Albuquerque

At the eye doctor, my favorite part is when
they ask me to stare into the autorefractor box
and focus on a tiny hot-air balloon in the distance.
I’ve been doing this since I first started wearing
eyeglasses at ten years old, pink ones, and every time—
there’s the few seconds of panic in the dark as my eyes
adjust to find the balloon. Last week, I overheard
my youngest son practicing for the spelling bee.
A-l-b-u-q-u… When I heard my son spell the word
correctly, it’s not that I did a double take, stepped
on the brakes, gave myself whiplash, stopped on a dime,
or froze in my tracks—more like a balloon festival
in my heart. All the sandhill cranes and pinyon jays
in New Mexico cocked their eyes in our direction.
Or maybe it was more of a blooming—a bursting forth
of purple locoweed, scarlet paintbrush, and four-nerve
daisies at my feet. Wasn’t he just taking his first steps
across the kitchen floor, reaching for me
in his footie pajamas, a mini-Godzilla stomping cars
into the rug? I want you to know: the balloon
is always there, hovering just above the highway.
The burners are lit. The envelope of air is full.
And just when you think there’s nothing else
in your peripheral you see it clearly—a roadrunner—
his tail, his feathers—don’t blink. He’s gone!

Pluto Haibun

after the light installation “Pluto,” by Guy M. Hughes, Southern Illinois University

Beneath this dome of blue light, everyone sleeps. Marketing major with three kids.
Teaching assistant who stayed up all night scribbling on student essays. Random
janitor. The glow makes us all look like we sleep inside a fig. And maybe we do—our
mouths so full. Spilling seeds and secrets. Soon there will not yet be snow, only
the ghost of snow. Like the spirit who once whispered to me, a yak’s milk is pink. I
learned that just seven days ago. Now no one will talk to me. Our skin is plum—plum
for the picking while we doze and dream of the galaxy and that farthest ball of ice that
has just been demoted to a star. O lord of the dead, take pity on us. We are not yet finished
with this life. We still have many books to thumb through, too many fruits yet to peel
and taste. When you stroke your purple beard at the sight of us sleeping in a circle,
please pass me by. Do not grab me by the waist.

There will be plenty
of time for me to bathe you,
comb gems from your hair.

Sunburn

What is the grief
of a sunburn? Who hurt

the sun that now hurts
you, wants to mark

your skin like a fresh slap?
And what if what emerges

is your most tendershoot,
your most true self?

This is Not a Sad Sight

It’s the sound of your two sons praying
over a wobbly fish named Hephaestus,
half-floating on its side in a forty-gallon tank.
Your boys do not know you look up
from your book and watch their two moon-faces
worry-glow green through the other side
of the tank. They pray to one god, not
the Olympians, though if this fish doesn’t heal
soon, they might start. Neither of them know
how to pronounce Hephaestus. These days,
I have to remind them to tiptoe and dust
the outside of the tank, have to tell them
no more fights over who gets to feed their fish,
and sometimes—I even forget to do it.
These days, they have baseball, tennis, piano.
They’d rather get dropped off at the ice cream
parlor, get cones swirled high as Olympus,
wander downtown after school with pals
for an odyssey. But while drafting this very poem,
I am crushed to edit—as of yesterday:
RIP Hephaestus, aka Hay-FOO-STAY. As in,
Please let Hay-FOO-STAY wake up and swim again.
The shield I now carry is different from the one
he made for Achilles, carved full of vineyards
and war—too much dumb drink and battle—
doomed weddings and dancing. I’ve made my own
shield, hammered into a fine filigree, edged
with magnolia leaves, inlaid with pearl and gold.
It tells the story of two boys praying in matching
pajamas—who at one time actually insisted
on matching pajamas—who once loved
their goldfish named for the god of fire,
the craftsman, the metalworker they admired
so much—the very remembrance splits
their mother’s big volcano heart in two.