Poems for Persons of Interest

  Four Years Old With his claw-arm he caught my wrist, dragged me to the water, my heels dug shallow ruts to the sand. He walked deeper in. Ribs cinched against his torso, lids scrunched, mucoused face pressed against his chest, mouth pinched tight to dam the flood, I hung surfboard stiff. Inhaling thrashing waves, I hiccoughed, coughed foam. Flooding, flooding. Then, as if he’d tamed a beast— chin lifted, Father turned, slowly bobbed to shore, dropped me like a hefty suitcase. Head drooped forward, wobbling, I stepped around plaid and striped blankets with bathers, stared hard at grains of sand that shifted between my toes, scouring memory. I reached Mother talking with my sisters. My face must have been illegible as a shell, I sat, wheezed. Later, in slow motion I ventured to the edge of spent waves, filled my pink pail with sand; its moist weight pulled my right arm long. Softly I spoke to my two sisters about sand pies, castles, and wheezed. How often had I been caught? For eac...

Carried for my tiny sons whom Heaven holds Hush, my heart, be still. Breathe in peace. Hold. Release the days from memory’s grasp and bury the weight of hopeless prayers   in peace. Hold. Release the days, every second, minute, hour with the weight of hopeless prayers. Haunting dreams carry my tiny ones   every second, minute, hour. With each breath they never took, haunting dreams carry my tiny ones further from my empty womb.   Each breath they never took catches in my keening-hoarse throat. Further from my empty womb, this burden of lost boys   catches in my keening. Hoarse throat and memories gasp. And I bury this burden of lost boys, hush my heart. Still, I breathe.

  Numb I need to feel the past without becoming Suffused in it.   But memory is numbing.

  Summer Stock Here in the sun-crushed semi-dark, it’s strange to think that, at this moment, other girls about my age are slouching by the pool, and sprawling on his lap, and drinking beer, and scrawling notes in paperbacks, and dating.   Drugged up in this hot curtained kitchen, waiting for something or for nothingness, I hear the sounds they told me would remain at school: their music’s muffled thuds, the whooping calls… No use in writing out Nothing has changed.   Not much ever has. Feeling its glow in unsurprised astonishment, I eat, then hurry to the upstairs loo and purge, and smoke, and type out squibs, and thank the Lord for walls and window-blinds and double-glazing.   Nothing has changed. And yet it seems amazing that summer this year came without a word, that, when it did, the once-attendant surge— this year, I’ll use it! —didn’t. I retreat, and wonder what it is I still don’t know.