7 months, 210 days
30 weeks until you arrive
in my arms- new to the world;
new to me, part of me
as no one else has been
or will be.

I cannot feel you inside me, tiny one-
though I know you are
barely the size of my thumb.

Each moment you become
more of yourself
as I am, as we all are-

when you are born you will open your eyes
for that first glance, first breath,
first moment in the world
and you will remember it,
etch it deep in your treasure chest of firsts;
first kiss first car first job,
cherish it like I cherish each day I carry you.

I'll live here, breathe here for the last 7 months
210 days, 30 weeks until you become my gravity
and push me up
up up until I reach the tippy top
and greet the light that must certainly
be waiting.

Darkness covers the mine
and every color falls to the
bullet of black. Fingers,
numb and cold
continue to claw along
jagged edges of
granite and mica
toward the faintest
dream of light.

Teeth struggle to grind
meals of bitter coal
broken into tiny parts.

There is solace in
those few moments
when eyes may shut
and lush green landscapes
invade the murky quiet.  

They will not imagine
death in a place
darker than the grave
as bodies fight fading
into a cleft of
Earth's damp pit.

They emerge,
covered in soot
and eyes tear as
light penetrates every cell,
as magnificent as the first time
they ever noticed the sun,
then a glorious gust of wind,
like God was blowing a kiss.

The first time my brother danced-
really danced,
more than just a faint
nodding of head
or an amusement for
laughing friends,
it was beautiful-
a moment felt only once.

He felt that bewildering tinge
of awe when you
let go of yourself for
just a moment, just enough
to allow that first shaky step,
then the next.

He started out stiffly,
moved from side to side
with blushing cheek,
stared at the cool linoleum.

Then music became more than
merely words.

I wonder if it was like the first
time I ever wrote a poem-
you know, really wrote
a poem- screamed myself
onto paper in a puddle
of mangled emotion-
words became more than
merely letters.

I stared at them,
shocked by this
extension of myself
staring back in black ink.

He seemed just as shocked
by the sweat on his forehead
and the smile on his lips.

He stared at the floor,
scuffed with the beauty
of his first real
movement to music.

Slowly he stirs her,
strokes her cheek feather light,
softly rouses her roaming eyes
from under lid.
They open slowly,
like heavy blinds.

He shines into her,
a shadow in the soft spotlight
of the moon, body bare
but beautiful as it hovers over her.

She takes a long breath,
so close to his lips she can
taste salt from summer heat
and he waits, he waits for her
hands to slide down his back,
fingers to bind into trenches of flesh,
toes to curl and coo in anticipation.

He brushes her lips with his,
paints a path of purple,
red, and blue down her torso.

She smiles and nuzzles her nose
into his neck, happy to be a canvas
long into morning.

I walk down Dillon street,
sun baking cement
and aging wooden doors.

No grass grows in this
mania of row homes
and crowded restaurants
save the few brave weeds
peeking out of cracks
in the sidewalk.

Father Kolbe School:
stands as a rose growing
in the midst of this barren
bar-studded desert.

Dozens of children play
kickball in its roped off intersection:
theirs for thirty minutes a day;
laughter of future senators
and junkies clad in clean
pressed blouses and plaid jackets.

In these moments
they can shriek and relax,
so few years before they sweat
over non-sufficient funds and
that shaky feeling that comes
from the ache of more;

more money more coffee
more time.

I should know, my forehead
is often soaked to the bone.

Every summer evening
I spend at home I know it
is 9 o'clock by the familiar
song from the
beat up ice cream truck
that creeps through Canton.

The truck is plain and grey-
no pictures of smiling faces
or advertisements for snow cones,
just those high pitched notes repeating
over and over and over.

It never stops.
No children sprint, ecstatic from
sweaty row homes.
No cones are coveted
by sticky fingers.

Who is this man who
drives up and down our streets
luring us in with a familiar jingle
I can't quite place as I pace
around my living room?

Perhaps he peddles magic potions
or prescription drugs to
expectant inner city addicts,
stopping only for those with
that telling shaky stammer.

Or maybe he transports
illegal immigrants
huddled behind his tinted windows
to obscure locations.

The only thing that is certain
is that it is 9  o'clock every time
I hear those notes.

Does he laugh at us as
we glance out our windows,
considering a late night treat but
always disappointed as he drives away?

The road to the funeral home
was plagued by
brown Cadillacs stretched
out on overgrown lawns,
and cats lounging lazily
on splintered planks.

Eleven people sat scattered
around dozens of expectant
chairs laid out in long rows,
hairlines moistened by a
lackluster air unit wheezing
in the one window.

The Reverend approached
the pew and began his
assault of sentences--
they spewed from
his lips like careless
bullets, and they stung.

He shook his hands at us and
promised that she had
been delivered to God…

I wonder if he meant
delivered like her
neighborcare packages
containing the familiar numbing
glory of ****** that got her
through cancer after cancer,
limbs and eyesight failing,
decades old and stewing
in her stomach.

He sputtered out syllables
like bouts of fumes-
they filled the air and I
swear I could smell them,
the stench
of stale cologne
and stale culture.

I could taste the
disgust coming up from
my esophagus,
that bitterness the brain
dispenses when anger
can only be expressed in
a tapping foot and sourly
sagging lips.

I sat there, silent, as that
ancient man
with his West Virginia
draw clumsily
stumbled over a list of
relatives “Marge” would
meet in heaven.

He forgot my father,
skipped his name and
my heart began to pump
faster, my cheeks burning.

He did not know that she
was Margie and we would
remember her soft yellow curls
and infinite knowledge of
antique dolls,
hundreds of pristine replicas
beaming in glass cases.

He did not know that
her lips were electric;
she shocked our cheeks
with each hello
and goodbye.

I wish he knew her like I did,
the young woman who sat
stiffly in this plastic chair,
her little girl all grown up.

I wish I could have pushed
him off the stage and
made up for the seven years
I missed of kisses and
old stories and support.

But I sat there, silent
and stared at the cracked ceiling
tiles and fake flowers
on the front folding table,
yearning for the pounding in my
temples to stop.