Three poems for my younger selves
And maybe for yours
Wide
She was always bigger than
your closed-in spaces.
Eyes open wide to take everything in
before her mouth could tell the truth
before you could tell her what she saw
with her own eyes
was untrue.
She always expanded out past
the rules she was supposed to follow
larger than politeness
grander than crassness.
She was real enough at birth
to have her own gravity
even when everything around her
floated back and forth
in and out of focus.
She was given things to orbit
but she herself could have been
the center, the sun
all along.
Even when she was small
she was wide.
Clarity
You tried so hard to understand
the grownups, the other kids.
But you were so often told,
You’re doing it wrong, you’re asking
too many questions
Listen. Those were great questions.
And you were never wrong,
despite the fog of unspoken
family and social mores
To want things to be clear.
To ask for clarity.
All That Softness
Do not mistake her gentleness
for weakness.
It takes a spine of steel
to carry all that softness.
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