morning
A woman’s advice
is an oval earring-
a round Larimar
stone named after
the sea. It is a balled-
up crumpled napkin
of wrinkles on your
mother’s face as she
hands you two white
aspirin for a fever.
afternoon
Any walk back from
the places you go
with your father
when there aren’t
many left is a broken
black umbrella losing
its shape, a metal grey
Ohio memory of the
times he spun you
on carousels without
horses. And now,
straightaway you’re
crawling home, around
and around like a conversation-
all arms and all hands-
night
And the sick child on
the couch is becoming
a cartoon hot air balloon
skying above roads and rocky
staircases until the stones
are crumbs on the kitchen
counter. But the spinning
of his time will bring you
back to the ground where
you’ll shake your face, move
out of the circle and choose
to fill your head with sleep
walks back and forth to their
bed-between your mother’s side
and your father’s side-when
they are both sitting awake,
neither one holding up a light.