I don’t want to be lying
Alone in your arms
I don’t want to be telling the truth
With your calluses speaking to my belly
And your words getting lost in my ear
Did you feel it kick?
Did you?
Did you feel it?
I didn’t feel a thing
I am not unhappy
I am happy
I am not unhappy
I’m uncertain
Of what’s beating in my belly
Did you feel it kick?
I didn’t feel a thing
Will you make me an honest woman?
Will you do the math?
1+1+1
Is three
I’m so afraid
That’s what we’re going to be
I can’t be your wife
I’m so sorry I’m a liar
I love truth
As much as you
I loved the lie inside me
I loved the words you spoke
To the not ears
In my belly
And your shape
Filling the not space
Beside me
And your blood
And my blood
Telling stories inside me
Saying not not not
I am not happy
I am unhappy
I am not happy
I’m uncertain
Of what we do now
I didn’t want to be lying
Alone in your arms
But I wasn’t telling the truth

When you made preserves our house
Didn’t seem so haunted
Our kitchen seemed bright and inviting
Instead of white and sterile
The window above the sink seemed so far away
And the curtain above that
Even farther
They were
Peach
Turquoise
Brown
And they made me dream of Indians in their teepees
Lonely desert nights
Though I had never been there
Arizona
New Mexico
California
Colorado
I had never been to those places
Those were your places
That was where you fell in love
Dad told me
And the pictures in the laundry room told me
I always went in there to look
For a part of you I had never met
But sometimes when you were making preserves
You were that girl again
With a crazy mass of curls that you’ve never tied back
Cuz you hate your ears
After two kids, you were still skinny
And taller than I’ll ever be
And in the heat of the kitchen
Tiny drops of sweat beaded on your forehead
You’d roll up your sleeves
Tie your shirt at the waist
And laugh and play in the steam where you boiled the mason jars
Pretending you were at Yellowstone again
Watching Old Faithful erupt from the earth
Right on cue
Holding Dad’s hand
Back before he grew his beard
I tried to count your freckles while you were reminiscing
You’ve got a lot
A lot a lot
I thought you were the prettiest woman I had ever seen
As you turned those scalding mason jars upside down
And told me to wait till I heard them pop
You made it sound like it would be magical
Elusive
Like if I didn’t pay attention
I would miss it
And I did.
Everytime.
Cuz I was in the laundry room looking at pictures
Of someone I didn’t know
When a symphony of popping would ensue
From the kitchen
And I’d come running
But I missed the mason jars rattling
And shaking as they played their tune
Raspberry preserves in c minor
I missed the butcher’s block by an inch as I slid on the linoleum
And nearly knocked over the coyote cookie jar
I missed my chalkboard easel
By the Grace of God
My earliest masterpieces remained intact
But I did not miss your face
Or the grin that lingered
When the popping ceased

Tonight we’re aligned with the stars
I’m wearing Orion’s belt
You’re drinking in thirsty gulps from the big dipper
The little one’s in freckles on your chest
And now I can hear the wind chimes
On the porch
I can hear the leaves
Of the Bradford Pear
I can hear the cats and dogs and coyotes and deer and owls
Making nighttime noises
I can hear mom snoring in the house
For one of the last times
I can hear the trampoline springs creaking with age
And feel it bouncing and swaying under us
Like it did in its heyday
I can hear you sniffling, sister,
I can hear you crying
Your warm wet tears
Are drowning my ears
Like all those summers we did swim team
When I take your hand
It’s smaller than I remember
It’s Abby circa ‘99
Though you didn’t let me hold it then
And I never tried
Now our hair is curling in swirling halos
Around the same face
Mom’s face
We never did look like Dad
Now we’re gazing at the same stars
Under the same March sky
Thinking, saying, “God is good”
Saying, believing, “How can He not be?
When the sky looks like this”
Believing, knowing, that it’s true
Even while our hearts are rocks,
Our hands are clay,
Our minds are swarming
Teeming
Buzzing
Hives
But “God is good”
“How can He not be?
When the sky looks like this”
When our mother is a fish
How can He not be?
We know:
“God is good.”
While we’re reading the Braille of the sky
Two foxes slink by
Now we dismount the trampoline and go inside
Where we hear Mom snoring
For one of the last times