Familiar Systems

still here

December

I want it to snow 
so hard that everything shuts down
for days. I will sleep 
until I just must get up 
and start the day. Beneath a quilt
and satin pajamas, I will wrap
my limbs around one another
to stay warm. 
There are books on my shelves 
and sachets of tea in the cabinet,
I have everything I need. 
I don't want to be helpless, 
I want to be. Kind
and gentle, the snow will 
move when asked nicely,
hitching a ride in my shovel 
away from the sidewalk. 
Holding my mug with both hands,
I will hold onto the warmth
and wait for the cold to pass. 
Snow is the least we could get
for enduring 4:30 p.m. curfews (set by the sun), 
scarves that refuse to stay tucked behind your shoulder,
and bills from Dominion Energy.
Standing in the kitchen, I will use
the bowls my grandmother did 
to bake cookies; and I will take them 
to everyone I know. 
I want to be soft as the snow but warm
as the oven. 
I want the world to be 
so powerful that we just have to sit
and watch. 

Morning Breath

My childhood friend always talked about how she hated morning breath. I wondered how she knew so much about it, we weren't waking up to husbands yet - and we still aren't. She said she couldn't stand when you could smell someone's yesterday. I brush my teeth with baking soda toothpaste and I've never received any complaints, but I wonder what the morning breath of my mind is like, but there's no floss for the sulci. If someone could catch a whiff of the words I welcomed in the day before, I wonder what they would do with me. I don't think adjectives are the kind of thing men want to wake up to. If there's some hygiene for your thoughts, I surely am not practicing it. One day, someone may wake up next to me and smell all the love I've ever experienced in my life left on my lips. I hope they learn to like it. 

Smalltown

There's a bar in South Carolina 
where framed photos of dogs 
(now dead) 
cover all the walls 
and my father knows 
the names of all the barkeeps. 
Before my friends know, the waitresses
know I had a date tonight 
with a man who still lives
at home and can't stop talking 
about his mother's spaghetti. 
The boys at the gazebo have sat
in the driver's seat of my dad's new Bronco,
they hug my mother when they see her
and have a beer opened for my dad
before he sits down. 
I can't go to the Publix 
without rolling down my windows to talk 
to the neighbors who swear
that I have lost weight. 
People don't have much to do 
but learn everything 
about one another. When my coworkers
are shocked that I remember 
the names of their babies, I remind them
that I was brought up by Southern women
who can make cornbread (with real chunks of corn)
without looking at a recipe, write thank you cards 
for any gift ever received, and can orate 
the whole family lineage before supper is up. 
Remembering the name of your three-year-old,
who had a princess-themed birthday party
with a pink bounce house, is light work for me.
There's a smalltown somewhere 
where the most interesting thing about you 
is that you are there. 

sending my love,
cmw