[to my Grandmother, Lucy W. Young]
you kept your heart in a box of jade
and the trees were jade then, too
...
seen from the upper floors
the rains are moving sideways
trying to be clouds. or tides.
...
it isn't the right feeling on the page
a someone says and so, it blows away
and on another day and looking up
...
[to the exquisite poet, Chumki Sharma]
it won't be the same when we are older
no child knows to think
...
the froth in the cup is so beautiful
tiny rainbows winking round the edges
how can I drink it down
...
they'll send you on fool's errands
because they want the gold, the princess,
everything to unfold the way they
...
you want to write in an apple green closet
with the snow coming down inside and
one frosted lightbulb: (the old kind)
...
[to my mother, Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas]
never sand flowed through her hours, but only gold
I told the small roses when she had gone
...
the world is filled with scolding
children looking down at their shoelaces
trying to think of something gold
...
I was breathing and it was the light, the
lightness of words, the valentines of snows
that fell all night and the moonlight, dove sent,
...