Finding My Mother's Memories


I found your journal
in a stack of papers you kept 
on your bed, almost under your 
pillows, and next to the blanket

you had since you were a child. 
I ran my fingers along the raised 
flowers on the cover before I 
opened it, I'm not sure why

I did. Scrawled on the first pages, 
was an entry about how a boy 
you kissed died in a car accident,
how your English tutor died on the train

tracks outside your home, and how you 
thought the locomotives passing 
in the night sounded like firecrackers 
whizzing through the air.





Visiting My Mother


I flicked the business card
for St. Andrews with my thumb
as I stared out the window

of my mother's hospital room. 
All I could see, was a broken 
generator, gravel, and a bit

of empty road. Rosary beads, 
wrapped loosely around a wooden
cross like string lights,

sat on the table beside her. 
I wished the rain pelting 
the glass would wash us away. 





I Found a Picture of Us


in my rusted Camry, it was
lodged between the vinyl 
panels in the backseat. In it, 

we were standing on a mountain
with our arms stretched out
like pinned bat wings. We were 

smiling, I was smiling, you 
were laughing with your head
thrown back, as if your neck

were made of modeling clay. 
Beneath us, a canopy of pines
and dying oaks. Our feet planted 

in pebbles and pieces of broken
boulders. Written on the back, 
in your hand writing that twists 

around itself, was a note about
someone's birthday. I can't place
myself in the photo, or remember

how your hair looked like spun
silk. Have no idea whose 
birthday it was.