dad left
for his second tour of duty
on my third birthday

mom kept
a jar full of jelly beans
on the living room coffee table

every night
she gave me one to eat, saying
"when these jelly beans
are all eaten up,
dad will come back home"

sometimes
i would sneak another,
to help dad come home sooner

one night
the phone rang
and i watched mom
wipe away a tear
as she filled
the jar
back
up

If this were a poem
I'd climb the long stairs to the attic and
crouch by the window
where snow gathers on the sill

Study the field of stars

How they fall, wanton
oblivious to boundaries

How each light
could be a door to another world
that my body would slip through
if it knew the way

This is where the poem would build

Between the edge of the window I grip
and the endless space of nothingness
that calls to me

*Come learn the alphabet of stars

The train changes tracks and
there is a pull, a deep sighing
of engine and steam

We glide from platform into water,
the train dipping beneath cool waves
into a mercury world  

Far down
dragon-fish watch me through the window,
their silver stripes like seaweed
splayed in slow motion,
moving left, then right

Like my sister’s hair
that summer in the Red River,  
my parents fell asleep in the sun
lips stained with wine,
forgetting she couldn’t swim

Her fingertips reaching for light,
a stream of bubbles surfacing,
signaling the quiet struggle

How long have I been dreaming you,
grasping handfuls of water in my sleep,
searching for the memory of your body?

Deeper down the light burns a cold red
The train groans under the weight of the sea

And she is taking me,
the sea is taking me,
a lost child in her great arms
to the red darkness below

The dragon-fish rise,
their eyes a road of stars
I cannot follow.

My mother wore wigs and drank bourbon on Sundays
while my father worked across the street

I'd watch him from my bedroom window
sewing, stapling
hammering out frustrations I couldn't name

I called my sister David
because I wanted a brother
and a different family

My mother called my father Jesus
because she said he thought he was perfect

"Jesus, cut the grass."
"Jesus, take out the trash."
"Jesus, just ******* do it."

I'm grown up now
my name isn't Stupid Girl anymore
I've inherited my mother's rage
and my father's heavy sighs

Dark days I find myself thinking
my finger tracing the rim of a shot glass
you can't outgrow
what you're made of

And I feel inside of me
the breaking of glass

My sister writes me long letters from New York
she signs them all
love, David