Cyrus
After graduation, each woman in my family
celebrates in South America -
stepping off the plane,
a roll of film stripped and left to dry under a low red lamp.
The men stay behind,
make jokes about sunburn and Ecuadorian boys
and for two weeks, the phone doesn't ring.
Postcards arrive like mail-bombs. Photographs like flint
unable to endure the cold gray of the North Pacific. The men dream
the feet of daughters and sisters teasing the sand on some beach
in some seared country, fingers reaching to a sun
close enough to touch.
Erica came back with a torrent of freckles taking root on her face.
Natalie found twin horseflies sleeping in her leg.
But three months after Monica arrived on her mother's doorstep,
lips stained, neck swollen, eyes two runaway cue balls
lolling back into those dark pockets, her stomach
blossomed into a bowl of papaya and lime. A tumid basket of fruit
the men recoiled from. Peering at her navel,
schoolchildren gathered around a dying bird
and when the skin burst, peeled back to reveal
the culprit, there was no pit, no hollow of black kernels
but a cherub slick with blood, glistening
in all of their hands -
a child of flame so vibrant,
they could not bear to take their eyes from his.
These Days
When the sun sets, the boys
see their reflections
for the first time that day,
t-shirts matted to their chests,
faces loose with heavy sleep.
The landlords ignore the smell,
the rolling bottles, the cans
piled in the sink.
These days, the boys feel
the gentle sheet of their mothers hands
slipping from their shoulders. They prepare
quietly, walk to the corner store,
see the city, the car dealerships,
the distant hotels. Maybe
they get breakfast, or hitch
a ride downtown. It's still
early in the year.
In a few weeks
they'll get jobs.
When they drink they'll know
their mothers grieve for them,
calmly resigned to the coming
snow melt. These days
the boys gather at night,
laughing, and when soft
voices are found in their phones
they erase them. Just wanted
to hear you, she says. I love you,
she says, too quickly, so it sounds
like a friend, like nothing important.
