A short poem dedicated to my daughter in the womb
TIDAL WAVE They say, in March, my life will be a tidal wave. But, I don’t know if they know how tidal waves behave. The water recedes from the shoreline, laying bare the ghost of its silence, showing us the upset coral of thousands of stranded souls who never quite made it. Then, off in the distance, the penitent potentiality rises up to the sky in prayer, and hurtles itself, with all abandon, against the rocks and muck and grime as if shouting will never work the same way it had in the past. Its hammer-fist renders the cliffs to melting metronomes, the beach becomes an avalanche. Floundering, staccato becomes the life, and the line between earth and salt and water is erased by the hands of an angry toddler, who, incidentally, is crying to be held only to be shushed by a spinning, lighted mobile (the one with the soothing sound effects that could never replace, nor should ever replace, the beauty in the lullaby). If there were people, there aren’t now,...
As he laid in his smoke-filled coffin
with hand-crafted nails,
my mother hugged me close.
My brother was still in wonder of death.
He couldn’t figure out how dad could
hold his breath for so long.
He tried and passed out.
At least he was quiet on the ride home.
I learned how to cook eggs first.
Then meatloaf,
then pizza
and fish
and soups.
I learned how to tie shoes,
and drive,
and drop off
watery-eyed little men
in little suits,
and kiss goodbye,
and be proud like a good father.
I learned how to fight
and slam doors,
and drink too much,
and rely on black coffee.
I learned that my brother
knew that I was always going
to be older than him,
and
I suppose
that meant I would
always be wise…
I learned what it meant to
truly cry,
and know that I would
never live up to his
greatest expectations.
And as I sat back, wishing it all
to go to hell,
I remembered that,
when I cradled his head
in my lap
and felt him fall asleep,
we were both still children.
-JR Simmang