gave birth to a second first,

but it died quickly away.

Then the next,

Then the next,

but one fought to become a minute,

and time was only made up of those for a long while.

Eventually, one evolved to be an hour.

And then another.

And another

and the Mother was so proud of her children—

what they’d grown up into,

what they were able to hold in their ephemeral hands

that she shed tears made of forever,

and that was the first generation

to see a year dance itself around the fire.

Now, the Mother sits inside her sweater knit from patches of song

sung by birds that died out long ago.

Her babies have outgrown her,

looking forward, away from when she tries to point

to brother second or sister hour.

The decades especially have no time for her.

On the ride home, whether I won or lost,

He’d get me a jamocha shake.

He’s free throw solace,

Gazebo ease.

Rainbow cone joy.

A short walk toward comfort

(or Dairy Queen, whichever the evening necessitates. Sometimes both.)

A must-see sunrise or don’t-miss sunset call away

And I know no matter what,

I can always come home.

He will always be on my side.

Thank you for being my always.

Jack, Zodiac, the reason for Elizabeth Short’s extra-wide smile,

I’ve been called many names.

I stole one of your favorite socks the other week.

Yes, the green fuzzy one.

I side-swiped your car in the parking lot

And I didn’t leave a note.

What I did leave was the massive tip for the waitress

trying to put herself through college while raising two kids.

Banksy and I sometimes meet up for coffee and graffiti.

Awhile ago, I sat for a portrait for DaVinci,

And you people are still wondering who I am.

I like being on the side of the coin that faces down,

where Peter Pan’s shadow lives.

You were just enlivened with my blood last week.

Indeed—you’re very welcome.

But I have to go. I have so much still to do.

The name “Hugs and Kisses” won by a landslide to describe a fragile pink.

It was up against my suggestion, “Kick to the Balls.”

When they decided on naming a crimson on a day I wasn’t there,

I called the meeting to order with an investigation:

People, people, exactly how many minstrel’s chests were cracked open

to accurately assess the color of a “Minstrel’s Heart”?

There have been near-victories. I almost got “Shakespeare’s Tan” past the editors.

And when the day’s color resembled fetid layers of swamp built up to dump a body,

my “Urban Legend” won the day.

The closest shade to it? In honor of the victim: “Free Spirit.”

One day, when my goal was to come up with a name no one would ever want to commit their walls to,

I’d say I nailed it with the black “Cheating Heart.”

Hey, I told them that they were racist when they insisted on “Newborn’s Eyes” being blue.

And believe me, the only person who wanted “Un-teal We Meet Again” to happen

was the perky wordsmith responsible for candied turdblossoms

like “Puppy Paws” and “Kitten Whiskers.”

Every time I pass my “Crouching Tiger” orange walls,

it’s like I’m looking at an Asian movie I wasn’t a big fan of.

Tomorrow, I’ll overthrow “Salmon Mousse” and replace it

with “Dead White Person’s Open Casket Skin.”

Who’s with me?!

The only time I would’ve seen another red panda

Would’ve been to make babies.

But instead, I was poached while vine-frolicking and stuck here

To stand watch over a baby who was not at all mine.

An ungrateful lump, let me tell you.

Wailing for one more story,

Throwing a fit when she wasn’t allowed to buy a toy with money she’d saved.

When her mama would trick her into thinking

She’d blown out the nightlight from far away on her bed,

That’s when my nocturnal hijinks could begin. But she’d stay up so late!

Don’t even get me started on the teen years—

Covering me up with Michael Jordan posters,

As if she, at her height, was ever going to be in the WNBA.

Me? All of this is against my nature.

I’m a solitary creature.

Even when she slammed her door and couldn’t have felt more alone,

She didn’t let me catch it from her—not even a little bone of loneliness.

And now she’s getting married and killing me.

I’ve heard rumors about how the Chinese newlyweds wear my tail for good luck.

She doesn’t look Chinese, so I don’t know what’s going on.

Maybe coming down from the wall will feel like the end of jump-roping.

I wonder who will guard her babies.

Not me. I’ve done more than my time.

Fourteen years was what I was supposed to have,

And I’ve been here for thirty-one.

I’m ready to go.

Do it during the day, when I’m asleep.

Pull me away gently, so I won’t feel the leaving.

Tumbling out of a brown lunch bag are all of the report cards

from my father’s high school and college career.

The paper crumbles with age.

E = Excellent effort; G = Good; S = Satisfactory; U = Unsatisfactory

They make me think of the three things he told me

when he dropped me off on my first day at the private high school:

1. No dating football players
2. No dating Italians
3. When it comes to grades, Gallicchio’s don’t get B’s

I couldn’t help the first two from happening

(freshman year, no less. Sorry about that.)

But dammit, I studied hard for every “A” I earned.

After four years there and four years in college,

He finally told me the secret:

“It’s true. Gallicchio’s don’t get B’s.

I usually got C’s.”

He savored his punchline.

And it even makes me smile,

now that I see all the “Unsatisfactory Effort”s, especially next to Religion class.

He’s gone to church every Sunday since he made a pact with God

about his pancreas.

(Dad’s pancreas, not God’s pancreas.)

And I wonder if he’s putting in Excellent Effort

(never present in any of his subjects, according to the records)

because he feels indebted.

The grief he gives me, his little atheist,

bemoaning twelve years of Catholic school tuition.

“Money well spent,” I tell him.

“Otherwise I wouldn’t have found all the flaws.”

And I wonder what waits for him every Sunday morning—

The church is a locked box I’m not compelled to find the key to,

A brown bag whose paper intestines fall apart in my hands,

Becoming dust.

My three-year-old mother’s chubby cheeks

And wide, almond eyes have been caged in newsprint,

Staring out from the aged page.

She attended the Creche nursery school,

Meaning “cradle” for the needy children of working mothers.

Each day, the little ones made holiday decorations,

Celebrated birthdays,

Dressed up in adult clothes.

What games did she make up?

Who did she pretend to be?

What did she make believe?

This little pumpkin of a girl

Would be magicked into a mother

Who made up the game, “If I don’t eat, the cancer doesn’t grow.”

She pretended that the more groceries she bought,

The longer she’d live.

She made us believe her stubbornness could refuse Death. No, thank you.

Her almond eyes stare out from my face trapped in the mirror.

I dress up in adult clothes and decorate my home for holidays that she’s not around for.

Birthdays keep us moving forward,

While she’ll never turn a day older than sixty.

 

Gladys Nunes became a nurse in 1924.

She helped deliver Yvonne Mae on August 20, 1925

And Frank Stuart Rogers on August 1

Robert Williams on March 31, 1926

Donald McCune on February 9, 1927

She kept dozens of birth announcements tucked safely within the book of treasures

Along with pictures of her instructresses

And how sixteen girls started off in the nursing program

But only six saw it through after three years.

She kept news clippings of marriages

Saved a telegram from dad—

“Charlene died last night eleven twenty pm”

A meticulous record of what to remember—

Inches, pounds, time.

And yet.

In the entire book full of lives and legacies of hundreds of people,

There is one face scrawled out.

A woman with a wide stance, round hat, and a shoulder with a man’s hand resting upon it.

Feel the rough scratch of her obliterated face.

The remaining two couples in the picture smile, unscathed.

Saved.

Gladys undid that woman’s life,

Even as the woman begged her for forgiveness,

Wanting to feel absolved,

Clean,

Innocent as a newborn.

He bought me because he’d been her hero,

Getting rid of so many mice in her apartment,

Rapid heart beating, blood pumping, quick twitch mice.

I was the one that she didn’t have to be afraid of.

I was there when their love was young—

Rapid heart beating for him to get home from work

Blood quick kiss.

What happens to love as it ages?

Age has taken away my ears,

But I can still see

Sometimes you don’t realize how bad the odds are stacked against you—

Just look at all my brothers

who weren’t smart enough to be wooden.

A store acknowledges its hours

With a sign reading: “Yep” or “Nope”

Depending on whether it’s open.

And the little old Pumpkin Lady,

Spry at 74 and perpetually clad in orange

Is talking about how three brake lines were shot:

“I pushed the brake down and it went all the way to the floor.

‘Nuf to scare the puddin’ out of an old woman.”

We haven’t seen her in a coon’s age,

But she’s been up to her usual shenanigans.

“They called me up for an interview because they said I was an icon.

I asked them, don’tcha hafta be old to be an icon?”

We poke around at her ceramic treasures that she’s still firing up daily in her kiln.

She’s put off getting a new tire to replace her flat one until September’s Pumpkin Festival,

When business is best.

She is our adopted sassy grandmother

Whose pumpkins never go bad.

Year after year, they greet sunsets with an equally bright orange gaze.

We aren’t there to clean her gutters or drag heavy garbage bins to the street,

But every so often, we take the five-hour round-trip to enliven business enough

To allow new tires to come rolling in.