--EVERYTHING SEEMS CHARGED WITH MEANING

Reunion

We take the photo in the same place each year,

by the grand fountain,

identical positions,

shortest to tall

as if there’s nothing else to mark the time

but our slacking skins

and a different set of sweaters.

We are his daughters

who sang sweet notes and

invented excuses for being women

instead of ladies.

Nights we fought in silence with locked doors

and shattered mirrors.

“No one got hurt,” we’d always say.

A lawyer,

a lesbian,

a surgeon

and one hack.

The photographer prompts, “On three, say…Father!”

and we do

because Mom’s asked us,

because she’s standing there

remembering him again,

loving Dad like we should have.

Ways to Remember Birmingham

She gives her pets

street names—

 Hunter and Red Mountain,

   Oak, Valley, Tuscaloosa.

The gold fish are 1^st through 9^th Avenue.

She has the city tattooed across her chest so she can see

the campus in the mirror when she’s on top,

but the truth is

it’s been a long time,

and the fish are floating belly up

and the dog has diarrhea

and the embryo inside her has grown bad-boy hair by now,

his hands and feet itching

to make their way into the world

with or without you,

you fucking bastard.

Brick Room

She says, “But I’m a bleeder.”

Her eyes are alarm clocks blinking.

Her knees bounce.

These places are so white and wide open,

like heaven or a very clean tomb.

The woman coming up to us

is not a nurse but her voice is soft.

She says they’re ready for my daughter now,

everything’s set.

Walking down the bleach-walled hall

I hear her tell Amy not to worry,

that there’s still time,

that she made the right choice.

Amy lifts her rag doll head at that,

a thin smile parting open,

looks over her shoulder at me and says,

“See Dad,

I’m not a murderer after all.”

Jemima

The woman says, “Lordy, Lordy, I wish I was forty.”

She is rolls of things.  She sings like Aretha, louder than the choir.

I wish she was mine.

She sweats freely.  Her pillbox hat bobs like a red boat on her hair.

Her arms are meaty waves.

She has a son.

She touches his dress shirt at the spine.

Her fingers are thick,

a protector’s hands.

She never turns to my pew.  She just sings,

belts it out.

Ballroom

The kitchen is not big enough for your new dress,

so strawberry red and made of a billion beads

that flick free when you pivot and twirl.

They match the shade of your lipstick,

the smears of it on your teeth,

the hue of your animal tongue as you

salsa with your new boyfriend

while my sister and I watch.

Elsewhere

Dinnertime we sit at the round table

and take hands

and give thanks.

I catch my brother peaking,

one eye opened,

sizing up the cake.

Years and years later

I’ll recall this moment in the hospital,

how he was always where he couldn’t be,

taking his eye off the wheel.