The sun descends on the city lit horizon.
Buildings glow in the dimming light,
reflect rays of warmth onto
an already glowing bride,
her cheeks increasingly pinkish
with blush and emotion
as she stands under the Hoopa, dressed
in white ornamented silk with hair curled;
strands threaded together tight
not unlike the silver Claddaugh ring
about to descend her finger.

So special is this one moment
she dares not breath,
dares not blink.
takes in every aroma
around her:
sea salt from the bay
and sweet cake from
the celebration inside;
sensitive to the most
minute movement of silver sliding
onto skin, each hair sliding back
in ecstatic submission to the
welcomed new resident.

Dozens watch but this moment is theirs
as they give themselves to each other
with ancient phrases repeated throughout time;
this time it is theirs to say and theirs to hear
and theirs to remember, etch deep into
their memory, forever.

Spring sweeps over Canton
in slow moving waves of sun-
branches on the few carefully
planted trees begin to bud
beautiful white petals,
clean and spotless against
dirt tinted brick
and unwashed windows,
shedding blankets of soft
confetti on hybrid cars
and BMWs crowded into
spots on the street sides.

The warm weather brings bees,
mosquitoes, and morning joggers
who smile at each other as they pass,
their dogs running beside them.
They stop to smell
the patches of weeds that have
sneaked between cement panels
on the sidewalk, but are quickly
****** ahead as their owners’
heart rates begin to fall.

The jogging trail is tracked
in old houses ******
over like aging women.
They soak up the warmth
like a sponge, their seventy
year old walls continuing to peel
old asbestos speckled paint
beneath brand new wall paper
and paneling.

Bankers and law students,
doctors and nurses,
barflies and models
hunt them like injured
pray on a mountain top-
so few to feed on
that when one emerges,
hundreds dive for the ****
but only the ones with the
fattest wallets win,
and can sink their teeth into
the tender taste of
prime real estate,
a thin slice of Hip in
this burgeoning yuppie haven.

We were so ecstatic waiting for the wind
to wind its way through the trees--
there was an electricity in the air,
a charged warning.

We sat on the porch guarded by
oversized hoodies
and a wooden awning--
smoked bowls and snickered
at the squirrels dashing
lightning speed from unsteady
branches into hidden havens.

For hours we waited and watched
lawn chairs, trashcans, and
fields of leaves swirl up into the sky,
finally earning a retreat
into chaos. The newly
boarded windows withstood
the huffing and puffing of
nature’s big bad wolf-

he was not so ravenous this time.
Not like Katrina or Andrew.
Not enough to warrant
a week of cancelled classes
and hours of uninterrupted
news coverage- how quickly we
overreact to even the slightest
threat of rain or snow.

This was nothing more
than a PG rated epic but parents
sheltered their children,
covered their eyes and ears,
rocked them to sleep as even
picnic tables stood their ground.

From the 15th floor snow flurries
seem like static on an epic TV screen.
Flakes flutter and collide,
fighting for their perfect flight
to earth. Some are blown onto
the window sill, slowly sizzle into
nothing but a temporary dark spot,
others are carried up into the sky by
gusts of Chesapeake wind.
Some land on cold car tops
and Canton roof decks,
others bring color to chilly cheeks.
Soon the entire Baltimore landscape
is lightly sprinkled white.

Coworkers smile and watch our
first winter scene. I roll my eyes
and curse the creeping cars
I will encounter on the drive home.

I stand in the cold
silence of after hours and
ponder how many days
my father spent hammering
away on a keyboard until
the desktop clock finally
reached day’s end.

I wonder if my boxed corporate cell-
asylum where I spend my days
staring limply at a screen
resembles the cubicle
that fostered my father’s
final moments?

My fingers caress these black keys
like a silk pillow-
a cradle for his
heavy head that fell
forward, plea recorded
by a frantic stream of characters
as that final gasp of air
rushed into his lungs.

He was surrounded by people
but so alone as everyone
concentrated on project plans
and email- fixed in their
corporate containers
as my father is now fixed
in a black urn.

Everyone has gone
and I linger
for a moment,
feel an affinity
with the man who
never came home.

It looks like a house.
It has four walls and a roof,
windows dressed in brightly
colored curtains and
an American Flag
blowing out front

but the tarnished cement on
the walkway, the chipped paint
on the front door,
the broken screen,
the overgrown garden
and the lonely lawn chairs
warn that this is not a house.

Mountains of memories plague
every opening-
obstruct any attempt
to walk from room to room.

A two hundred dollar telescope
sits cold and unused
in the dining room buried
in the middle of papers and
bills never paid.

The shower stands naked- pipes
showing beneath a clumsily placed
plastic bag. Tiles peel and hope
to be uprooted away from
cat litter thrown from untidy pets.

Closets shelter coats long
out of fashion and toddler
toys unfit for a now
12 year old boy.

He comes home
from school,
sits down
and sighs.

He does his homework
on the floor- his desk
buried beneath old children's
books and computer paper.

There is a couch that sits
bare in the living room with
cushions stained and
sunken in- holding
place for a heavy body that
lounges with eyes shut.

My mother dances around it all,
feet feeling for holes
to fit into from kitchen
to bathroom to bed.

Her path is formed like
footprints in snow.

She sleeps surrounded by
discarded perfume bottles
and dresses three
sizes too small.

A small black urn
sits sadly beneath
a battered TV-
if only he could
watch her from beneath
the debris.

The washer and dryer still clean
her clothes and the bathroom still
washes away sweat from busy days-

But she knows this is not a house.

No more dinner parties
with familiar faces.

No more meals
served on the kitchen table-
now a holding place for boxes
and unopened presents
from holidays past.

No more sleep over parties
in the basement- comfy couches
now corroded by seven years
of mold and wreckage
from a small flood.

No more Christmas tree
dimly lighting
the living room since
a Best Buy box
now occupies its space-
broken down
and filled with forgotten pogs
and Pokemon videos.


The house holds it all
up with accepting planks
and brick- it is stronger
than she is.

Secretly she wishes the
house would fall down.
Secretly she wishes
she would be inside it.

Sometimes I want
to bring flowers to lay
in front of this messy grave,

But my family still breathes
inside the tomb
that they’ve made.

She wades in it.
Sometimes she slowly
descends, like sweat
down her brow;
like lips to a frown
but she battles it.

She bathes in it-
a smile as she practices
a pleasant look in the mirror;
widens her eyes, breathes
softly in then out,
in then out
though he no longer breathes.

In the dark of her heart
she screams, claws, begs
for him but only she
can feel the
beat   beat   beat
inside her bones.

She clings to it,
cradles it like a sleeping
child that will soon
wake, and wail
and wail...