If I didn’t write this poem,
you wouldn’t know
the hum of my dishwasher,
the way one dish clinks against another,
the strum of my son’s guitar.
“Thank You” by Dido playing
in my daughter’s room.
My younger son:
twelve,
lanky,
sweaty-sweetly,
leans down to me in bed,
says, Goodnight, Mamma.
You wouldn’t know that
I wear a mouth guard,
take depression pills at night,
Will pee once in the middle of the night.
Have Toni Morrison’s Mercy
Stacked on top of four other books.
I can’t decide what I can endure.
You wouldn’t
know that an hour ago
I took a bath
while talking
to my girlfriend about a man
who appeared with
a machete
across the chain length
fence in her neighbor’s backyard.
He was "making trails."
You wouldn’t know
that he wore a Gilligan Island hat
and a skull and cross bone
across his bare stomach.
You wouldn’t know
that I think
about my granny
sitting on a woven carpet
listening to Roosevelt’s
fireside chats
on the radio.
I think of how her
Mamma played the fiddle.
I think of how,
toward the end,
I brought her a mug of sugary
vanilla coffee on her porch
and she'd look out over
her land.
You wouldn’t know
that the strong women
in my family take
to their beds when
heartache comes calling
like a machete
on the overgrowth.
The stolen days.
You wouldn’t
know that my brother,
stage 4 cancer and paralyzed,
scolded me today for being sad
about what happened to him.
About other things.
He said, “Get yourself together.
I’m gonna walk again.
I’m gonna get cancer pills.”
How can I argue?
And yet,
sadness
loves my ass.
And yet, he's not wrong.
If I didn’t write this poem
You wouldn’t know
that my kids make fun
of how much I like the movie,
My Octopus Teacher.
How I’m afraid
of their leaving one day.
What I’ll be, then.