the next thing

my daughter sings jazz,
a capella
at almost 4 years old.
from the seat in the
shopping cart she
scats
out her alphabet,
smiling at passers by.
getting louder
as we pass
by the ham,
then finishing
with a smooth
jazz, "yeah."
I applaud
but she's already on
to the next
thing.

turning taillights to 2010

chasing ghosts down the highway,
we pass the remains of a Model T
tethered to a flat-bed trailer,
heading, we hope, for restoration.
from the backseat, my daughter sings,
"we belong together," and the road
we travel moves into another year,
seemingly the same as it was.

why I used a jar, I'll never know

unpacking memories
from a jar,
wondering why
the order is wrong.
why last year rests
on the bottom
while childhood
bubbles to the top.
find myself wondering
about the viscosity of memory.
so I try to turn the jar
as though it were an hourglass
but the jar slips
and shatters
and the memories flow
back into one.
whole again.

life in white

relying on snow
and jazz trumpeters
to awaken my senses,
dulled from too much
anti-septic,
too many artificial lights,
too many princesses
who no longer seek castles
but build hospitals
treating the dragons.
life,
imitating life,
trying to understand
what understanding spills
on the ground.

what the street remembers

someone sketched a scene
outside my morning window.
charcoal lines of trees
against a water-color sky,
gray light under gray clouds.
puddles on the street, reflecting
rust brick and umber buildings,
shadows of stories no longer seen
except in daguerreotypes.
a call to remember,
before the sun fully rises
and burns off the mist
and the memory that
what comes next
is not always better
than what is.
or was.

a space in time

I wished the heat had gone out
as I padded out of bed
at dead o'clock in the morning.
The floor needed to be cold
under my feet.
The time needed to be
100 years earlier,
with gas lights
illuminating the streets
and fresh snow
falling from dark skies.
I needed to hear horses,
clomping off in the night.
I needed to smell
burning coal.
A hole in time,
opens quickly,
then closes
as the sound
of my daughter's
slow, even breaths
roots me here.
Now.

on a foggy Ohio morning

the misty white backdrop
accents the small color
which remains.
through a small hole
in the fog I sense a path
which leads to melancholy,
and though I suspect
it is wrong
to enjoy
the final dance
so much more than the first,
I find myself
reaching for
Miles Davis
on vinyl,
asking fall for her hand
and taking one more dance.