September 2024
Bio Note: I live in Phoenix, near my two adult children and their families. Both of my children were adopted from Korea as babies. These poems from my award-winning collection Rooted and Winged are about adoption.
One of her parents was a float,
the other an underwater island.
One parent was a circulating library,
the other a television signal.
Across the ocean, other parents
read a language like a movie.
In the dawn, one parent collected
hearts, while the other meant
to fertilize daisies and milkweed.
Somewhere other parents were
a teapot and a shovelful of clay.
One parent was a blackberry bramble,
the other a signed Bible missing pages.
Still others were buses, candles, pickles,
and empty strollers. She felt confused.
One parent gave a palm to land on,
another gave a velvet couch cushion,
yet another a musical note. One held
an unwrapped gift for wondering over.
from Rooted and Winged
For an Adopted Child
You will grow a new set of feelings, eventually,
a braided tree trunk, like a ficus, that supports a bloom
of love, shame, and sadness, fruit of flower & wasp—
a trapping pit when the branches give way, decay
behind a madonna mask, dark spots cast by our lamp.
But right now the hand under your head,
whispered kisses—you don’t see behind them,
sensing the fullness within and stable gravity
without, it’s all so seamless, tightly swaddled
almost—your dimpled new smile mirrors mine.
I wrinkle my nose, you squeeze your face.
One day you will see us together and understand
the warning you have heard your whole life
about the missing—until then let’s feed on these figs
from Rooted and Winged
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