April 29 (poem 27)

“imperfect anniversary”

It has been three and a half years since
I saw the candlewax version of you ensconced in a casket,
your cheeks completely the wrong shade of pink,
your eyelashes actually visible.
When no one was looking I touched the thing that had been
your hand,
and I could not wash the coldness off my fingers for days.
You did not look peaceful or asleep,
you looked like a casting of yourself.
Six months earlier you drove six hours to see me,
your first and only granddaughter,
graduate from thirteen years of doodling on public school desks.
You told me you were proud of me
and I didn’t understand why—
“It’s just school, Dad Dad” I said.
You were always Dad Dad because when my tongue
was first learning how to walk
it tripped over Granddad and fell on Dad Dad;
all five of your grandsons, tumbling out after me,
following my lead,
never learned the correct steps after that.
There are six of us
grandchildren,
and I am the only one who graduated
with you watching.
Now, as I prepare to walk again,
I wonder if you would be proud of me,
your bald-headed city-clinging granddaughter,
who you taught how to flip a fish inside out,
who climbed every tree you introduced her to
barefoot,
who begged for stories about hornytoads and rattlers,
who navigated Lake Chelan from the captain’s chair of your lap,
who brushed off beestings
and filled her pockets with river rocks shaped like feet,
but who never scooped together
enough courage to tell you she’s gay,
and who did not even cry for your funeral
until three and a half years later.

April 25

“Mimmie”

She had always wanted a girl.
When her boys were young and grasshopper-legged
she sewed the same three letters to the insides of all their exoskeletons;
she had named all three of them with identical initials,
different from the ones she had tucked away
for the daughter that never happened.

The first boy steeped in creation and
Creationism. He taxidermied birds and soldered stained glass,
storytold and storytold and storytold.
Now, chip-chinned and balding,
he preaches resurrection in a room illuminated
by mosaic windows
in a town the size of an illustrated
pocket-bible.

The third boy seethed in the loneliness of being the littlest.
He learned to whet his words and
throw them like daggers;
it was his only defense.
Now, with two boys of his own,
he uses his law degree to raise them to be
fastest smartest loudest but still
lonely.

The middle boy, as all middle boys must,
mediated.

But she always wanted a girl,
a long-haired rose-hip-lipped Cherokee-cheeked
girldollchild, not these
thorny-shouldered tumbleweed-limbed sons,
too bright to look directly at amidst all the blue of
a Wyoming sky.

The middle boy,
he’s my father.
On the day 45 years after she was born
so was I.
He whittled me girl and
sharpened me loud.

When I laugh, my noes wrinkles the same way hers does.
My cheeks are just as Cherokee as hers
but my eyes are more Wyoming sky
and my hands storytell loneliness.
She had always wanted a girl.

The Sunday two years ago we all held hands around her table
to celebrate the rising son
I rolled the boulder out from in front of my throat
and told her my hands held another girl’s.

All she could do was tumbleweed her head back and forth
back and forth and back and forth and
smile in a way that made her tears
collect in the raingutter wrinkles that her laughter
has installed on the bridge of her nose.

She had always wanted a girl,
not two.

April 10

“to the boy I asked to the dance six years ago”

I never told you thank you.
Your hull-rough chin,
protractor corners,
and envelope lips
taught me that the thing I like most about boys
is Old Spice.
I do not regret the porchfront moment when
you asked for a kiss and I said No;
thank you for answering
the question I had not yet asked myself:
now I know
I like Old Spice best
on girls.

April 6

“advice to my middle school self”

You will not always feel like an alien.
At some point you will also stop telling people
you are trying to contact the mothership
by twisting your earrings around on the dashboard of your ears.

When you wish your boobs rivaled Angela’s
Stop it.
When they bloom brighter than hers, do note berate yourself.
It is not your fault.

When Mr. Filer tells you
you can’t wear the purse you pack with embarrassment
– a toothbrush, pads, and braces rubber bands –
to his algebra class,
do not cry. Do not unzip anything.

When Mr. Boyd tells you girls are only good for cartwheels and somersaults,
research Title IX.
Even though you will never win a single wrestling match on the PE mats,
you will triumph.

When Kim asks you at Cassie’s slumber party if you are a prude,
do not ask what this means.
Pretend to be asleep.
While the other girls list boys
they would like to kiss,
always choose Dare.
Do not tell them how your insides sparked
every time Erika unfurled her lips in science class the day
you learned about heat convection.
Even though you will invoke his name like salvation,
the girls do not know that you do not actually know Kevin.
You do not need to carry a concealed camera on the last day of school
to convince them that you like him.
That’s called overcompensating, and it’s creepy.

When Logan calls you a know-it-all, do not turn cherry-cheeked.
Do not give him the answers to the Spanish homework.

When Jens tells you he has a secret and the first letter is G,
the next two letters are A and Y.
When you finally figure this out,
do not then shout “You’re gay?! COOL!” when the hallway
is cluttered with students.
But do hug him.

When Loraina asks you if you’re a Christian,
do not say yes, because then she will ask you what denomination you are
and there is no denomination that celebrates
Kwanzaa, Yom Kippur, Dia de los Muertos, and Solstice.
Invent your own gods. Give them Latin names.
Listen when she tells you about heaven,
but object when she tells you Jens’ boyloving heart is captained by demons.
She will not do it again.

When your brother makes you mad,
do not kick him in the balls. He will punch you back.
Steal one piece of his Halloween candy instead.

Stop wearing that goddamn jingle bell on your shoe.
And stop telling people it’s there so you don’t lose yourself.
Losing yourself and finding yourself are pretty much the same thing
and neither require constant noise.

When Cam walks around shirtless to let the
henna paste dragon dig its two-week-long claws into the cave wall of her back,
do not stare.
When at 3am she falls asleep in the crevice between your chest and your arms,
remember to breathe.
When you are absolutely totally one hundred percent sure everyone else is asleep
whisper a kiss into her hair; she will not wake up
but everything inside of you will suddenly sunrise, and even though
you know that the universe is expanding at the rate of 71 kilometers per second per Megaparsec
this will be the first time
your heart understands exactly what the universe is going through.