Boston

I wrote this poem on Tuesday (4/16) when it was a sticky 85 degrees in New Orleans.
I'm publishing it today (4/19) when it is a rainy 55.

I am cold.
Chilled from the week's events, my own inability to process tragedy, this ambivalent drizzle.

*

Most of my memories of my time in Boston
are of being cold.

My first visit
was August 1991
when a coup was taking over
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

I needed a sweater at night.

Later trips were to visit a boy I liked:
our first kiss was Spring Break, our senior year of high school
in a parking garage
a few blocks away from where bombs would explode in 2013

our last kiss was in February 1999
in his Harvard dorm room

Then Easter 2001
where I went to my first Red Sox game
in sleet
and drank whiskey I had just (legally) qualified to drink

I wore a dress I'd worn at Christmas 2000
to a church
that marathon runners pass

Mothers' Day 2008
I was there with another boy
his fraternity brothers
and a suede jacket

I have wandered Boston Common
in snow
and in bloom
but always in chill.

Boston, take it from Oklahoma City
or from New York City
or from New Orleans, my current home:

you will bloom again.

and we will keep you warm in our hearts and prayers.

tense

Of all the gin joints?
You came, you saw, you conquered.
But I love(d) you! But.

illumination

Flew on the edge
of a glorious, spectacular lightning storm
across four states

stars above
water below
clouds and electrons between

reminders all around
that I am this close to harm
this close to protection

and this close to love

the moment you will lose (or gain) your sister. forever.

What if
he's
having an affair?

casual

packing for five days:
stretchy pants, warm sweaters, socks
(Carolina spring)

resume

"mother"
wasn't on her
shortcomings
list

quick

My grandmother died.

It was expected, and we never had the kind of relationship I have to believe either of us wanted, but the end result is always the same: one person leaves, and the other is left behind.

She died slowly.

The first death was at her husband's funeral. They had been married for more than 60 years. The second death was at her daughter's funeral, 11 months after her husband's. Then her hearing died. Then her ability to walk. Then her memory, her bladder control, her will to communicate. Then her leg, which had to be partially amputated.

Then, I'm sure her doctors could describe better, but it seemed her lungs died as they filled with pneumatic fluid. And then her kidneys. And then, 2 days ago, her heart.

But, really, her heart started dying more than one decade ago.

May no one I ever love
or hate
experience a slow death
either as the participant
or the observer.

*

The title of this post is a shortened name of "quickening." In the first half of the 19th century in the United States, a woman was never positive she was pregnant until she felt the child move within her. This movement was (is?) called "quickening." A woman who was (is?) "quick with child" was one whose baby had confirmed its own life by making its own movements within her.

Women were morally, legally, ethically, socially, and medically allowed to abort until this period of gestation until the 1850s, when attitudes changed.