Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.

–Job 38:4 NIV

Do as I say      not as I do       do as I say       not as I do       do
as I do             the opposite    do        because I said so
because I’m the parent                                   and you’re the child
because I scrub scum from tubs and toilets   do as I say
because I toss the Eggos in the toaster           do as I say       do
………as you do         because I do as I do because   I am
the parent                                you are            why      because
………………I work to pay the bills
………………………why
………………I bought these toys for you
why
………because I said so         that’s   why     that’s why
………………my 5 a.m. alarm creases the sleep
you already interrupted six times                   I put my book down
to wipe your ass          why      because I said so         because
………I said so           because daddy forgets
………………you are three years old           your world is a mass
of mysteries                I must tidy      I must say so
………because you do as I do
………………when I lay these foundations
you orbit                     and watch        then say as I say
………when you giggle         ok Daddy time for you to go
to time out now
………………………because I do as I do    because I said so
because I’m your parent         why      ask me if I understand
………how because I said so                         bored my upbringing
and now I sow the saying       in the field of your inquiries
………………and you do as I say                 the obscurity
in your response to my inquisition     why     why     why     why
………did you pour water on the floor
………………did you leave the bathroom light on
………………………did you do as you do as you do as
I do not explain           just yell           do as I say       you yell
………………I thunder from the heavens
without wisdom          to gift you       my ibis            to teach you
………how to count clouds   from the ground
………………………Daddy’s sorry
Daddy’s sorry                         Daddy wagered faith
………he could be the best daddy who ever daddied
for you            I’m sorry         do as I say because
………daddy fails sometimes            when he does as he does

After the reception, everything
was a Mylar balloon. You could pop
the trees and watch them whizz
around the sky like unleashed kites.
Or send a mean neighbour
to Mongolia. The houses bounced
with their hidden joy. Everyone
content with their antigravity.
I could've let go to follow the currents.
Hang with peace signs of migrating
geese. I rooted myself in you, instead.
How things have changed,
tethering us away from
what grounded us to begin with.

Pete and Repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who was left?

-unknown

I woke up with new memories
in my fingertips, a need
to Good Will Hunting this problem
again. I draw the sharpness
of your jaw to solve
for each nerve ending that won’t
forget. There’s a scientist

in me that wants an empty room
save two metal chairs
and some ceiling tiles, to sit
across from you asking
the same question on a loop
until it catches. Tell me
what it’ll be like. Are you looking
inside me or did you sew
those sparkles in your eyes? I’m buckling

before the white board.
I’ve got flowers in my hair.
I’ve had different DNA
since that night our feet
touched in the pool, but
can you speak
into this recording device?
A good scientist must have good tools.
You say you’ve already answered
but I can’t
or won’t remember.

This debris catches the afternoon sun,
cleft rainbows stitching the air with
a montage of violence redeemed.
We built our castle not out of forgetting,
but from the thresholds
of what we can’t erase.
The battlements, the drawbridge,
precarious over a moat of memory,
always opalescent,
always a hair’s breadth from shattering.

Is this resilience,
or a morbid fascination with the scars?
A child cradled by broken glass,
lulled by the wind whistling
through its fractured concerto.
We are not unbroken,
that much is clear.
But in the cracks,
our light finds purchase,
determined to rise from the wreckage.

They say time heals all wounds.
We scoff. Time rearranges the furniture,
pushes the debris to the corners,
but the floorboards still groan
with the weight of what happened.
And perhaps this is the new strength,
not the absence of scars,
but the way they refract the light.
We are a medley
of what has broken us,
each piece a facet
catching a different glint of the sun.
We are not whole, but we are whole enough.

And at night, when the moon
flows through the smashed panes,
we hear not shattering,
but a song both mournful and hopeful,
sung in the language of broken glass.

I’m hiding
from my kids, searching
for solitude. Outside,
a single sepia leaf hangs
on an oak tree limb,

swaying back-and-forth,
back-and-forth in the wind,
like a park swing dismount.
This leaf survived
gales that downed power lines.

It survived snow—enough
for the neighbor kids to build
a seven-foot snowman.
This month, the new leaf-buds
have been birthed on branches,

yet the leaf hangs,
like the last baby tooth rotting
in a lipstick-adorned mouth.
Will I want to hang on,
when my life’s stem grows

weak? Surely, I’d like to sway
with the breeze, feel
the rain on my wrinkled skin,
listen to silence punctuated
by the crickets and creek.

Now, a school bus, heavy
with children, rushes past.
The leaf, torn from its lifeline,
wafts to the ground and lands

on the cracked concrete.

What would satisfy, he asks, and I can hardly say.
Her story, I’m the fish swimming through it
from line to line. But the terrain’s too dry, no way
to brook this drought. City-planner, then, she drew it

near floodplains, I’m irrigation from the Nile,
canals that fill Venice’s green lagoon.
Let her be bank and island, from marble tile
to god’s-eye atrium. I’ll flow and drone,

a constant murmur.  Nah, you’re a racket, horn
and whistle, thorn and thistle. Fish? A shark
at best, three sets of teeth, and nothing born
above or below survives your ocean’s dark—

better admit it now. Expect nothing, accept
less. Swim uncertainty, dorsal fixed, tail flexed.

He sounds so sure. Socratic? Delphic. Stark.

I clamp the helmet to my suit's collar.
My breath draws a white curtain
across the helmet's glass.
My fingers wriggle into rubber gloves—
everything is impossible now
to pick up: my children's toys,
my ringing phone.
I stamp my feet into thick
boots meant to be air
tight for the moonscape
of the ocean floor.
The oxygen tank is full,
the weight of it all
something some say
will go away
if I let myself sink.
It's a sunny day on my front porch.
Tulips bob and still like fish
in a poisoned aquarium.
The mailman gives me my mail,
and I press my palms onto condolences
like prayer. Night falls
the way depths rise
to greet you. I keep trying
the line, tugging it, letting you know
it’s time to pull me up.
Why won’t you pull me up.