d said with a smile, I was talking about the hockey team: the North Stars.

And I didn’t have a favorite star, not until you died and all I had left of you was that star around my neck, and my tears left an ocean at my feet— and here, now, as my scars read lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate, as I face midnight, I lift wet eyes to the night sky and I hold my breath and I know you’re still here—

—because the stars are bright tonight.

I.

Last winter,
when snow softened streets
and windswept ice decorated
cold light-posts, you called
Minnesota "home--"
"koti--"
for the first time.

I sat across from you
as a Minnesotan might--
I looked you in the eye
while we shared conversation
and you avoided my gaze.

Face red like firelight,
you smiled at all the right words
and spoke softly, your
thick accent stumbling
over English.

Each time our eyes met,
a grin darted across your lips,
an unspoken assent
to a question I hadn't asked--
then, quickly, you trained your eyes
on my shoulder-- on my forehead.

Maybe, I thought, he's
traditional-- maybe my
V-neck makes him uncomfortable.

II.

Today, I learned that
eye contact-- in your country--
is an invitation
to bed.

I.

I wear the stern face of my ancestors,
the apron-clad Scandinavian matriarchs
who built me from rock and bone.

My husband, my good friends, my family, my colleagues
all affectionately name me "intimidating."

They say:
"You're the strong one."
"We'll send you to win the battle."
"They should have known not to cross you."

They name me fighter,
mouthpiece,
leader,
and stand like tin men in legions at my back.

I am obliged to march on;
I cannot remember a time
when my feet have rested.

My banner waves in the northwest wind
and I hold it, dutifully,
fearing its inevitable fall
as my arms shake.

II.

My arms
shake.

Wind camouflages
this constant trembling: the
fabric of my
flag
whips and ripples and any
falter
in its course
is blamed on the wind, but

veins shrink - skin
shrivels - muscles
shake - I am no Atlas,
my
breath slows
sharpens
stops -

III.

I am a dry sand-castle:
one touch will obliterate me.

I am the brittle leaf on concrete:
one shoe will shred me.

I am dandelion spores on a plain:
one gust will erase me.

IV.

In my chest beats the soft heart of my ancestors,
the ruddy-cheeked Scandinavian matriarchs
who built me from soft earth and azaleas.

So name me weakling,
broken-down,
dependent;
give voice to all of me.

Lift this banner,
and give rest to my weary shoulders.
Hold me in your arms
when I need to collapse.

V.

At times,
even a general must be carried by her soldiers.

I.

I read an article by a man whose sister was killed
when a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
He visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
"Vulgarity with the noblest intentions," he called it.

I think this article
is the most important thing I've ever read.

Until this moment, no one has put into words
how I felt, all those years ago,
when you finally, finally got to sleep
and never woke up-- when your face was everywhere,
when strangers speculated, "Oh, I bet it was suicide;"
"**** yourself up like that, deserve to die young;"
"Shame. Addiction, that is--"
--and none of them knew you and
the vacancy in my heart was headline fodder
and I saw your face and heard your name every day
and no one stopped to realize
that their tributes might be killing the ones who loved you.

II.

Those men and women in the towers became posthumous media darlings,
their names used as war cries, whispered in museums, offered as prayers,
and as icons and martyrs they lost all humanity.

You became some sort of James Dean, the unlikely hero in a tragedy,
and they spun you a romantic, drug-laced casket to lie in
because it would sell the most magazines.

Death is nothing more than trinkets and dollars.

III.

At the museum, there are recording booths
disguised as therapy, collecting the stories
so they can be told in U.S. History classes to our grandchildren.

I never talked, not once, not once,
because I was afraid of being forced into one of my own.
What would I say?

IV.

His sister was turned to ash and so were you.
We have no place to stand and mourn.

He laughs at the rows of unidentified human remains;
maybe because there's nothing else to do.

I wonder if you have grown flowers.

V.

"Everyone should have a museum
dedicated to the worst day of their life," he says.

*******, I say.

I. the breathing of human nature

her poetry weaves a chimera
through ontario maples,
ghostlike songs intoned in late november breath:
*i don't really want to be a pretty girl... *

whispers of woodsmoke fall from sky
(sky, pink as cochineal, pink as avarice
sky, blue as bruises, as jazz, as tropical waters)
she steps from the fog and ash into the beckoning trees,
seduced by leaves,
an autumn saturnalia of honey, flame, amber,
nectar, pistil, anther.

she is cupola and chalice,
budding fuchsia and iron cherry--
but she writes and breathes
as if something more than a woman
who knows all the names for the ocean
stirs and struts inside her.

II. the statue and sobriquet

piano wires melt into statues,
heat steals rusty bottle caps
and bends them eerily into muses.
butterflies perch astutely on their shoulders,
violet, violent, a mosaic of shredded lilies and shellac,
paris in flames, flowering tea-houses,
the mariana trench, a thicket of morning glory.

nature sculpted this metaphysical tribute to her
for all that she has done, for all that her bent fingernails
and snow-covered lips have given
to inspire solstice and equinox--

in the night-songs of the crickets,
crystal bells and rustic chirps,
she was lauded.


III. declaration

she feels the songs in her eyelashes
and writes of wine and palest bone,
fragments of bashful moon,

roots her fingernails into the tarnished canadian willows
and finds her way through magnolia clouds and sea-spray sky;
after all, she can soar.

if you fill your pockets with stones
if i make a bed in my oven
if we fade into whispers
who will write for us?

I.

your Blitz came in the form
of uterine invasion, tissue and blood
in ovarian prison camps,
red as the streets of London.

****** lives in the same apartment
with a beer gut and "paternal rights,"
sieg heil* forced into your mouth
and you are too weak to fight.

You close your eyes.
There has never been a door
to my bedroom, you think.

Blood seeps from your thighs.

Every night, you sleep for so long
and waking up is agony:
what if-- what if i didn't have to wake up again--

once-verdant fields are dry,
dreams are dead,

and the stones feel smooth in your palms.

II.

My world is a bell jar, a chrysalis:
I beat my tiny fists against the glass
until they are bruised as midnight.

They cried his name, cried "suicide,"
speculated on prescription cocktails
as they tipped back wine and thought nothing
of the ones he left behind,
crying on the livingroom floor.

Life was taken from me then
and I have no power to grant it now--
I am Rachel, barren, empty,
in need of a Bilhah.

I was born to a trailer park mother
and a farm-bred father,
and I am proud of them both--
their secondhand flatware was better
than any silver spoon

but here in the land of the stars and stripes,
you cannot break your cocoon
you cannot spread your wings
unless someone pays to crack your shell.

I am stuck.

My oven is apartment-sized
and the kitchen has no door
but it is small enough
that it wouldn't take long.

III.

You and I have loved each other for years,
and the cruelty of distance has kept us
from touching each other.

Once, you said you hadn't given up
because we made a promise to each other,
and it hadn't yet been consummated.

Part of me never wants to kiss you,
if only to keep you breathing.

IV.

Or maybe--
after--
we could hold hands
and walk into the ocean
together.

you put the fire in my skin, you
broke me out, snuck your way in,
you ****** me up and made me whole
you ****** the virtue from my soul

you led my lips to self-combust
i gave you love, i gave you trust
you left me breathless burning slow
you kept me close, you let me go

you flew my screams into the sky
like icarus, condemned to die,
you crashed headfirst into the sea,
you realized the sea was me--

i pushed the water through your hands
you called me sea, i called you land
i gave the fire back to you
we can't be one when one is two

but sunlight hasn't hit the sky
so keep the sacred night, and i will
cling to you, white-knuckle tight
we'll lick our wounds and cry tonight

I'm white.
I don't know what it's like
to have a black son
and wonder if he'll get shot
on a walk down the block
because his skin
camouflages him
into the night.

I am white.
I don't know what it is
to fear shots
from the gun barrels of the cops
hired to protect and serve
"us" from "them"
thick boots stomping the block--

cops more **** than Trayvon,
more **** than Mike,
more **** than the pre-teen
with a BB gun
robbed of his life.

I am white.
I don't know how it feels
to bleed out in the streets,
the fruit of my veins
soaking into scorched tar,
my still-open eyes seared
by the August sun.

I don't know how it feels
to lie there, dead,
an echo of ancestors
dangling from trees,
from light poles,
sunk into the Tallahatchie
with barbed wire and a cotton gin fan.

I am white.
Our history is filled with pale devils
enslaving races,
seizing lands,
killing millions--

so if someone's going to get shot,
maybe it ought to be one of us.

They whittle us down
until we are nothing more than a whisper;
a croak.

My flesh is balsa wood—
“pliable,” said the boss.
“Easy,” said the judge.

Men are born with knives.

Behind closed doors,
they carve.

Their chests swell as they set satisfied knives
on solid walnut desks, glossy with
the oil of money,
spit of secretaries,
greasy fingers.

No one
musters the courage
to knock.

I. first

a whisper of thunder woke the forest.
one low caress of sound pulled warm dew to trembling grass,
sowed a symphony into the soil
and coaxed the flowers to
burst.

fingers of lightning banished the penumbra,
wrapping their soft fire around trunks and twigs,
achingly singeing thin bark to ash
and licking the trees into flame.

II. then

roots unraveled underfoot,
damp soil shivering like cello strings;
buds collapsed in showers of green dust,
choked by young smoke--

III. and

ancient roots
divorce
the dirt,
tangling clusters with
webs of lightning

thick branches crack and
crash
obliterating
the gentlest creatures,
sparks of life consumed
by hotter
fires

but the wind straps you on her back
and carries you away,
leaving the forest to die and burn.

IV. finally

suffering fireflies reflect the inferno
and, when the final flames extinguish,
illuminate the palimpsest of scorched soil
left behind for the next lover.

it's nights like these
i feel trapped by the city,
raw nerves exposed by interrogative streetlights,
my burning fury unable to escape
the bell jar of light pollution.

i need a long stretch of country road,
the windows rolled down in my ******* car
as i drive straight into farmland,
cornfields embracing me on either side,
the whisper of husks and leaves reminding me
it's going to be all right.
i need the only light to be
the sea of stars above, night left unmarred;
i need the pastures, the ponds,
the animals asleep in the barns,
the smell of hay, sweet and familiar.

i need to wander into the night
and kneel down in the dirt
and curse what i need to curse
where no one can hear me screaming for miles.

the safety vest my rib cage calls home,
tight on my chest as i pave this road

tangerine juice in mismatched mugs
at a midnight breakfast

sunset in the dusk mirror of Pelican Lake,
tendrils of light sailing on a gust of wind

the crisp, dry fire of leaves
crowning autumn trees

my garden marigolds, rimmed in oxblood,
planted despite their toxic pollen

prescription bottles in my cabinet,
filled with pills, model of an addiction

a lace of rust, climbing trusses,
devouring steel with tender teeth


embers at the shore of my bones
in this skin, a permanent glow.