I didn't let my kids use the word except for traffic and chickenpox, 
two things that brought out the worst in us. We practiced saying 
abhor detest loathe despise. I was an English teacher with vocabulary books 
starting a new generation of kids who rarely said hate. I’ve added chipmunks 
because of the one who made its way into our home and seemed to mock 
me for two days skittering around the floors, once on its haunches in front 
of the refrigerator as if waiting to sample the pesto I'd just made. Now 
I hate their happy dashes from just outside the front door into the woodpile 
on the porch. I still hate traffic and remember the all-night when little Abby 
was covered in chicken pox. I sat next to the bathtub, the water tepid 
and swimming with oatmeal, squeezing a sponge over her tiny shoulders 
as she wept. I am so sorry, I apologized as if I created all the sorrow 
she would feel in this world I brought her into. We both cried 
in that half-light of dawn easing through the window.
                        

I wish you would write a letter 
to an old poet, tell me how 
to go to the limits of 
what I know, transmit 
messages through this mug 
of warm tea, the leaves I love 
so much in fall, the falling ones 
I try to catch for good luck. 
I'm always trying to cushion 
the fall into where I know I'll go. 
I want to hear your Give me your hand.