Above the Singapore Rainforest 

​
That it came suddenly was the thing.
Like a stroke or a blink, like desire, 
the storm was there, and so
 
the storks were caught—white flotilla
on a green sea, riding the waves as one,
tossed on currents of sky. 

From our high window we watched them— 
faltering; swallowed in troughs of trees; emerging 
above crests like tattered sails on hollow hulls

until they disappeared finally with dusk
in gray veils like those—half a world
away—that claimed with stroke 
my mother's mind, 
her thoughts beating in confusion,
trying to fly home.

(First published in Bloodline, Evening Street Press, 2009)



Ascension


When they knew the ladies of the church
were sending waves of food,
my mother’s neighbors fished for other needs
as I hung there, caught like a trout
on her corded phone, 
until they asked, “What about paper goods?”
and I leapt at the easy bait, more than once.
I didn’t mind that on the funeral day a growing 
flock of perpetual-plastic bags perched everywhere
—on the fridge, the counters, the washer—some
light as angel down, all with contents pure.

That night I dreamed of my mother— 
she who found humor in the absurd,
delight in irony,
she who had to be hushed at wakes— 
ascending in laughter on a bright path, 
thousands of Styrofoam plates
cobbled into the white and narrow, 
stretching upward into clouds, 
cups curbing both sides, rim-to-rim, 
each with a paper napkin
and a plastic fork 
tucked neatly inside. 

(First published in Clapboard House, Spring, 2009)