A Prayer for Sweet Dreams
All of us gather around the coffee table
where our glasses of beer sweat moons
onto stolen coasters. In this room we sip
the December night to try and savor it.
Protected here by Dad’s records playing
warm jazz, Mom’s paintings like warriors
on the wall, our parents holding each other,
hands folding with hands so sacred like our home
is a chapel and we are all praying. Vera sleeps
on the couch as if she is a knit blanket, her draped
body, her leg like yarn spilling onto the floor.
Another round is poured. We’ve done this
before, ending the night with the twitch
of Vera’s eyelids, delicate in dreams, and
hoping her pain doesn’t exist in that sleepy
world. Her chronic diagnosis: a current
dragging her into slumber and back out
so we wait, we prop up her pillow, kiss her
forehead, and flip the record over.
Crystal angels and butterflies suspend
from the window shades and catch
the slightest lines of street lamp’s light.
Belonging
The stars summoned us into a frenzy:
summer nights in hand-me-down
bikinis, bath towels, mom’s french braids,
and adrenaline we thought shooting stars
and comets conjured up. We tossed
insecurities like coins into a fountain
and watched them sink.
The water could take anything.
If only we could be there again.
Do we still swim all night
till the porch lights flick on, still pretend
the backyard pool is a planet, still
float bellies up to receive the moon?
Does the mysterious blue still
protect us from detection?
One more summer, one more
weekend, one more night.
Back again, bats even now,
swoop above turquoise heaven, flying
in luxurious fashion as we emerge,
glass-water drops hanging
from our lashes: our jewels
of sister-magic, adolescence.
Stars gleam inside. We are the girls
who return year after year, craving
their original birthplace.
