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I.

Mother’s hair is two long sheets of copper. A woman like the landscape stood up, belly about to erupt. She sweeps ash from the blue kitchen tile.

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Bites her lower lip. Ring of daisies in her hair, eyes like heat shimmer over pavement. His mustache wax-tipped, yellow bow tie slightly askew. She’s twenty-one in this snapshot.

II.

Belly flat now as the field, she spits wine-red blood into the cup. All through the night. Take this offering: her blood, her body shifting at a distance under the satin bedspread.

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Like someone crying or singing in her bath. Sluicing sound like a river. Pain a slice of lightening in the sky, pain like too much flesh.

III.

I always want to go higher—swing like a ball over the cedar fence. Cut my caterpillar with the gate. Pluck rose petals to hold bitter on my tongue

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This young witness. His mistress at the pizza parlor, obscured by cigarette smoke. My sweaty bottom on the plastic slide, landing hard. They lean in. Pater exul.

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Brother stays inside without rosebuds. Imagines he’s under the coffee table for the big fight.

IV.

Brother and I walk long empty trestles to town. Dry dust on our tennies. His crying face a pinwheel twisting. The choice of whether to punch or hug him. All that dust.

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Father’s bachelor cabin: rattlers in the rock field
                                           linking chain of lakes
                                           fox at the door

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My pets, each weighted and dropped down between the waxy water lilies. Living in the lake.

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We back away from the mama bear standing up on her forepaws. Dad warned: whatever you do, don’t run.

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Like wind whipping over the lake I ride my blue bike. Down the dock—Over the algae—In.

V.

Alone on the plane, I hate the smell of machine, snowblindness by clouds. In the cab, know I’m close because of California poppies, hills of grapevines striping the landscape.

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Nana's favorite: me, and yellow roses that stink like honey mead. I hold a whole bouquet while baby brother crawls under the coffee table in his imagination.

VI.

Angry, I Pollock the classroom wall with paint. Little Danny helps. I kiss his cheek when the splatter is thick like beach mud.

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Brother asks when dad will be back.

VII.

They carry the garbage can together one last time. Mother tells him she’ll need something lighter soon.

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