I know you don’t want to hear it
But one day you WILL
look up and think,
“****** Mom”
And then notice the rose-gold
Of a sunset

Just like I’m
Always taken by surprise
At how your eyes
Can change from green
to dusty gold then blue
Depending on the hue
Of your plain olive
or blue H & M T-shirt

I know you don’t want to hear it
But you will take that hike one day
With one or two or three
Progeny in tow and go
“Wow, inhale that smell”
Of wet outdoors and nature and life

Just like I inhale the boyness of you
Before you become a man
The spicy alcohol of cologne hiding
The musk of undone laundry maybe
The sweat, excretion of locker room,
Football, or track exertion

I know you don’t want to hear
About the birds and the bees,
Sticking your head out the truck window,
“Mom, please!”
But one day she’ll come for your heart

Just like you came for mine
that morning you were born

Another Sunday morning
Crouched in the beam of headlights
Steam coming off coffee and breath
Fumbling to pin race bib to pants

A romance
Of sorts; this dance I’m addicted to
Those magic numbers: 5k, 13.1, and
The boss lady: 26.2 (I’m coming after you)
But why? Friends ask
You’re crazy they say on posts
Of me on each early Sunday

I say nothing back, but heart the comment
I can’t explain what the rhythmic pound; the sound
of New Balanced footstrike does
For the broken part of me
How the week’s aggression
That needs suppressing is sweated out
And gathered up in Nike’s moisture-wicking fabric

How weaving through the crowd of neophytes
Wearing today’s race shirt, alternately
Sprinting then walking

And the kids, eager, then over it
The moms reclaiming a body that sheltered
The now-strollered baby
The geriatrics, shoes well-used
Nimble limbs, not brittle but abused
From pounding pavement years before this

This environment, atmosphere
Big race crowds or small informal
Stopwatch race; doesn’t matter
Just involved; a part of this kinship
Unspoken club affiliation; in passing
Not a wave, but nod
A head bob of appreciation
For another’s association;
Obsession with times, miles,
Post-race selfie smiles
Because I know there will come a day
That my body will betray
My runner’s soul.

But for now I stand at the start
Ready for race gun and one more mile

Our fifteenth year, you and I
If we were married,
the ‘crystal’ mile

And oh, we have had our highs
Breaking up lunchtime fights
Breaking down novels
Line by line

Translating Shakespeare
to Spanish for those
Nonverbal in this language
Dulcet quatrains
Melted into rounded syllables
thick on my tongue
Still we manage
To tease out delicate images

And the consolation of a paycheck
Educators receive
Not enough to ease
the mirage of beach
allure of waves and palm trees
In rude January
(the ultimate schoolyard bully)

You and I have chaperoned this prom
Attended this play
Coached this race, given chase
to elusive grades
Counted victories in syllables
Pivoted around
yawning youths, heads down
on desks or kids
attempting to
find favor with
last minute Starbucks gifts

And still we sit
In September
Whole and hopeful
Rested, restored
Once again to go around this playground
called high school

Blue is..

Blue is summer in August
so thick the heat is
An army blanket
Suffocating the sky in its ***** wool

Blue were my father’s eyes
With that sizzle that said
“No boundaries
Exist when you are rich
with courage to compete in love and life”

Blue is
A catastrophe
A ****** of words
A cataclysm of sight and sound
When you can’t take back
what was bound to come out
after so many years

Blue is the antiseptic smell
Of hospital corridor
And the horror of arriving
In time to say goodbye

Blue are her eyes
Like a cornflower sky
But puzzled, looking quietly frantic
Begging for answers
to her query of why?

Blue is head down
Mumbling a hymn
Is it a sin
To curse at a god
Without making a sound?

Blue is every lesson in life
That is “good for you”
“Necessary”
And “bound to happen”
Like a fork of lightning
Splitting the hot sky

Aging like a fine wine (if I liked wine)
Narcissistically loving, proudly broken
Daughter of the Pryors, Moe and Vickie, soulmates
Lover of calm breezes on my face
As I run the first of 10 miles on a Sunday morning made for me
Who feels invincible in that moment
And defeated, small, and petty the next
Who fears for her children making their place in a brutal world
Who would like to see America from a motorhome,
or Spain on foot
Resident of the heart,
living in the soulfulness of early ink-black mornings
Stampeding and triumphant