My Daughter Says Basket
My daughter says basket, not pandemic,
but we both know where this is going.
We’ve seen the death mask before,
cavernous O the mouth makes going,
finally knowing how all the woven light
opens the cave that even my daughter
will one day enter unmasked.
Make me a basket, she says, what
to read when I can only mouth
my days unspoken, unheard. What
scent for the room—sandalwood, mint—
what song to brighten the passage,
what message for corridor’s echo,
the loom and weft time weaves
of mother and daughter. This is
what she needs for the basket,
for the day looming that neither
wants to speak of or hear.
Night Guard
Who knew my dreams needed reining in,
galloping symbol and precipice, until
after decades of TMJ, my jaw began to crumble,
like so many these pandemic days
who clench and grind, crack molars and fillings.
I click the new night guard in place to stay
the bone loss, though at 3 am., I spit this
foreign bit on the extra pillow, ride on
unhaltered. I dream no fear at the departure
gate: shoulder to shoulder as in my old life,
breathing the same air, off to the Midi-Pyrénées
near Toulouse, along the ancient pilgrimage—
but there’s a summer snow, at least a foot,
and I didn’t pack boots. My parents would
send them, but they’re off being new incarnations,
and I’ll never again hear their voices—
DiMaggio’s fly ball at Sulphur Dell, nutmeg
not clove in the cobbler—except the wishing
voice in my head, mouth locked in stasis. I’ll never
know whether night guards or hogties me,
lathered to the brink of prayer, staying neither hope
nor haint, whether the watches hover until
I awaken, or if, in the wee hours and more gnashing
of teeth, I can’t help myself and spit it out.
