We are seven, Marla and me, standing on a corner street in the labyrinth of neighborhoods off Juan Tabo. We are the edge of town
and Marla is crying, in trouble maybe because we scratch salty words on sidewalks with chalky New Mexico rocks
or maybe because we’re negotiating all the rights and privileges of the tag BFF, only forever will only last a few more months before my family moves to Missouri and nevermore stretches out like diverging roads on a map,
or maybe because we will subsequently grow up and find ourselves in the middle of it.
In any case, Marla is spilling tears and I am fervently trying to make the case, the very hairbrained case, that tears are a limited resource and one wouldn’t want them to “run out.”
Today, forty years later, I would like to circle back to that corner in the crook of Juan Tabo and Highway 40 where we were standing at the edge of it.
I have an amendment to make; and if I had a dime for every bad idea I’ve ever had, this one would be framed because it was the first.
I would say, “Marla, tears are bountiful. You can have as much as you want, as much as you can stand. They’re just about the only precious thing you will never run out of, be at a loss for, find yourself bereft of.
They are endless. They are bottomless. And they will make you who you are."
These poems for NaPoWriMo were inspired by a poem I did years ago for my friend Michelle after hearing she passed away, 30 poems for inspiring women connected to me. The title now says "33 Women" because the poem to Michelle poem had already been written as well as two prologues I posted March 31.
See Marla here! http://www.marymccray.com/33-women.html#marla