I see my parents still
       wailing in the living room Argentina Street,
a grey day, no wind
& out the window traffic flashing past - Aunt Fran's
       husband & son Dutch, my older cousin who'd
filled his room with electronics, a genius at 13, killed,
accident in the Rockies,
& she in a hospital, her arm broken - my first
       memory of lives, faces swept away from my life -
later, when the sun broke thru,
wondering where we go - I was six -

& after that, Dutch's oak furniture arrived,
       his bed to be my bed, his mirror where my face
would stare back, sigh & dream of love -
& Fran, recovered, circled the world alone, sent me
coins from England, Austria, Egypt, Japan,
       mysterious envelopes that arrived in the mail
worlds beyond my suburban sidewalks
& mystery gardens where I'd pause
       before an open rose & lose a day in dreams -

later, her house burned & she escaped
       miraculously, settled & worked in Maryland
as my parents' marriage cracked up,
grandpa died, I raged at fallen love & lost my heart
       until, lost child, I found myself in Sue
& found my father again & heard
       my long-lost grandma's sighs,

 
              Fran the oldest child who'd seen more
       & kept herself apart, learned to be alone -
yet after the loss & the fire & the years apart,
       she met her Hale & danced in her 70s like
              a teenager, a few years without pain -
a few years blooming in the fullness of her womanhood -

who guesses how much we can know even of those
nearest us, how others cope & sing above their suffering?
she'd refuse a funeral, would
       go home to lie with her Hale -
              these last months
awaiting an end that now comes swiftly - & I, learning of it,
       sit with my sisters & my family, my 50th birthday
stilled in this quiet moment filled with her life,
flocks of birds wheeling in slow motion, hovering around
       the feeder in winter snow -

---

 The Michigan Dead at Sharpsburg

each stone: a name, the state, a number
(5000 here in all, laid out state-by-state),
smaller numbered stones for the unidentified:

these slaughtered where dunkers prayed,
early in the morning, farther across the circle,
Sue wanders among the New Yorkers,

looking for Meagher's Irishmen, cut down
in the sunken lane shortly after absolution.
a sunny afternoon, stillness after two days

on the road - here the lakeboys, voyageurs
& new immigrants, the hopeful ones,
all Whitman's boys beyond all lilacs now.

---

Texas Barbecue
 
bush & rumsfeld would broil
families in their basements, starve

children, blast streets, neighborhoods
to dust, send in robot warriors to

burn those who resist to ash and
give them "liberty," the liberty of

ashes mixed with bone, liberty
which voices no opposition,

the liberty of wailing spectres
shrieking under the weight

of invading oil executives, drilling
crews, that profits may soar in

Amerika, that suburban families
may roar down highways in their

SUVs headed for texas barbecues
finally confident that they are free