Loving you is my sacred secret 

Close kept by my heart 

A polished pink rock 

My childlike treasure 

Clasped between small fingers 

My Mother

My mom has always been somewhat of a magical figure to me. As a child I clung to her like moss to a tree. Forever clamped to a leg or an arm or shopping cart even, if she was pushing. I remember the extreme fear I had of losing her in the grocery store. Because, without her the world was a giant scary place full of tall strangers. But with her the world was safe and wonderful.
When our family lived in Corpus Christi, we used to camp on the beach near our home on the base. We would wake up and climb out of our child size tent to have adventures strutting across the endless sand. We would find hermit crabs who lived up very much to their name. They hid determinedly in their protective shells.  Desperate to see what they really looked like, we would bring them to our mother. She would take their rounded shells into her small hands and coo to them until their little blue and green eyes poked out on their stalks to find the source of that lovely sound.
As I grew older my mother changed and grew in my eyes. Slowly she shed her fairy wings and began to take on human form. When I was in middle school her spine began to shoot pain throughout the rest of her body. For months my constant, long-suffering mother paled in pain and endured ridiculous medical efforts to ease her suffering. They shocked her back with electric sticky pads. They sent her to chiropractors that hurt more than helped. Until finally the jig was up and they had no choice but to put her into surgery. They opened her up and put a titanium disc into her spine, where disease and malformation had rubbed away at her bone and nerve. That week my father took my siblings and me to her recovery room. As I looked at my beautiful mother, pale and weak, the spell was forever broken. Despite her now super human spine and the wonder woman body brace she had to wear, my mother was revealed as what she had been all along: a finite, fragile human.
Around the same time my mother developed another condition called gastritis. Without warning it would be triggered, and the lining of her stomach felt like it was on fire for hours. But she never sat or laid down for long when these episodes hit. As I got ready for bed on these nights, I would hear the sound of her little feet bustling from room to room, cleaning everything. I would fall asleep to the hum of the vacuum after kissing my mom's pained but calm face goodnight, seeing all the fatigue and restraint swirling back and forth in her green eyes. One morning after one of her most painful and long nights, I woke up to our very tidy house and began to look for my mother. I walked into her room, then into her bathroom, then into her secret room. (This was connected to the back of her closet). I looked for her and found freshly painted on the wall, a bouquet of flowers. Sunflowers and bluebonnets danced happily in the wake of hours and hours of pain. Never hinting to the uninformed viewer of their tumultuous origin story.

River poem

Smelling of river and perfume 

Her head leans back 

Eyes closed as the sun

Dances and slides 

Across her drying hair 

A boat

I was a boat 

Tied to your shore 

Rocking softly 

I listened to your voice

It started off faint 

A tentative whisper

That grew louder

As you told me stories 

Mist rolled in slowly 

And I couldn't see 

Your sandy shores 

Your voice became distant 

When the mist faded 

I saw my rope 

That had once tied me to you 

Dancing down to deep waters

And I heard your voice no more 

run

I could spend days

 and weeks 

running away 

from you 

and me 

From those words 

that felt so empty  

Phrases that 

simultaneously 

froze my heart 

and freed me 

Permanence

I want to be your permanence

Not simply the glowing spark
that catches your eye

But also the fire
that keeps you warm

Not only the etherial whisper
that calls to you in the wood

But also chirps of summer bugs
that nightly sing you to sleep

A couple of summer Haikus

Warm soft sheets wrapped
as eyes flutter closed
southern night bugs chirp


Purple moon light bright
cool white concrete against her
under clearest night sky