Clerestory

Gardenias droop in August heat at the Episcopal plot

Plenty of potatoes, garlic and lamb. Bundles of sage and jugs of harsh red wine.

I know you would remember every tea, we sipped in New York, Philadelphia, Toronto—blurred, now, to Earl Grey for me.

The pistils stand on end—thin red reeds, in a tiny glass bottle.

I can't hear the TV news over the soothing static of diced onion in the pan.

The tomatoes cool themselves, in the long breezes, hoarding in their flesh, fabulous waters.

Haven't we all been cut into halves? One half empathy, one half what the hell.

No amount of mother’s food or drink could give her comfort.

Put yeast in a cup with hot water and sugar.  Sift...

Her shadow on the barn, cast by winter-weary sun, is taller than a five-year-old.

Cucumbers sprawling in garden, insects tickling yellow flowers, we grow together.

She, holding ladle, wanting, no, needing to help.

Dressed up like an armadillo rolled into a ball, the avocado ripens on the sill.

Old man Peesel’s cherry orchard, of the empty prairie, the fruit reddened our fingers, lips...

For my grandmother, fat was a solution, not a problem: my grandmother’s miracles employed bacon fat and lard.

On the shelves in the back of room 211, our US History books waited at rest.

How did you know, dear dish, that you were ready to mend? What caused the old shatters? Is a shard a body, too? 

It is not always a guilt-and-punishment salve to put over what’s been hurting. 

Vicenza became Genevieve when she landed on American soil at the turn of the century.

Thrown into a boat to be tossed between two worlds . . .

That December, the dust did not settle properly on his sister's graveyard.

The night of your baptism, your native name sounded like a bullet, lodging itself beneath your tongue...

In the celestial port of the Soul at the crossroads between Life and Death - or is this just a dream? - she waits . . .

Thirsting for a fundamental key to life in the universe. . .

Kindred to a forest of birch, a simulacrum of the body, I inhabit . . .

In early spring I found myself flooded with grief over the death of my uncle Aleksey, whose life was cut short by a car crash just before my 10th birthday in 2000. He was only 24.

I have a tribute that stretches from my navel to the place where my mother hangs her rosary and this is where you kneel because, this is not the only part of the poem that may need a little worship.

It was my grandparents’ table that made me insist the engagement be a family event.

I want to tell you about the walk home.