The Years



2009: The Year of the Bicycle
I had a dream about a desert sky, a dusty road, some children climbing scrape-knees sticky-handed tree branches stretching thirsty for the deep red clouds. The simplicity of the kitchen. I did not know yet about love, but I could still dream it. Later I learned magic bicycle songs of the south, how to pronounce swimmin' hole, and how to carry heavy air like a blanket on summer skin. The storm that came was so fierce, my plane could not even come to take me away.

2010: The Year of Tin Trailers & Trains
I tried to calculate how many boxcars could sit, end to end, and line up all the way from my trailer in Austin to your little pointed house in Portland. Sometimes those boxcars sat quietly and patient, open doors inviting exploration and adventure. Sometimes they would roll and cry, moving rusted wheels over rusted rails and all the doors on them were shut and I could not see inside.

2011: The Year of Piñatas
Love subtracting distance. We rearranged all the art work on the floor a hundred times before it looked right. When we put it on the wall, the pattern was stripped away. Like a nightgown. Like all the miles you built backwards between us until you were standing in my front yard, until it was our front yard. Our tiny porch. Our kitchen. Our garden in the back. The children rode their bikes until late at night and the roads kicked up dust, remembering how it felt to not be paved. The neighbor would share his grapefruits from the tree out front, they were fat with juice. The blue horse piñata dangled brilliant in the shade and everybody was there to see it. How glorious, when the candy flew into the sky. The children picked up all the unwanted  left-over butterscotch and peppermint and grape hard candy disks, shoved them into a bag and presented it to us, a clumsy wedding gift.

2012: The Year of Science
You pack your bags since you are leaving tomorrow. Sometimes you are familiar as a wishing stone against my lips. I know just how to make you skip across the still surface of the lake. Sometimes you are a curiosity, just an aphid I found on this leaf, something to study under a microscope and hope to better understand once I can find a book on the subject. For now, I will just sit and watch you move tiny insect legs out in front of you, feeling invisible vibrations in the air. Even when I am just watching, I can feel the light shining beneath my skin.



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