Unheard I Love You I’m washing dishes, thinking about a poem for my son. I have no ode to Evan and believe I should. But I don’t write that way. Ideas form themselves and then they push me. Mists of thought that must be cleared with words. I have poems for my dead husband, for my boyfriend, but none about my son, my first love now. Still, musing, sponge in hand, on sons and poems evokes persistent memory of his father’s last I love you. Two years ago, bedtime story interrupted, 911 just called. Thirty seconds to tell a son his father might be dying, to background stereo of gasping breath and rhythmic whir of oxygen machine. Hospice promised help, but now they won’t be coming. Half a minute leaves no time for choosing the best words. Moments lost explaining he is going to the neighbors. Nearly six and a half and grasping gravity, yet surprise overnight with best friend’s a diversion. Unsteady hands on my husband’s shoulders, a reassurance for us both, the ambulance is coming. First grade clothes and toothbrush in a grocery bag. Time for him to go across the hall. Kiss your Dad, I say, as he passes the straight back chair. These things you could not bear to have a picture of. Over in an instant, then he’s headed out the door. I love you floats behind him, low and wispy in the air, like a ghost already, and he doesn’t turn. I want to cry your Daddy said he loves you, but hope John doesn’t notice that he didn’t hear. How could he bear an unheard last I love you? Or a mother’s tremulous voice pleading listen, because this heartfelt one will surely be the end? And in the distance EMT sirens wailing, a sound that never fails to remind me of a father’s softly sighed I love you and a poem he and his cherished son now share.

Half hidden between the desk lamp and alarm clock, your rose Rookwood vase has no pride of place now, not like the pottery on the living room shelves. Yet this one I would not risk to tempt the cat you never wanted. Just to carry the bud vase in here, by our bed— smooth, cool and matte with glowing highlights near at green-tinged rim— was a sensual act I know you understand. Five straight sides but no hard angles— there is no part I can caress that you were not here first. Sometimes I think I never saw a simple thing so lovely. How did the artist fade that pink to green without the glazes melting into mud? I feel the lust that compelled you then to own her. You looked at me that way—the rose— the top with tongue leaf tips, embracing tiny flowers, a hush of curled back lip. The sex is no accident. It was like that for us. Now I am surrounded by ceramic lovers. You told me stories of their acquisitions, but I didn’t know I needed to remember, so they are mute. But this thin pink angel spins her own tale. She is Rookwood, the real thing and she knew you would possess her, just like I felt that look close in— thick wanting air and skin dissolving. Here in my hand, not high on a shelf, not just to look at. But too pink, too cool, fragile, yet unyielding, as life to death. This perfection conjures opposites— Strong, warm hands, scarred—gentle. Turning me over and over like that vase— I though you protected me, but you were brittle. Not shattered, but forced to give yourself back—bit by bit. Even the breath— taking in less and less, until you reached the end. This vase could crack, too, but I guard her, careless of my devotion. I should feel more angry at you, like I am at those Marlboros. Nicotine that kissed you like a vampire lover When young adults ask cashiers for cartons, I imagine myself shaking strangers’ shoulders. To look in their eyes and say it’s true— “You will die too soon and part of someone with you.” Cold, hollow comfort in a gorgeous vase and I could raise the cradling hand and throw, throw, throw her against the white wall—shrieking— and all the other Craftsman pots. Smash, smash, smashed colors raining down around me. No tears, just piles of pointed shards— sharp, like grief. But you broke first, and you would be more gone. > From: "Miriam Stanley, Editor" <miriam@roguescholars.com> > Reply-To: miriam@roguescholars.com > To: "Laura Vookles (LV)" <llv1mini@msn.com> > Subject: Re: lll Submission From Laura Vookles (LV) > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:44:35 -0500 > > Thanks Laura! Can I also have the poem you read at the Pink Pony about two weeks ago? > Send it to submissions@roguescholars.com/ Miriam > >

Smile— not because he’s saying it, but because you feel it. High on the Chrysler. He’s just put you there, backed away. Soon you may be afraid, but for now you are king. Taller than the top of your mother’s head as she bends her knees to aim the Kodak. Your father’s stopped by the brick wall, laughing. Lazy smoke trails from a Camel in his hand. He’s proud you’re not scared. He doesn’t have to say it. He loves you and at this moment you know. Later you will wish he said it. Under a blue October sky, for a few minutes, you are the center of their world. Joy is taking a nap, your mother and father are happy, not fighting, and you haven’t had time to think you could slip. The air is clean and crisp. Cool breezes scatter paint-box leaves across the drive, but there is still enough sun to warm your shoulders through a thin cable sweater. This is Smithtown, and you are loved. Later, you will forget that sometimes. This snapshot will be fading in a stack at the bottom of a dress box in your mother’s closet. You will find it there— crimped edges soft and fraying— like you feel when you open the lid to look inside. The paper trail to adulthood spreads out on the table as you lift out each memory until you see it. Tuck the left and lower edges in your mirror frame, and you are smiling out at the world, loved and knowing it. Pictures can remind you. You can’t go back, but the past counts, too. He is leaning on that brick wall— laughing with his eyes, Camel dangling from those turned up lips. Smoke rises in a halo around a handsome face as ashes drop on cement, unnoticed. He did the best he could. And you trusted them both with your feet secure on that license plate— NY 50—you are three. 5G57-96—in ’57 you will be 10. In ’96 you will get engaged and have a heart attack. Now you are dead, but still sitting on the back of a Chrysler, head and shoulders silhouetted against the sky, grinning back love.