—after Ruth Stone
August nights, the old queen mattress
we four dragged out to the bumpy lawn
to sleep beside our young mother. Three sisters,
facing the night sky, fizzed with stars.
We found the two dippers, big and little,
didn’t know yet about Ursa Major or Equuleus.
Our mother did her best. Moonstruck,
we lost our earthly voices
and spoke the way children speak
in old westerns: Oh, mother dear,
are you very happy, mother?
The desperate singsong of unlovable children,
pleading with huge, watery eyes.
Had there been any horses,
they would have whinnied and stomped. All night,
we woke to the clomp-thunk of crabapples,
little moons dropping from the tree’s skirt.
Notes:
At its core, intimacy involves the kind of closeness that looks like a family bed, a mother-
daughter campout under the stars. I think I wanted to give my mother credit for trying to create
it, while also addressing the emotional intimacy that was missing. In our lives, we ache for
connection and meaning, something that affirms our place in the world. The stars, the moon, the
spirit animals, and the tree are reminders that even in the absence of human care, something
larger may still offer itself. I wanted to call upon the elements to reflect an inner landscape
shaped by longing, imagination, and the enduring desire to be held.
In the Seventh Month of Ongoing House Repairs
My complaints, no longer appreciated. Please go for a walk, says my wife.
Take the dog. On the way to the river, the dog and I
keep mostly to the trail, the foothills evil with puncture vines,
barbed thorns named for their unholy likeness.
I don’t know how many times I’ve pulled a goathead from my sole
or my dog’s paw. Again, she stamps small red circles in the dirt.
At the riverbank, I coax her into the shallow water, minerals,
manganese for healing, coolness for heat in the wound.
My reflection stirs in moving water. Wild trout
flash their sides, brown and silver.
Crepe jasmine pinwheels a galaxy for the paper wasp,
her home made from spit and wood.
Notes:
When our home or our love relationship is threatened (or both), it can feel like the world is
ending. I want to remember that intimacy and closeness are not only found in direct human
exchange, but also in care, attention, shared vulnerability, and the act of inhabiting a world
closely enough to notice its smallest workings. The intimacy of noticing: a deep, quiet
engagement with small, living systems. Sometimes we need to get really small.
About the Author
Debbra Palmer is a poet, book reviewer, and comics artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has appeared in publications including Cream City Review, Passenger’s Journal, Calyx Journal, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Portland Review, and A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women’s Poetry (CALYX Press). Her reviews have been featured in Prairie Schooner and the New York Journal of Books. In 2021, she published Holy Frigidaire, a graphic memoir in comics, with support from the Alexa Rose Foundation. She holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University.
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