Daffodils.

At the bottom of the driveway

with you,

when you tended them,

weeded out the past

so that Spring could come in.

I saw you make magic.

-

I took some to my third-grade teacher,

Mrs. Smith.

I broke them off near the bottom

like you,

picking them until the school bus came.

-

And at three-thirty,

I ran up the driveway

to tell you they survived,

and you smiled that smile.

-

The daffodils are still there.

Not so many as before,

but there.

You make miracles still,

if not at the bottom of the driveway,

and I wait to see them.

-

I do not know

how they disappear.

Unlike other flowers

whose petals fall off,

daffodils just aren’t there

anymore.

-

But they must be somewhere,

where I am not.

Daffodils turn 

toward the sun. 

They do everything they can do

to get what they need.

We could be like that, too, but 

our bodies won’t listen.

We do not turn toward love. 

We are stubborn.

We wait and demand that love 

hunt us down, 

as if what’s harder to earn

is better to receive. 

-

What if daffodils asked 

the sun to find them? 

-

How long would the bloom even last?

-

How tired the sun must be from 

Our asking to be loved. 

What is this business of busyness?

Schedules and checklists and notifications, 

pinging and buzzing.

Telling us where to go 

and when to go

and who to call next.

Our days and our minds

filling up with tasks 

we can’t remember having completed

without referring to the list. 

-

What did I do today?

-

This morning I went for a walk.

This afternoon I read Maggie Smith 

and took a nap with my fat cat nestled into my thigh.

This evening I will open a bottle of Viognier 

and contemplate eating the full round of Mt. Tam triple-cream 

spread on dark crackers with the nuts and berries baked in.

That crunch is the noise I want in my life. 

-

I will not make a list.

-

I want to wonder what time it is 

and not look at the clock.

They do not tell you

how it will be.

-

They are not there to tell you.

-

Because they are dead. 

-

Both of them.

-

It’s Father’s Day, and you’re driving 

On Rte 16, toward home.

-

But you know, with the weight of for sure, 

forever, for certain, certainty, 

that home will never be home again.

-

Because they are dead.

Both of them.

-

And you’re the saddest orphan 

you’ve ever met. 

Which is a fine line 

in a book of poetry 

filed under grief 

on a dusty shelf in the back of the bookstore 

nobody visits.

-

But the line doesn’t tell the pain. 

-

Doesn’t describe the sharp fingers 

that dig into the bottom of your heart, 

peeling upward only to meet

the suffocating hot tears 

and thick snot 

that keep coming, months and months later.

-

You sit in this suffering 

until you are ready.

-

Until you are ready to tell the world 

I am an orphan child.

-

Did I lose them or did they lose me? 

Which orphan would I rather be?

I bought a container of dates,

not able to recall the last time 

I’d tasted one.

I pried back the clear plastic lid 

and brought the wrinkled fruit to my mouth,

biting into the sweet flesh 

but forgetting about the pit,

which stayed lodged in my cheek 

through the cereal

and canned good aisles. 

-

I thought about the famous poem 

with the plums from the icebox 

and felt nostalgic for a memory 

that wasn’t mine.

-

Then I realized that dates are not plums 

and tucked the pit into the pocket 

of my boyfriend’s button-down.

-

I wear his shirt like a note he’s left for me. 

You were in the kitchen 

frying bacon for egg sandwiches 

when my tears started pooling up 

from the bottom, the way water fills a spoon.

-

You said something about me not washing 

my coffee cup, teasing with

the sweet snark of morning routine  

but couldn’t see my face 

because my back was to you. 

-

This was my fourth Thanksgiving without parents.

No living parents, that is.

I understand they’re still my parents and will be 

every Thanksgiving to come.

-

Grief finds me like this sometimes,

sneaks into the room the way my cat curls 

around my ankles, and I know it’s her because 

I know the feeling all too well. 

-

I don’t want you to see me crying 

because it’s been four years

and your father died in August.

I think you deserve 

all of the grief servings today. 

-

When I don’t respond

you walk over to the table.

-

I hear your steps on the stone floor 

and feel your flannel shirt brush my arm

before I turn my head 

to let you see me.

-

Something passes between us

for which there is no word.

-

I am hungry, but I am full.