7000 Ways to Listen

--for my brother

"If I dare to hear you
I will feel you like the sun
And grow in your direction."
--Mark Nepo

1. We listen with the sound off. It's Saturday morning, Scooby Doo's wiggly eyes are wiggling, Shaggy's scared, his long legs running from ghosts. And aren't we always running from ghosts, our father cracking open the bottle before noon while we bounce on the couch, run our mouths, making up new stories for all the inevitable endings we refuse.

517. I'm pushing my little brother on the swings, though he takes to pumping so quickly he doesn't need me, flying higher than I will ever dare, and then letting go and flying some more, landing far from me on the sand. Years later, I'll take his lead, in the sands of Joshua Tree. He'll be up early, working the campsite stove, boiling water and steeping us coffee before working the ropes, inching me up, with his gentle voice, a rock face.

2893. He was always so Zen to my fits. In high school, I'm running down our long hallway, pounding my door shut, screaming at my father stupid truths, my hormones don't know where else to go, scrawling dumb words in locked diaries that my mom jimmies open with her sewing needles. My brother sits--really disappears--on top of his closet. My parents look for him for hours. He's a master of silence.

6952. Thank God for time. I wind the hills just below Yosemite, up to my brother's house. There's storm clouds gathering over the Park, but still we tie the rubber raft to his van's top and drive to the river. Park Service has closed their boat rental office because of the storm that never comes, so one glorious spring Sunday, my brother and I launch his raft, not another vessel in sight, float through Yosemite Valley.  He points out tiny bodies--small as ants--climbing El Capitan's face, points to the tiny crevices he has made his bed. We talk books and love. It's nearly unbearable. All this light. 

Pillow fight with roses

The roses are blooming at a ridiculous rate,

bridesmaids gone awry.

But I like wedding disasters, those reality

shows where the cake falls through the table,

the skirt rips off the bride.

All that pomp and money

turns funny. I want to watch the roses

bloom in bunches, open as the days grow sunnier,

petals falling at the base of the rosebushes,

swirling in the light breeze of late afternoon.

I'll collect what petals I can catch,

keep them in a wooden box, sew them into sachets--

or better, full-size pillows, and we'll have a rose petal pillow

fight until the pillows break, billowing the memory of this particular

spring. The yellow and magenta flowers falling all over our bed,

my face flush with laughter, you manage to reach me for a kiss,

sealing in a perpetual spring.

My dad's dreams

My father sat on the backseat in a small cardboard box

while I quarreled with my siblings.

The rain was coming down in buckets,

the Santa Cruz mountain roads winding,

a felled branch and we were stalled.

Nobody taught me what to do with the big empty space

his death made. I hunkered inside it like a boxing ring,

punching at every human who crossed my path.

I hated my father as much as I loved him

and there was no body to hate any more

so I hated all bodies. My father's get rich quick

dreams always ended in the redwoods

so we left him, in the end, there, water

pooling at the base of a trunk. I watched my father's

ashes swirl. A dozen years later I still need something

solid to hit in his absence, my fists hit my mattress,

there's so much of my past I can't remember

even if I sense it in my limbs. Today, I rode the same

winding roads of Santa Cruz--not a cloud in the sky,

the heat of late spring, and I slept and I dreamed my dad's dreams.

Beanstalk

The bean plants are crawling up the trellis,

little curlicues weaving through the twine,

gripping and climbing diligently towards the sky,

making a ladder for a curious young man to ascend--

we'll call him Jack--as good a name

as any. What's a boy to do when he sees a plant

disappear into the clouds? When I was a girl,

I lived in the clouds, floated up out of my body,

mingling with storm-gatherers and angels.

Earth and its inhabitants

troubled me. Most clouds tricked me,

appearing like cotton candy

or billowing pillows,

but it was all an illusion and I came to realize

matter wasn't solid, was full of space,

and I lived and breathed in the space

up there, so that when I was back on the earth,

trapped under somebody's body,

I could find the smallest crawl space

and wiggle through his flesh,

float at the ceiling

until he was gone. I disappeared like Jack,

also discovering treasures stolen from my family

when I was ungrounded. What I found

more valuable than gold. I bring home a melody

that scrambles the dark truths of my youth

into beauty.

A pocketful of stars

Sitting around the firepit, I watch him pour
himself another glass of wine. My dogs play hard
and he talks about his son
and his son's mother,
how things broke, and how the five o'clock
martinis make the shift from writing to not
writing bearable. I watch him fill
his glass; the wine is red. The summer stars
stud the sky--rhinestones I might pluck from a dress
that feels too showy, stow them in a jacket pocket,
fingering them like dice at the party,
while the glasses fill and drain,
and I plaster on a smile because I don't know
what to do with my mouth if it's not full
of something. In the bathroom, I'll pull a few
from my pocket--are they stars now? or cheap gems?
place them on my tongue, close my mouth
and my eyes, before spitting them back
into my hand, the precious pieces I grip for protection.
While he wanders his present,
his history, polishes the bottle, I'm climbing the low lying
stars as a ladder, reaching up toward the Big Dipper's handle.

Lean

Leaning into the dark

just so

she can feel 

the slit in the sky

where light is born. 

What matters

When the body goes the way the body goes

who am I then? Bones and thinning skin.

There used to be matter that was me

that mattered. In the end I float,

some kind of seed pod

lofted by the wind--where I'll end up

no one can guess. In time, I could be

a tree trunk or star stuff.

In these hopes of immortality,

I rest.