Low Note

1

There is nowhere to begin.

I know nothing of rivers

except that this one seems soft

and kind from this distance.

I look everywhere for

kindness, a gentle, generous

reception for myself.

I was brought up to believe

the world should be fair, not

that I should have to make it so.

2

Tomorrow is our daughter’s

second birthday, and I am

far away. We tell ourselves

she won’t know the difference

when we celebrate in

two weeks, but

one never knows what sets

regret moaning, which

are the hooks that won’t come out.

3

You will have been a good

mother, anxious

and angry at all that has

hurt us, saving your

joy in fascicles in drawers.

4

I feel today that even

if we manage to move

the heavy stone, it will

still be a stone, sitting

heavy in someone’s path.

That’s nothing to teach

our children, though

could it have been something

my father once said?

5

In a plain mood like this

nothing looks like much more

than it is. That too

is nothing to teach, though

it may be close to the truth.

6

Magic ebbs away like time

ticking into a bucket.

Sometimes it blooms

momentarily again,

a sunset or whatever

draws milk back out

of the earth. I could

teach our children that

and let them find their own

disappointments.

7

I can try to teach our children

not knowing what they will

remember, a cold stare one

night an all-but-permanent

lesson and words little more

than fading bells. My father

once seized my arm in anger.

He was mostly kind, but

I never forget that small nut of pain.

8

The worst of me, screaming

your name like drawing

a little knife, is no less true

than the good husband I wish

you’d record in a poem.

It seems silly tonight to ask

that we celebrate the full

circle our cruelty makes

where it meets our calm.

9

A bird cuts harshly

through the gray sky, an emblem

in a language I strain

to recognize, pretend

to know some words in. The work

of life that is done at home,

I think, is mostly undone.

10

There is nowhere to end

either, except on a low

note, or so tonight

would have it, no knowing

for us what the reason is.