Güd wrtr

(for the late, great Brian Hamlin, who bestowed the nickname,
and for Linda, Jim and others who remember it)

I might be the only woman in the world
who loves her hair just as it (mostly) is,
originally showing up curly and blonde,
grownups marveling at the ringlets
on my small head. And it stayed that
way, refusing to be tamed as I grew,
admiring the long, straight hair of
my teenaged peers.

Though I struggled to straighten it
at times, in college I gave in to the frizz,
allowing a kind woman to apply stinky
chemicals, perming it, turning it into
consistent tight curls that turned
my head into a poof of dandelion,

which prompted the wittiest man
in the newsroom at my second job,
to call me Blizzardhead, quickly
adopted by other colleagues
I came to adore.

With the decades, I watched the puffball
loosen, slink back to its original curl,
darkening, then lightening again to ashy
beige waves, then to ashy gray and what
one generous soul called dove gray.

A new hair hero urged color onto
my pale spirals for a time until another
follicle philosopher sternly advised
against it.

Why? I asked, sitting in her chair
before the mirror, taking in the many
shades of age snowing my blizzardhead.

Because when the goddess gives
you hair like that, the wise woman said,
you leave it alone.

It’s in freeping neon, my friend,
and if that’s not a literal sign,
I don’t know what is.

I don’t care how old you are,
how odd looking or sounding
you think you are:

Someone you don’t yet know
is gonna love schlubby old you
because—and I’m not wrong about

this—you are not as schlubby as
you think you are. How do I know?
When we met, I knew I would

soon adore you, and I didn’t care
that you mixed stripes with florals
or that you tripped over your feet,

or any of the things that you think
make you unlovable. Nope, there
was something endearing about

you from the get-go, and I’m not
the only one who has noticed.
Truly.

So chin up, buttercup. You still haven’t
met all the people who are going
to love you. And oh, what a good,

good thing that is to tuck in your
pocket and carry with you to
touch now and again as you

walk through this world,
the only one we have, the one
with so many people, some of

whom—I promise—are just
gonna love your sweet old
extraordinary self.

You had to be careful when Grandma
came at you for a hug. She was what
we called an enthusiastic hugger,
which was lovely in its way, but,

depending on her choice of jewelry
that day, you could end up with an
imprint in your chest thanks to
one of her stabby brooches.

No one would tell her this, of course,
but my sister and I would eye the
conglomeration of chunky gems
winking at us, pinned between

her collarbone and shoulder, to
see if we could weather the embrace
in such a way as to avoid the stabby
brooch, not something her two

youngest granddaughters generally
admired. So imagine my surprise
when cousin Pat recently presented
us with some of Grandma’s costume

jewelry, and I found myself chuckling
over the pieces shared with my sister
and niece. “You got a stabby brooch!”
I chortled when Lauren showed off

a 3-D circle the size of a small jar lid
crusted with layered purple bits
sure to pierce the chest of a beloved
hugged tight. I, too, got a semi-stabby

brooch doing an impression of linked
snowflakes gleaming in white rhinestones
and a delicate pearl choker, one clasp
hanging by a tired thread.

No matter. These are not for wearing.
They’re bejeweled portals back in time,
links to someone who loved us so much
that her crushing hugs left a permanent

impression far deeper than we ever
imagined.

Forgive me, Father,
for I have committed
the (I hope) pardonable
sin of not only paying
for a car wash, but not

using my own two good
hands to wash Mother’s
car, which I am using
a day a week to drive her

places, but which I am
also using every other day
to drive my older-than-you-
ever-knew-me self around.

That is not to say that I’m
incapable of washing a car
   —I’m not—
but there are days when
time is at a premium and
you’re driving right by
the car wash with the funky
name and cute duck logo,

and something whispers
in your ear (maybe the car
itself?), Wash me, which
someone could well have
drawn in the month-old leaf
grit dusting the back window.

And so, heeding the call of
the almighty beckoning, I
pull in, pay the it-costs-how-
much-but-I-don’t-care fee,
then pause at the maw
of the beast, always unsure
if I’ve correctly lined up
the left front tire in the slot
to carry us through.

But divine intervention, well,
intervenes, and as it tugs me in,
thou art with me. And I
am in the back seat with Donna,
and we are moving through a
long-ago car wash, thrilled that
we do not have to wait outside,
but that we, too, get to ride along—

blessed by the holy water of
powerful squirters, watching
the hula skirt chamois dance
over the windshield, feel
ourselves buffed shiny by
the whirling dervishes
that brush up and over us,

washed by heavenly purple
soapsuds, then blown out
by a supersized hair dryer,
and emerge into the light,
both squeaky and clean,

ready to drive off into our
lives, so powerfully absolved,
so unbelievably blessed.

(for Henry)

What set of miracles had to occur
to set you in a backpack on your
the back of your grandma, who is
my sister, we two who came through
your great-grandma—our mama who
sheltered us womb mates?

And then your grandma made your
mama, who made you, and now a
small cross section of our family unit
comes together to shop at IKEA
with our second cousin Robyn
and her daughter Charlotte—all this
shared DNA bouncing between us.

And, following the prescribed path
through the great store, how perfect
is it that at just the right moment
we find ourselves smack dab in
the cafeteria with their famous
Swedish meatballs, so prominent
in our family food tree?

Your grandma’s grandma’s mama
came from Sweden and passed
her recipe onto the grandma
three of us knew—her crocheting/
quilting/brownie-baking hands
rolling meatball after tiny meatball,
counting every one that she first
browned in a skillet, then baked
in the oven and set before family
who gobbled them like bon-bons.

None of us in the succeeding
generations has been able to
accurately reproduce Grandma’s
Swedish meatballs, though culinary
queen Robyn has come close.

And you, little fella—riding high,
nodding off, waking for a bottle,
rolling along in the stroller—
you know none of this. But oh,
what you carry inside you—
mystery and history and genetic
code from other familial strands
tucked deep in your cells.

You can’t see it, though we can—
in your merry eyes when you laugh,
in your gummy grin, in your drool—
the molecules of your ancestors
who got you here, who got us here,

some of us craving meatballs,
as we imagine that you,
once you have teeth,
may someday
love, too.

Thank you, and yes, a splash of simile
and two full teaspoons of metaphor,
stirred with fresh images

and not a little rhythm to bounce
the lines merrily along, so smoothly
that a reader finds herself

effortlessly pulled along with every
bit of nuance, not noticing the
subtle off-rhyme,

which, it turns out, you didn’t intend
but there it landed, one of those
serendipitous bits of

literary sweetness that fills the cup,
all those letters floating on the surface,
just waiting to be sipped

into something, like this, that looks
like a poem.

Leafless now, they arc and curve,
swoop like stilled birds in midflight,
statues of gnarly grace that

have stood on this rise for generations
of men, cattle, birds, deer, creatures
of the earth.

I come to walk hills freshly greening
after the dry months, new grass
dampening my shoes

as I walk uphill to meet these
old-new friends, to linger and look
from their vantage

across acreage now reserved for those
no longer in life, but where the living
can come walk

and remember, as I do on the last day
of the year, under puffed-up clouds
barely moving.

I am rarely happier this late in life
than when I am outdoors keeping
company with the greatness

of trees far older than I, or ankle deep
in timeless seas, or looking up
at stars—odd for one

who has spent so much time indoors.
I am pulled by the gravity of increasingly
less time on the planet, as if,

every year, the whispers of waves
and leaves and sky, of sand and hills
and deep vertical fissures

of rugged bark grow louder—
we, deeply rooted here,
you, flitting by for brief visits,

retrieving a few fallen acorns,
tucking them into a pocket to remember
what needs remembering

before you head back downhill into time,
into a new year that, like us,
waits to receive you.

Waltzing into the last day of this year,
123123,

we cannot help but look back and reflect
on the woulda shoulda coulda’s.

But we also cast a hopeful glance forward,
123123,

trying not to imagine the inevitable
sadnesses, the potential falling aparts,

the departures of ones we’d much
rather have stayed,

and, feeling the end-of-year rhythm,
find a partner who might step in time,

123123,
into this new year with us,

so much better to face whatever
will be will be—que sera, sera—

hand in friendly hand.

He rings the doorbell, twice,
loudly, the old bell in the kitchen
summoning me as if to a fire.

But it’s Ernest come to offer
his hands for whatever tasks
he thinks need doing—today

clearing gutters and roof of
a forest of leaf litter. The rain’s
stopped awhile. I can get up

there and take care of that
mess, he says. He offers a
modest price that I know

I will enhance because
it’s a dirty job on the best
of days, and this, I want

to say, is far from the best
of days, drizzle turning to
pounding rain and back,

continuing to down leaves
stubbornly hanging on.
But Ernest will chase

the strays off the roof
and clean up the mucky
mess between showers.

He will wish me a nice
day when he’s done,
which reminds me that

it is, of course, a very nice
day, weather notwithstanding,
because a gentle man

who pops by now and again
appeared on my porch
to offer assistance I didn’t

ask for, didn’t realize
that I needed, but was
delivered at just the right

moment by someone who
shares a name with
someone I loved who

once lived here, too.

She is bundled, as she often is nowadays,
in puffy black vest and an equally puffy jacket,
shoes on, ready to go when I arrive at 9.

“Hi,” she says as I set down my stuff. “I’ve
been up since 5, and I’m resting.” She sits
in the recliner, feet up, blanket on lap.

“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Exercise at the church?” I suggest,
which earns me a frown.

“Starbucks?” I offer, and a familiar
Marilyn grin spreads across her face.
She’s already discarding the blanket.

“That sounds good,” she says. “Let’s
do that.” And so, on a morning showing
signs of blue sky instead of yesterday’s

spitty gray, we head out to my car.
I’m taking a tip from some of Marilyn’s
other chauffeurs who squire her hither

and yon, landing her at home bearing
the seasonal red and green cup.
“Do you know where it is?” she asks.

“I do,” I say. “What do you like there?”
And, without hesitation, Marilyn says,
“Latte with an extra shot.”

She’s on it, Marilyn, whose mind is
is working overtime to grow new
neural pathways after her stroke.

At the drive-thru, I order her drink
and mine (hot chai), then pull ahead
to the window where, with snappy

efficiency, a young woman takes the bill
Marilyn hands me, returns the change
and delivers two red and green cups

into my hands. We’ve rarely spent this
kind of time together—around a writing
table, yes, or at public readings, but

certainly not in a Starbucks drive-thru—
and would not be doing so if not for
a brain bleed caught early.

We find ourselves oddly grateful for
the gift of each other, of so many others
who’ve come to lend a hand these days.

Each week, each day, she improves as she
negotiates this rough road back to herself.
“How is it?” I ask as Marilyn, sipping

her latte, closes her eyes for a moment
and says exactly what I’m thinking:
“Good.”