Yellowtail

The war was over.
We sutured the wounded,

buried the dead, sat at the bar
with the enemy near the blue

throat of the sea. A sushi chef
slivered salmon into orchids,

etched clouds from oysters,
as they rose snowing pearls.

From shrimp and seaweed
he shaped hummingbirds

that hovered above us.
With the world’s smallest blade

he carved from yellowfin
miniature flanks of horses.

They cantered around our hands.

Szymborska

Some of her books I keep
in the drawer near my bed.

Should I open a hotel
all the night stands will embrace her.

And I would place lavender there
and vials of tears

to invoke dreams of purple fields
in Poland during spring,

and little crosses like warplanes
in their hangars put to rest.

Dear November

It’s the closest we have ever been—
slipping off my jeans, sliding into the shower

with my mother, washing the galaxy
of her back scattered with planets.

Once, she carried me behind that tumor,
emptied her milk into my mouth.

The body remembers what is primal.
I dress and feed her, brush her hair.

Outside, three bronze leaves
suspend from the ash. My mother and I

lie down, fragrant with soap, curled
as embryos. Later we wake

like lovers, our bodies spooned.

All Souls

Under the gold of a Hunter’s Moon,
I run into a large raccoon, ascending
into an ancient piñon.

It’s just like my mother 
who died last week at ninety-six 
to appear as this—clever, masked, 
climbing with her small deft hands.

She loved creatures, the costumes 
her children dressed in: one brood 
of goblins, a vampire, the baby 
sateened into a red-tailed devil.

My mother is here. I need to light fires—
torch yellow beeswax candles, sing
hymns to the moon, offer prayers.

I had never seen this mammal in the desert  
but here she is, large-spirited, on a clear
evening, scaling October’s end.

Time to remember auspicious numbers
the faithful departed, our most revered
martyrs—this one, who carried me holy.

Prudent and ravenous for this world
I canonize her Demeter,
ghost, Autumn Spirit.

Missing

Saw my brother in a wolf, in wildflowers
climate change, bobcats, javelina, and praying 
mantis, lilac scent, laughter. Saw him howling

himself back onto the sidewalk of his life
before he lay his body in front of a bus, drunk.
I don’t know what risk is really, to be
that bare, that happy with ruin.

The dead won’t give their secrets away.
Occasionally in dreams we receive 
a postcard with an unknown stamp
from a place so remote there is no dirt.

Or bees. No grass. Only air and water. 
A blue postcard of a boat unmoored
or single oar afloat. On the back, a message 
so faint, or a palimpsest, layer upon 
layer upon, illegible.

On anniversaries of their departures 
they blow kisses in wind from behind 
mountains or sing in disguise through 
gale or bird. Then silence. Waif thin.

Let the twilight come. Dusk. Its darker
bright, its mission with night hawk, wolves
and great horned owls, its ancient fables

in constellations. Letters to the evening
of missing brothers, children, husbands
gone north, and our own two parents
with their creation stories, us.

Appointment with Dr. Siegel

Across the neurosurgeon’s massive desk
sits a small pot with a brain cactus.

Maybe it’s not funny. I pretend I don’t see it.
He speaks of a ten-hour surgery

as if it storms today, yet tomorrow 
we set sail for sunny Grenada.

Sometimes tools resemble weapons.
So I departed that office within

a concrete steel obelisk of a medical spire 
in the boom-box of Spanish Harlem

where I met the A train, left with the decision 
of whether to be blinded and paralyzed

by an operation which would obliterate 
the malformation—or take my chances.

I was a new mother. 
My blouse flowered with milk.

© Mary Morris, all rights reserved.