the cars on the road
and descends past naked trees
into the field still
dry despite snowmelt water
where she alights and
closes her wings, ruffles her
feathers, and dunks her
head. She drinks. The
wind stirs ripples on the pond.
Then she comes up, bobs,
floats, and dunks her head again
and again with wild
thirst that will not be sated.

You forget how light your steps fall
and how quickly the tide
and wind weather your footprints.
So what if you’re not standing on sandy beaches,
go stand on the frozen lake and
leap over the snowy mounded waves.
Take this moment for what it brings.
You’ve been ill—but you’re standing here
better out in the open, your feet cold and wet.
So you don’t enough money to
fly to wherever you want whenever you want.
Your eyes fly upward now,
over where blue meets white endlessness.
You breathe in cold air and blink.  
You’re where you’re at
in life because
you chose
to    be   here.
Every day your choices accumulate
like snow that refuses to stop falling
even on the first day of spring,
and they bear you
over a mound of frozen opportunity.
Sure, 90% of what happens in life is beyond human control,
but 10% is how we react to it.
As time passes, choices can’t always be undone,
but
May always comes.
And in March
we always have the option to continue.

At that winter smiles in the North
and melts into mist
and returns a few weeks later
with soft snow flakes from the sky,
on an April afternoon
the same day the sun wore
her yellow raiment
and the grass put on her green dress
in preparation for spring.
The trees know better
and wisely kept their leaves tucked
up in their buds and sleep still,
warmed by the hardened shell of their skin.
We learn it is better to wait, to plant our seeds
–instead of letting their promises freeze
like our uncovered fingers and toes
during the false fade of winter.
So the sandals are put away,
and the scarves, gloves, and fleeces
come out of storage.
It feels cold now, but you smile
because you remember that
you are still warmer than the days
that turned your fingers blue with ache
and turned your breath into mist.
They say there is a season for all things,
and now growing things lie still,
except for you.
So, you wait
and grow more patient.

Brother, you told me once you were scared
to have a daughter.

You knew this when you baby-sat
a baby girl with your wife,

and you, a former American Army infantryman

melted and was brought down in a way

that the guns you faced in Afghanistan never could.

She’ll be my princess, I remember you saying.

A little girl all dressed in pink,
whatever she’ll ask for, you'll give it.

You were relieved when the first child

you and your wife had was

a baby boy, but to be honest,

you melt all the same,
even 9 months later.

But I’ve always wanted to ask,
“Why are you afraid to have a daughter?”

You know the stories how our mother gave birth for the first time

and how she labored in the car
when she drove herself to the hospital.

And how your pregnant wife came home on her lunches from work

and would cry on the floor because her back hurt so bad,

But she still sat up and went back to work--

the same way our older sister cried on her first day back

from maternity leave and parted with her baby boy for the first time,

the same way Mom went back to work when you and Dad deployed.

What you know of women is that we’re strong,

that we dry our tears and continue on with the world.

Really what we do is keep the world spinning
with the force of how much we love.

So anything, you give your daughter
will be returned in multitudes.

You were taught the same way to love that I was--

instinctively and unconditionally and unrelentingly.

And maybe you’re afraid that your daughter

won’t be able to walk home alone at night

or that no one will listen to her,

And you know this is a poem from your younger sister.

So savor that I’m saying you’re not wrong,
because I don't know when that will happen again.

Your daughter may have to work harder to be heard

and to keep herself safe than any son you have.

But know no matter, how strong she is or how hard she works

that **** still happens

and it won’t be her fault.

and you know because you have two sisters

and you’ve heard our stories.

Statistics say that 1 in 3 women experience ****** or physical violence.

We have one President, who bragged on a Hollywood Access bus

about grabbing women by the *****  

because they let him

and because no one stopped him.

Brother, be scared of the men who would hurt your daughter,

but brother, don’t be scared to have a daughter,

Because she will love you the same way
your wife, your mother,

and your sisters have loved,

that our bodies may break and tear in the doing
but we will choose to do it all over again.

We talk about beginnings and endings
like we know what they are and can spot them
coming around the corner or predict
them like a green light turning red in traffic.
But really, we're just stuck in the middle
of a book without titles or chapters-
a movie without rewinds or pauses
or dramatic music in the brackground.
Instead you'll hear your steady inhales and
your exhales, your heartbeats,your thoughts echo.

I love you like a North Dakota sky--

long, blue, and everywhere

He may praise me like

a breeze on a sunny day.

He may shriek as he

gets carried away.

He may slam the front door

and rattle the windows.

He may get swept up in a storm

of his own making,

but I've learned to stand in

the eye of the storm and

not be touched,

when to board the windows

and doors and wait in

the basement,

when to hop in my car and roll the windows down

and feel the wind in my fingers,

and when to look for that moment

when a child's kite cartwheels

through the air

and a proud father looks on

you’ve just hung your vibrant
dripping orchid that you’ve dedicated
to your mother
who passed not so long ago.
It hangs on wire I’d given you.
My drawing skills are beginner, you say,
and I won’t learn anything
at the intermediate watercolor workshop.
And I take a deep breath and
hold back the anger sour in my gut.
With one comment you dismiss
all that I’m worked for
over the last ten years–
ten years of painting on and off
and drawing for even longer.
I am not a beginner.
My paintings hang colorful and
bright on the other side of the room,
and I’d written on one (finished that afternoon):
“I’m learning to be brave.”
These hands, dry from scrubbing paint stains,
have learned
to swim in deep paper oceans
under a bleeding sun,
that too much water crumples the paper,
that scotch tape is not painter’s tape,
that sometimes done is better than good,
and a good drawing is essential.
I don’t know everything,
but I know more than I did ten years ago
when I had no money or knowledge
about paint or canvases.
Instead I remember at age 16
making my own canvas with glue, printer paper,
cardboard, and tears.
Here I painted lilac sunrises of better days.
This is my growth.
This is my intermediate.
Do you think I’m some beginner
who’s lost her way,
who’s aiming for things
higher than her reach?
Do you want to guide
me to the right path?
Why does your path
happens be your sister’s
400 dollar watercolor workshop
instead of the cheaper
100-200 dollar weekend one
that I signed up for?
This is where I could tell you that
I look all of the skill around and me,
all the art prints in stores,
and think, Yes, I can do that.
Yes, my paintings
hang on the wall next to yours.
And I’m not afraid to take them
down and start again.
This is what I’m thinking
and can’t tell you.
So, instead I smile and tell you,
l consider myself intermediate.

I.
 So well, honest people make poor poets,
since they want dockyard receipts from Sparta
for how many ships Helen’s face launched there.

II.
Honest details make the best poetry.
Poets plant made-up gardens with real toads,
where clothing and china patterns are art.

III.
Poets write because they have things to say.
They write because they have things they can’t say,
and so, start with the sobs they can’t swallow.

IV.
Poetry is like life, being one big question
that you live until the answers arrive,
And emotion finds thought and thought find words.

it’s the color of the canyon walls that she was taking her grandma to see. It’s the color of her grandma’s flannel in her almost packed suitcase. It’s the Valentines hanging on the hospital walls a couple days too late. When her one-year-old son sits on her lap at Great Grandma’s bedside, it’s the color of her face when she can’t help smiling. When her son places a bracelet in Great Grandma’s palm, it’s the color of the beads with the most sparkle. When she cries at her grandma’s funeral, it’s the color of her eyes. When she doesn’t have time to buy another dress, it is the color of the one that fits. When her hand falls on her belly, it’s the pulse of her unborn child’s heart. It’s the color that demands she halt and pay attention, like the power she holds over people when she speaks. It’s not the color that lets you go easy.

Sometimes I think of long lace hemlines, following a trail of white petals

and tree branches arching to form a dome,

sunlight dappling the green leaves like stained glass in a cathedral

But that’s not what I dream of.

Instead, I dream of black nights that turn into dim mornings

where we crowd the couch

And you play your guitar while we sing, voices cracking

and when we look at each other with blood-shot eyes,

we can’t help but laugh.

I dream of rain slapping our skin when we run, arm in arm, for cover,

my jeans are soaked, I shake from the cold, but your hands are warm

I dream of alarms ringing in the apartment, smoke billowing from the pan,

Because I burned the eggs again, the steam and smell of soap and grease

when I scrub the pan and make toast instead–

and you insist you don’t care—

but I make up for it with coffee later.

I dream of long trips, arms out the window and arguing over who’s going to drive

or who gets the radio station this time

because I’m tired of your folksy rock and you really,

really don’t want to listen to Beyonce

but we both do it anyway.

If I dream of a white dress, it has stains from the coffee we shared.

If I dream of petals, they’ve been drenched by rain and torn and trampled by our dancing.

Don’t tell me what I dream of isn’t beautiful because it’s messy and flawed.

For a thing of joy is a thing of beauty forever.

You keep on breaking
your own heart
when you live your doubts
and **** yourself with your what-ifs
So, here's the thing:
People will do the breaking for you
so I ask you why you don't chase kites
and sunshine and free air?  
Unburden yourself
And live as if your heart was never broken,
And if you can't, just think of it as cracked
to let the light in
And to let the poison out
So, climb mountains and rocks
What are men to either?
And all three crumble
No one is invincible,
but some like you are adaptable--
quicksilver, when the earth crumbles around, you will always land
--even if you're on your back
you'll still see the sky wide open with promise
and no one can stop you from reaching

Melted snow and dusty streets.

You and I had to stop.

We’re drawn to places

of power, like roadside

attractions. No matter how

cheap or quaint they seem,

they’re free of cliches.

Here it was, a shrine to

Route 66--even if it was

just a ***** painted banner

on a faded tan brick

gas station wall:

“LAST TOWN BYPASSED

BY I-40 ROUTE 66

WILLIAMS, ARIZONA

OCTOBER 13, 1984.”

You parked the rented car

on broken pavement.

You had to stop and take a

picture under the sign and

between the parked Sequoia

and mud-covered pickups.

You don’t know to

pray, but you know how

to pay attention,

how to halt and idle

in the exhaust of diesel fuel.

Really, what else should you

have done? Doesn’t everything

disappear too soon? What door

will you open now that your

sacred window is closing?

The seasons change
and you paint what you see:
Silver snow banks,
fragile trees with budding leaves
red blossoms, exploding pink roses,
and gold leaves gleaming in puddles.
And we wear the seasons on our backs:
Sweaters with snowflakes,
light-weight light-green silk scarves,
blouses and strappy sandals the color of tulips,
cardigans and boots heavy like the falling leaves.
And so inside reflects the outside---
the sky above the water,
photo next to the paintbrush,
the window on the house,
the window in your living room.

pale knuckles thumping the table,

and purple bruises on your thighs.

Write with smiling eyes and dimpled cheeks,

hands raised high in hallelujah,

and waxy newly healed scars.

Write so hard it hurts.

Write so hard it heals.

Whatever you do,

write it at once.

and you’re lucky

because God knows already

someday you’ll learn.

The hardest part of letting go
is finding something else to hang onto.
Your hands are empty,
And they fight you,
wanting to curl back onto themselves.
So you open them wider
Here, you can see the sky
in the spaces between each finger
and the cold air lingers on your skin
like an invitation

and you have only to take
off your day and
put on your night.
Your worries can't
go to bed with you;
they'd never fit,
not even in a California king.
So, you dust off your dreams
and shrug them on,
old and familiar
And you when you lie in bed, sleep soundly
because you've never given one dream away.

Your beard ****** like thorns
your lips soft like leaves
your cheeks as red
and when you smile
you bloom
and mean it