Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I laid you down
delirious,
my six-year-old
daughter
swooning

spoonfuls
of purple
medicine
sickly sweet

your body burning
up beneath
pink sheets
you kicked
to the foot
of the bed

I swear
you were
dreaming
of mermaids
saddled on pink dolphins
like bejeweled rodeo stars
mermaids
swimming closer
mermaids
with long yellow hair
bucking waves—
sea girls with
one hand raised
in salty air,
orbiting
in circles
overhead,
wee galaxies
of ocean mist,
droplets
of sweat
on your lips.

At dawn
your fever
broke with
the sweetness
of candy glass
mason jars;
fireflies
escaping
as embers,
a dimming
delirium
of stars.

Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I came to you
in the middle
of the night
when you cried
out for me,
your voice
unfamiliar—
a song sung
by a small girl
burning up
beneath
the sea.

My grandfather was not a boxer
but he loved to fight, throwing
punches at the faces of hard men,
left and right hooks, uppercuts
in barroom brawls and alleyways,
with hands the size of iron trivets,
forearms cut with ropes of muscle.

Eventually, after decades of stitches
and bruised knuckles, after his hair
turned white and his eyes clouded,
he would shadowbox in the garden
behind the dilapidated potting shed,
swinging slower, less light on his feet,
but safe in that manicured square
ringed by boxwoods and evergreens,
the bees in spring buzzing applause.

My grandmother would watch
him from the kitchen window,
in a sweater she always wore
regardless of the weather,
and wonder what he was fighting
against, or, perhaps, fighting for.

And that’s how my grandfather died:
throwing a final right cross in the air
before dropping to his knees at last,
knocked out on a mat of green grass,
washed by an unexpected downpour,
water collecting in opened red tulips,
loving cups in full bloom, the first
ten drops of rain counting him out.

Standing in that garden decades later,
I know I am no fighter.
Approaching old age, hands in pockets,
I watch for signs of unexpected weather,
worry about things beyond my control:
car crashes, cancer, electromagnetic pulses,
the minutiae of a thousand apocalypses.

Is the future drawing back
a left hook I will never see
coming? Will a haymaker
hit me like a hammer,
unmaking my family
before the final bell?

And suddenly I realize:
maybe I should have
learned to throw
a ******* punch.

You.
You who taught me love and kindness and hope
and knitting and optimism and forgiveness and baking.

Yet you were also my first loss.
You taught me grief and how nothing stays the same.
Even a mind can deteriorate so much I wonder it makes me wonder if
you ever were so good.
Maybe I just exaggerate. Because you aren't  here to prove me wrong or disappoint me.
But how could anyone have been so good?

But even if I was looking at you through the rose tinted glasses of youth
I refuse to tarnish my opinion of you
I will keep these glasses forever
I insist.You taught me all this and more.

Because of you I visit grandad more  
to remind me of what
I lost
and a reminder to appreciate what I still have.
That house will always remind me of you
I hope that is ok.

You hold my hand
like a cartographer;
latitude and longitude,
coordinates of our life,
discrete geographies
mapped together—
discrete geographies,
coordinates of our life,
latitude and longitude:
like a cartographer
you hold my hand.

Have you ever been madly in love?

The old man broke my reverie.

On the long faded green bench white with bird droppings
he was peering at me through his silver grey beard
looking oddly out of place in that college squire park
where only the dreamers at the prime of youth
would sit between classes to exchange love notes
and steal a kiss when the passion couldn't be reined in.

Have you ever been madly in love? he repeated,
and then as if growing impatient by my silence
mumbled, pausing between words,
like they stung him like thorns
it extracts a price been paying all my life
living with a void no other woman could fill
a commitment that breeds only pain
yet makes me insanely boastful
of being madly in love.

It was recess hour and the benches were being filled up.

How many, I wondered, would still hold hands
when the classes are over.

I almost remember the first steps he took;
I certainly remember his smile and
The light in those little eyes.

I remember watching him run, play tennis.

Basketball.  

There is a very specific memory of
My son walking into school with me his face open
To the new things in front of him, taking it in,
Holding my hand as he started a journey to today
Where he sits with others taking a Bar Exam.

This being the first steps of new journey for him
One I began so long ago

I stared out the window
My brain, completely disengaged
No thoughts, no emotions
But a war was being waged

I could not move or even think
Stood lifeless, as I gazed
But, inside my brain
This awful darkness blazed

Outside the window, light
It seemed so warm and pure
Still, inside my head
A madness did me lure

I could not raise my voice
Could not, say a word
That evil’s lock on me
Seemed to be assured

But then an angel’s voice
So sweetly to me said
Come with me my dear
And let us go to bed
BOEMS BY JA 583      
FOR MY WIFE

When sunshine hits my window
Its beams dispense their plume
Just like you, light up my heart
By entering the room
BOEMS BY JA 622

I hear you gotta girl,
so this ones just for you my Son,

I hear she makes your day,
when you are,
on your hurried daily run,
when every step is slow,
as you take & take,
another one,

If your load is feeling heavy,
if it feels just like solid ton,
when they are on your back,
& aiming with a snipers gun,

When skies are turning grey,
& you just cannot see the sun,
when every moment you're awake,
& everything in life is fun,

She's your baby darlin' dear,
your sweetest little hunny bun,
she says you two are juxtaposed,
in a lovely lil' funny pun,

When life just makes you dizzy,
& at night,
when you are feeling spun,
every day, all day
on every leg,
& race you've won,

She loves you in the morning,
& when the day is finel'y done,
always she is shining,
shining on,
shining,
shining on,
shining just like the rising sun,

I'm just so very happy for you love,
so very happy,
that you,
yes you,
you have finally,
finally,
found the one.

Love you,
always,
Mom.

Cherie Nolan © 2016