Author: Elizabeth Maynard

This is neither my first typhoon
nor hurricane
I know the familiar sound
of the thing breaking free
enough to strike out noisily
again and again
to exhaust itself in hours
of battle with water and wind
until it twists itself unrecognizable
and surrenders to every force
greater than itself

I sit surrounded by first dates
fates unfold
between nods and smiles

here is beauty birthed
when we are wise enough
to name it

There I was:
drafting the message
with the hope I wasn't too harsh
full of words like
your father's body
a box of ashes
and his life now reduced
to so many photographs
receipts and cancelled passports
If there is any good way to say
any of this
to mark the end
please scratch it here
soon enough you will need this
to wave me off
to send me home

A long day ends now
with the washing of dishes
and the folding of dry clothes
from the line

As a younger woman
I considered myself so busy
dishes marched across every counter
before I battled them

And now I cannot stand to sleep
with even one dirty thing
in the sink, in the hamper
in my mind

You killed a man (by accident)
and we huddled to assure you
it was he who took that light step
across the blue expanse

you did not ask him to love you
with ferocity or desperation
and you recoiled when he insisted
he would not go on without you

but you carry this mark
decades later and oceans away
it was neither love nor its absence
he took that day

This oolong claims to be mother's love
but my mother loved unbounded
unable to see the necessary difference
between us
I thought she might consume me
from her deep thirst
leave this bone cup dry
chipped and unsuitable for company