circles around
the piano
like an island.
A flock of birds
flutters inside.
My debut con-
cert recital.
Don’t think
too hard, just walk
Composed, on high
heels, straight to
The bench, con-
fident, expert,
Sitting straight-backed
inhale, exhale,
Let it come, with-
out thought. Instinct
Taking over,
years of training,
Memory, my
best friend, music,
My calling, my
passion, my joy.
Heresy
Christopher
Now, when I
think of
you,
alone
in my room
at night,
I wish I had
a telescope
that
could see through
space and
time
straight to
where you
are.
Galileo
used his
own
to prove the
sun was the
centre
of the universe
and got locked
up
for heresy. Would
it be heresy
now
if I could prove
that everything
inside me
turns
around
you?
As a Dad
Annabelle
It funny to think that Christopher
is the same age
as my father was
when he fathered me.
I try to picture Christopher as a dad,
pushing a stroller,
changing a diaper,
playing this little piggy,
All the things my father never did
with me, because
he never even knew
that I’d been born.
I wonder if it’s as strange for him
as it is for me, not knowing
what I look like
or who I am, but
It can’t be. Since he doesn’t
know about me, he doesn’t
scan the faces of sixteen-
year-old girls, hoping to find me.
It must have been hard
for my mom to hide
being pregnant
from my father.
Even though he didn’t go to her school,
he’d still have been around town,
at movies, or restaurants,
or the park.
Did she jump behind mailboxes or
into stores to avoid him, or did
she just walk by and pretend
not to know him?
She told me she barely knew him
so maybe she didn’t need to
hide, maybe he wouldn’t
have recognized her.
If so, the big bump in her belly was
nothing to him, a meaningless
shape, something he’d
look right past.
That scenario bothers me the most.
I prefer to picture him stopping
and staring, his mouth
falling open,
His conscience prickling him,
every thought in his head
turning toward the
reality of me,
There inside my mother’s womb,
curled up sucking my little
thumb, my face already
resembling his.
Stiracchiando
Holding back
Mary
I don’t know where it
came from,
This ability to play,
maybe
From a recessive gene
hidden
Way back in the family
pool.
My parents are not musical—
my dad
Barely taps his toes to
music
And my mom is
tone deaf.
Maybe that’s why she thinks
I can
Turn it on
on command,
Like she’s the organ
grinder
and I’m her faithful
monkey,
Penny in the slot and here
we go.
But it’s not that
simple.
The music stirs in-
side me
Almost like a chick
tapping
On its shell when it’s
ready
To emerge, its eyes closed
against
The starkness of the light,
like me
Up on the stage at school
first time.
When people want to pull
music
Out of me it makes me
angry
Because the music is part
of me,
It’s not detachable, like a
fake limb.
Something She Doesn’t Know
Annabelle
I see the way Stacey stares at me
and Christopher like she a) can’t
believe I have a boyfriend and b)
can’t believe it’s Christopher.
Sometimes, I see her
whisper to her pack
and they giggle
and look over.
But other times, when she’s alone,
I catch her looking another
way, like she’s trying to
figure something out.
It might be because Christopher
can’t take his eyes off me,
or his hands, both are always
touching me, circling me,
While Mark is never near her
anymore, not like before
when they were like vines,
constantly entwined. Now
He jerks like he wants
to shake her loose, like
snow from branches
or flies from food.
She cracks up when he does it
like it’s funny, while Mark’s dark
eyes stare dead ahead, like she’s
nowhere in his line of vision.
Once he left, leaving her looking
like a fool, her arm in mid-air,
like a character in a sci-fi film
whose partner’s been sucked away.
Part of me wanted to laugh, but
I was sorry for her too, especially
when she had to shrug
and act like it didn’t matter.
THE KEY
Mark
This time,
I brought the spare key
for my father’s cab.
I thought if I buried it on the land
he loved so much, it would be
like he was finally here, living
the life he wanted,
Hiking in the woods
fishing in the stream,
breathing deep to fill his lungs
with mountain air, opening
his arms to embrace space,
the thing he wanted more than anything,
Maybe more than me
because I did nothing
but make his space smaller, shrinking it
with anger, filling it
with words my cousins in Lebanon
would never use with their father.
The key slides under the rock
and the cold metal turns hot
in my fingers, as if
the earth has been warming up
like an oven to receive it.
The only thing that ruins it is Stacey
waiting in the car, cold and cranky,
expecting me to share something with her,
cursing me, making me feel like
the world’s worst screw-up boyfriend.
The guys at school think we drive out to do it
because Stacey’s so hot. They think
I can have her whenever, wherever I want,
that there is nothing to stop me.
Nothing except my father’s voice describing
the girl of his dreams for me: someone
sweet and pure who wants nothing more
than a home in the suburbs and two kids,
who’ll go to church on Sundays, keep
my house sparkling clean and make roast
lamb when he and my mom come to visit.
Back Again
Stacey
When I recognized the road,
twisting, snow-topped,
my heart stopped.
Mark didn’t even want me to come.
He told me to stay at rehearsal,
but I couldn’t let him go
without me
because I knew if
I did it would be
over because he
already had that far
away look in his eyes,
telling me he wanted to be
alone.
He parked the same place
as last time, by a pile of logs
marking the dead end of the road
and without a word
disappeared into the trail,
shoulders hunched,
determined.
Two whole hours I sat in the car
freezing, rubbing my hands together,
wondering what the hell I was doing
tagging along on this mad journey
to nowhere with some guy who’s
obviously going completely
crazy
When I could be doing hair and makeup,
stuff I’m good at, instead of sitting here
like a fifth wheel in some little car
in the woods, wondering what would happen
if Mark never returned and nobody even knew
where I was, leaving me completely
stranded.
Pregnant
Annabelle's Mom
At graduation, the Principal placed my diploma
in my left hand, shook my right, and said
“All the best in the future,” fixing his eyes
somewhere around my middle, as if he knew
My future was in there, growing, the baby
already eight weeks old, with eyes of its own,
toes and fingers and a tiny heart
beating, beating, beating.
I knew his words didn’t mean studies
and career, but diapers and cracked nipples,
things that terrified me and had me
teetering in indecision,
Unsure of what I was going to do,
my whole body numb, as though
what was going on inside me
had turned me completely dumb.
Months later, still small enough to hide
my bump, I felt the first flutter
of baby kick, like a fish flicking
in the glass bowl of my belly
And I jumped, knocking the bowl
of popcorn off my lap, spilling
its contents onto the floor,
like an omen of bigger spills to come.
My mom listened without a word of reproach,
she knew the gods had conspired to make love
hard for girls and easier for boys, who were
let off the hook the minute the deed was done,
But my dad crumpled, as though a giant crane
had dropped a concrete block
on his head, his whole body collapsing
under the weight of the news.
In the end it was just the three of us,
me, my mom and Annabelle, a chain
of girls, harmonious even through
night feedings and early changes,
My mom pitching in like a trooper,
loving every talcum-powdered moment
in a way I’m not sure I would if that
were to happen now with Annabelle.
So Perfect
Annabelle
Last night my mom told me that when I was a baby
she would bring me to the park and sit
in the shade while I slept.
The older moms would stare and whisper,
trying to figure out if she was the mom
or the sitter.
She couldn’t join in their talk
about feeding and sleeping
and changing.
She had to hide me, when every bone in her body
wanted to lift me up and show me off
to the world.
At home she couldn’t stop looking at me, wondering
how she’d made something
so perfect,
When even her simple grad dress
with the braided straps had
stumped her.
I know why she told me this story.
LOST
Stacey’s Dad
One daughter already lost
to the west coast:
rocky mountains
grizzly bears
avalanches
crazy cults.
The other is here but:
faking nice
skipping school
going nowhere
breaking my heart.
In my wallet is a picture of:
both together
matching dresses
licking ice cream
moustache smiles
simpler times.
I’m getting too old for all this:
worrying
regretting
fretting
sweating
pretending.
I just want to coast into old age:
quietly
gracefully
comfortably
easily
peacefully.
Instead of wondering if I was too:
permissive
disconnected
undisciplined
inattentive
much to blame.
Deck The Halls
Annabelle
Christmas is the best time
to make our point,
Christmas is the worst time
to make our point.
People shop and shop and we try
to stop them
and make them think about what
they’re buying.
Christopher wears a Santa hat
and rings a bell
to pull them over, like he’s
part of the scene.
Up close they see his Santa’s little helper
button, showing a dark kid
stuffing a bear that also wears
a Santa hat.
&nbs
p; Mr. Dawe thought it was an awesome
scheme. He likes the way
our minds are becoming devious
and subversive.
I like the way Mr. Dawe is not a teacher
we have to obey
but another person handing out flyers
to dumb shoppers.
I like the way he’s willing to take
this chance and go
against the administration by taking
us to the mall.
Last meeting, he told us about a conference
on youth and fashion,
called No Your Clothes, right in the heart
of New York City.
Our group is going to fundraise and take
the bus to Manhattan
where we’ll stay in the dorms of NYU
near Washington Square.
We’ll do workshops by day and sightsee at night.
It sounds great, but
I don’t know if my mom will let me go,
even if we do raise the money.
Mr. Dawe says I’m old enough to make up
my own mind, eighteen
is an arbitrary age and in the middle ages I’d be
married by now.
I looked at Christopher when he said that
and felt myself blush
as I pictured us fooling around in a haystack,
husband and wife.
BACK AGAIN
Mark
Back down
from the
mountains.
Back here
on familiar streets
looking for
familiar faces.
Back where
I suppose I belong,
even though these days
I don’t feel like I belong
anywhere except in my car.
Back when
I was a kid I didn’t think
much about things like that.
I just sort of lived day to day
doing kid stuff like soccer
and hockey and school projects.
Back then
it all seemed easier, like there were
no cracks in my life, no places where
my feet kept slipping through, like
they do now whenever I try to take a step,
whenever I try to decide how I am going
to move forward in my life and not
Backwards
like I am now, constantly thinking
of things that happened in the past,
things with my dad, like the time he
let me stay home from school and spend
the day with him in his cab and we couldn’t
let on to my mom because she’d have flipped,
especially if she knew that he let me drive the car