A Maze Me (2 page)

A very large spider

wove her fancy web

between the Don Juan rosebush

and the Queen's Crown vine.

We greeted her every day

going in and out.

We had so many destinations

but she just swung there

in the air

in the day's long stare

that grows so hot by four o'clock

we boycott the whole front yard.

By evening we'd be outside again

breathing jasmine

watering honeysuckle

plucking mint

and she'd be wrapping

her little flies and wasps

in sticky sacks.

The trolley rang its bell at us

and we waved back.

It was nice living with Rose.

Living our different lives

side by side.

One night wild thunder

shook the trees,

the sky crackled and split,

the winds blew hard

and by morning

Rose was gone.

Did she wash away?

Did she find a safer home?

She keeps spinning her elegant web

inside us

so long

so long

after the light made it shine.

When I was two

I said to my mother

I don't like you, but I like you.

She laughed a long time.

I will spend the rest of my life

trying to figure this out.

A baby, I stood in my crib to hear

the dingy-ding of a vegetable truck approaching.

When I was bigger, my mom took me out
to the street

to meet the man who rang the bell and
he tossed me

a tangerine . . . the first thing I ever caught.
I thought he was

a magic man.

My mom said there used to be milk trucks too.
She said,
Look hard, he'll be gone soon.

And she was right. He disappeared.

Now, when I hear an ice-cream truck chiming
its bells, I fly.

Even if I'm not hungry—just to watch it pass.

Mailmen with their chime of dogs barking

up and down the street are magic too.

They are all bringers.

I want to be a bringer.

I want to drive a truck full of eggplants

down the smallest street.

I want to be someone making music

with my coming.

We need carved wooden cows, kites,

small dolls with flexible limbs.

I vote for the sponge in the shape of a sandwich.

Keep your bad news, world.

Dream of something better.

A triangle mobile spinning in the wind.

Furry monkeys hugging.

When my dad was small,

his only toy was an acorn and a stick.

That's what he told me.

So he carved the acorn into a spinning top

and wrote in the dirt.

And that's what made him

the man he is today.

“British researchers found that a sheep can distinguish and recognize as many as 50 other sheep's faces for up to two years, even in silhouette.”
(NEWSPAPER REPORT)

The yellow cat from the bakery

smelled like a cream puff.

She followed us home.

We buried our faces

in her sweet fur.

One cat hid her head

when I practiced violin.

But she came out for piano.

At night she played sonatas on my quilt.

One cat built a nest in my socks.

One inhabited the windowsill

staring mournfully up the street all day

while I was at school.

One cat pressed the radio dial,

heard a voice come out, and smiled.

She's packed the brown bear puppet

in the cupboard and distributed

the Self-Portraits with Hats.

I remember those.

She says, “You look just the same

but bigger! I would know you anywhere!”

I would know her too.

Someone's crying.

He doesn't like the little holes

in the corner of his painting

from hanging on display.

I help her gather stubs of crayons

from the table grooves.

Do the plans she made on the first day

seem far away

as pebbles dropped into a stream?

The ones whose names she calls in her sleep

gather rumpled papers into their bags,

hug her and fly.

It is a big wind blowing

after they all go home.

My mother's braid

is wrapped in soft tissue

and stored in a shoebox

in the attic.

I don't want to be

eighty years old

looking at that braid

all by myself.

I played with the boys till I felt blurry.

Minicars, fast cars,

the model ship constructed with toothpicks and glue.

WHOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(
that
was boring)

The boys went running into the field waving sticks!

The boys hit a fire hydrant with a stick and laughed!

When I was small,

I called out through the house.

I'm here
, said my mother and dad.

I'm here
, said my brother,

and the bear on my bed

said it too.

In your bones

in your memory
trust me

I'm tucked inside each fresh paper page

you'll write on.

Each hour you don't see me, I'm still there.

How many things add up the same?

Your life, my life,
the bucket, the sea.

My father has a parenthesis

on either side of his mouth.

His new words

live inside his old words.

And there's a strange semicolon

birthmark on my neck—

what does it mean,

my sentence is incomplete?

Please,

live with me in the open slope

of a question mark.

Don't answer it!

Curl up in a comma

that says more, and more, and more . . .

If your head had been smaller

maybe you woulda had less thoughts in it,

maybe you wouldn't have so many troubles.

This is just a guess but seems to me

like a little drawer only hold a few spoons

and you can always find the one you need

while a big drawer jammed with tongs

strings corks junky stuff receipts birthday cards

you never gonna look at

scrambled and mixed so one day
you

open that drawer

poke your hand in and big knife go
through your palm

you didn't even know a knife was IN there,

well, that's why I think

it might not be so bad to have a little head

with just a few thoughts few memories few hopes

maybe if only one little one came true

that be enough for you.

My brother, in his small white bed,

held one end.

I tugged the other

to signal I was still awake.

We could have spoken,

could have sung

to one another,

we were in the same room

for five years,

but the soft cord

with its little frayed ends

connected us

in the dark,

gave comfort

even if we had been bickering

all day.

When he fell asleep first

and his end of the cord

dropped to the floor,

I missed him terribly,

though I could hear his even breath

and we had such long and separate lives

ahead.

My hundred-year-old next-door neighbor told me:

every day is a good day
if you have it.

I had to think about that a minute.

She said, Every day is a present

someone left at your birthday place at the table.

Trust me! It may not feel like that

but it's true. When you're my age

you'll know. Twelve is a treasure.

And it's up to you

to unwrap the package gently,

lift out the gleaming hours

wrapped in tissue,

don't miss the bottom of the box.

A small girl with braids

is carrying a bucket

toward the sea.

She walks determinedly,

her red bathing suit

secure on her hips.

She seems to know

exactly what she is doing,

what she will carry

in the bucket.

Nothing can stop her,

not the sand,

which tries to swallow

each tiny foot,

or the mother,

calling after her

with a camera.

Now she is running,

waving her arms,

the small bucket

thrown free

into the air!

“There's a cool web of language winds us in. . . .”

—R
OBERT
G
RAVES

“I saw great things mirrored in littleness. . . .”

—E
DITH
S
ITWELL

1

I didn't mind so much

growing out of little girl clothes

the blue striped shirt

the corduroy jumper

giving up Candy Land

and my doctor's kit

but never again to fit

the turquoise Mexican chair

with flowers painted on it

hurt

I keep it in my room till now

a throne for the stuffed camel

Little kids sit on it when they visit

The straw in the seat is still strong

The flowers are always blooming

2

Miss Ruth Livingston

who taught first grade for forty-three years

in Marfa, Texas

kept a little reading chair

in front of the windows in her classroom

Whenever her students finished their work

they knew they could go over to the little chair

and read

It was a safe place

Their minds could wander anywhere

I wish everyone in the world had a little chair

3

Recently a big cowboy wearing sunglasses

came to Miss Livingston's house and asked where

“that old furniture from our classroom went”

She's ninety-seven now

She still has her china-faced dolls

from when she was small

She pointed at the wooden reading chair

sitting in front of the windows

in her beautiful living room

He walked over to the little chair

with his hands folded

and silently stood there, stood there

How can I be in love with a bus

going by at 6
A.M
.

when no one I know is riding it?

Swoosh of tires in the rain—

the hummingbird in the zinnia patch

doesn't find a single flower worth

sinking her beak into.

She's a choosy hummingbird!

                            
I'm a choosy hummingbird

All day I dip and dive

twice as alive

as yesterday.

Your handwriting stands

like a small forest on the page

You could enter it anywhere

Your room looks new to you

maybe you moved a lamp

arranged a pillow differently

on the bed

Such small things

change a room

Single candle

on a desk you finally cleaned

sharpened pencils waiting

in a white cup

I devote myself to short sentences

Air answers

Breath remembers

A streak of light signs the floor

I am keeping my eye on that boy.

My secret eye, spy eye.

How does he act when the teacher

leaves the room?

If someone makes a mistake,

what then?

He picked up Lucy's pencil when she dropped it.

Does he recognize my existence?

Does he see me gleaming

in my chair?

who does not run her country

the way I do not run my country.

I want to meet the girl

who hides in a crowd,

who laughs into her hand,

who was not in the picture.

The girl who stands back

after being introduced

by her parents

in a way she would not choose.

Who turns her head to the side

so she doesn't miss seeing what's there.

Where is she?

Your face makes me feel like a lighthouse

beaming across waves.

We don't even know one another,

yet each day I am looking for your face.

Walking slowly among tables, I balance my tray,

glancing to the side.

You're not here today.

Are you sick?

Why are you absent?

And why, among all these faces,

is there only one I want to see?

Whatever the reason

your absence is not excused

by me.