Shopping with a gold medal winner

I needed glass cleaner and vegetable stock so I went to Trader Joe's where they don't have glass cleaner but do have free mini cups of coffee and flowers that don't grow in my yard.  I picked out the orange ranunculus and five bananas, wheeled over to the kale and mint in bags, and there next to me was a woman I know to be a gold medal winner. Gold Medal like in The Olympics gold medal.  There in her running leggings and shoes as if she'd just come off the podium, even though that happened over 30 years ago.  We were reaching for fruit together, she for blueberries, I for out-of-season, overpriced pomegranate seeds that I would never buy ever in May but decided this recipe looked good and I'd already picked out the mint to go with it (and would later leave without the lamb because it was too expensive and so now I have overpriced pomegranate seeds and mint in my fridge). I thought, oh, here I am, next to a gold medal winner, and we are both picking up fruit together. So healthy, she and I! We have so much in common. 

We were together again in the cheese section. I thought to get a photo of her so I could show someone on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat a photo of her, of us, shopping together at Trader Joe's with our similar lifestyles.  I thought maybe she sees me, so healthy, in new pants that I bought that are too big and maybe she is noticing how in shape I am but really it's just that I bought the pants in a size too large and they don't fit right. (And who am I kidding? I'm not in shape like I'm training for any event at all!) I didn't get a photo, because I was trying to be sneaky so I snapped my shopping cart, the floor, the mozzarella hunk I'd grabbed even though it wasn't on my list and she left the cheese without getting anything and I left with a 5,000 calorie hunk of cheese that was neither vegetable broth nor glass cleaner.

One last meeting in the frozen foods, by the berries. I took a bag of frozen raspberries, she took frozen strawberries. I considered putting my bag back and getting one like hers, as if that would bring me closer to winning any sort of medal, but I don't like frozen strawberries.

Then she drifted off. I'd like to think she was in the potato chip aisle, buying bags of those pretend healthy chips like kale or seaweed or fresh hay.  But she was gone, and I looked over the chocolates, the little cups of peanut butter, the salted mounds of sesame caramel goo, the Scandinavian Swimmers in a bag, and  I yanked up my pants by the belt loops and paid, thinking maybe I'll see her later today on my walk, that she's too old now to run at Medal speed, and she'll recognize me from the store and we'll share tips for how to train for local 5Ks or how to make fruit salad out of season.

A Poem Where Nothing Happens

Holding color slides up to the window

one at a time,

a morning looking over images my father shot

throughout his life

now saved in dusty carousels.

My mother, slim,

cigarette between her fingers

on a chaise longue in Miami,

my grandfather,

gin and tonic in hand,

gray black hair,

the shamed face of a man

who had lost his job,

dentists at conventions

wearing name tags

and wide ties,

The Vallieres in the Bahamas

beside an aqua blue pool,

The duckling we had one summer,

my sister young and toothless in a handsewn dress.

Behind the slide, a plane flies

miles above,

a speck of metal holding hundreds of people

drinking 7-Up from plastic cups,

staring down from their windows,

a trail of white smoke passing

through my Kodachrome past.

Ray

The loon has four cries, he told me,

I wouldn’t touch the soup

playing a record so I could hear

that smelled of pee and unwashed hair.

the tremolo, the yodel,

He couldn’t hold his spoon,

the mournful wail across the still water.

the violent shaking of his hand

This was us talking. Us on the porch.

splattering the broth onto the vinyl tablecloth.

Him smoking his pipe,

No thank you, my young daughter whispered

me listening to his record.

when offered a roll,

Our chairs faced the lake,

all food untouched, a game show blaring.

a storm moving toward us,

I steadied his hand with my own.

wind and whitecaps.

Dr. Brown

I remember the first time walking up those porch steps

being twenty and loving a boy

who held my hand

when we went to meet his parents.

I remember my nerves and fear

dissipate with hello.

I remember them both on the porch.

I remember he was formal but called her lover,

she was large with eyes that never left mine.

I remember drinking spritzers together

while they asked me about all that made my life

as I sat by the boy I loved.

I remember the dinners around their table,

helping to clear the dishes so I could enjoy

time in private with her.

I remember the desolate leaving of them

when I left the boy I’d loved.

I remember the day she called me

to tell me the boy I’d loved

had died in a ski accident in Canada.

I remember she said he’d taken one too many runs

after a long day and slammed into a pole.

I remember her telling me he was her golden boy.

I remember visits from here to there

climbing the steps to the porch,

never having to call ahead,

always welcome.

I remember dinner with them,

with my husband,

sitting in their living room surrounded by

large plants and framed photos,

the grandfather clock

tock tocking,

drinking glasses of wine.

I remember the rides in his antique cars,

I remember the rolls of music he played

on the player piano

delighting my children I’d brought to visit.

I remember him pushing them on the swing

he’d hung in the yard for his own children.

I remember calling for no special reason

to say hello

on the day that happened to be the day

she died.

I remember writing him a letter

full of tears

and another soon after

when another of his sons

died in a plane crash.

I remember and will always remember

yesterday

happening to be in town,

spotting him alone on the porch,

in a chair,

parking my car in overgrown yard,

climbing the steps,

so wanting to be with him,

wanting to hug him for all he’d lost,

for all I remembered of him,

until the moment I realized

his smile was not full,

his stare was vacant,

he no longer remembered me.

Long Division

The table in this always crowded school basement

needed a matchbook

to prop up the leg.

The folding chairs were cold and metal

and we heaped our coats and bags on a chair

while we sat in our regular seats

together at the corner

as if on a date

so we could hear each other

in the room that was filled with

more tables that wobbled

and people

speaking languages I didn’t know.

She brought her workbook out of her bag

along with a pencil, the kind given out

to elementary students for good behavior

or as favors at birthday parties

all silver and pink.

Long Division.

I thought we were going to work on English,

I told her and she said yes, we could, but she

didn’t know how to do her homework and just wrote in

the answers her teacher wrote on the board

but didn’t know how

to divide.

She was quiet and grateful,

not realizing my comprehension of math

was maybe a lesson ahead of hers.

She showed me the way she worked through the problem,

drawing boxes and filling in with numbers and

I watched her,

her head tilted,

her quiet counting,

her dark fingers holding her pencil,

writing her twos with fancy curls.

I thought of her new home here

in cold and snow,

her in her long flowing colorful skirt

and her black headscarf

and the smile I could see up close

where she would share it.

She’d told me she’d come here

a year ago to visit her brother

and had been chased down the street

by a man yelling at her.

He had a gun.

She hid.

She had no phone.

She didn’t remember where her brother lived.

She spoke no English.

I held her eyes.

I grasped her arm.

I apologized.

We are all people, she said.

How to protect this strong solemn smart woman

who has learned my language

and become a citizen of the country I call home

all within a year

and now spends time with me

learning math

and the superlative

in this school basement,

sharing stories of her father

she left behind

in Djibouti

who has lost his memory

and doesn’t know who she is when she calls him every day?

Here

with her

I am not a week ahead of understanding.

Dinner Party

When called, they’d leave their hors d’oeuvres,
puddles of martinis in their glasses,
remains of smoked oysters, small franks
in bourbon sauce simmering
in a silver chafing dish,
red skinned peanuts
in lead crystal bowls,
linen napkins left crumpled,
filled with olive pits and tasseled toothpicks,
and head into the dining room
to eat dinner served on the china
around the mahogany table with candlelight
and flowers from my mother’s garden,
leaving me in the quiet living room
with the dregs of the smoked cigarettes
which I’d pocket
like Templeton
and bring with matches to the bathroom
I shared with my brother,
placing my lips over
lipstick covered filters,
the smoke escaping
out the crack of open window.

Pool hours

Turning my lounge chair around

placing my back to the lowering sun

the shadow

long and dark

stretches out on the warm tiles in front of me

as I look over the quiet simmer of water in the pool

the line of lounge chairs

at attention.

In this late afternoon hour

the old sunbathers

have wrapped towels

like capes

over their curved freckled shoulders,

slipped on their sandals

and left for early bird dinners

and I am alone

with the salamanders

that wait for now

to come up from the cracks

and face the last warmth of the sun.

These tiny dinosaurs

holding themselves up with

frog-like feet

ponder ancient ancestors

who lived

long before old people

retreated to Florida.

So much in common,

those who sit on these chairs

and those that lurk underneath,

both from a time

and a place

where they were mightier,

now trailing lengthy shadows

behind them.