UNTITLED: COCOON (draft 001 rough)

coffee stop. grand
rapids, minnesota. the barista
tells my daughter
that when caterpillars go inside,
when they
spin shut their cocoon
they do not grow wings.
they do not turn into butterflies.
instead
they soften
melt
into a substance
reminiscent of honey.
it’s from this sticky magic,
this absolute
wet
of possibility
that something new is formed.

1-17-2015 untitled poem draft 001 rough

i’ll be 33

in 3 days, and today

i am drinking coffee

that promises undertones of citrus and hibiscus

and uses words like “alchemy”

in their copy.  my daughter, claire, is 6 –

just turned

2 months 2 days ago.  she spins

her buckwheat

honey blonde hair up

and thumbs a $1 comic from the shop

2 doors down.

issue 4 of 6.

The Emerald City of Oz.  at the comic shop

i tell her

the later Oz stories

were all so much better than the first.

ozma, tick-tock, the sawhorse.

stories richer, characters more fleshy and fanciful

all at once.

earlier saturday morning we walk outside

to the perfect silence of snow falling

before our college age neighbors have woken up.

today is long past due.

a “mommy-daughter” date that i promised myself

would happen

once every week.

they have not.

we’re a blended family.  is that the right term?

i don’t think it is.

mother father son

daughter (from a previous relationship, from a horrible relationship, one of those

relationships that women say “escape” or “got away from” when describing later

in life).

we have dropped

the technicalities by now.

and claire is my partner’s daughter

as much as mine.

we do not qualify

“a previous relationship.”

our family tree is small

thick.  it bears for us

flowers and fruit

and wood that smells

like palo santo

before it meets the flame.

but it grew out of the soil

that claire and i

tilled, tended,

our 3 years alone.

our 3 years together.