It doesn't matter whose child it is....

There were wires everywhere and the hum of soft shoes padding up and down the halls almost drove me mad. How could they be so quiet when my world was exploding? How could my heart pound louder than every machine they had plugged in, louder than the canned voice calling Dr. Kildare on the loud speaker? How could they not crumple, fall to their knees with me...and know....

Long before he stabilized they told me in a foreign antiseptic language..."we've done all we can do"... and then they scattered, pigeons on a highway dodging five o'clock traffic.

And then he lived.

They came back to pack him up, uninsured, in my little red car. Naked and broken. Nobody wished us well on the way out the door. They didn't call in the morning to check on him.

This time they kept him.

And for 72 hours someone will watch over my child. With the cheese curl toes. The homemade tattoo on his ankle. The blonde hair with the slightest red sunset. For 72 hours he will be mad, but he'll breathe.

And I'll cry,
But I'll sleep...

Because he'll be safe....

The Crying Moon

"Watch your step" he bellowed as I threw one clutsy foot out of the truck door...the second fringed moccasin hit the parking lot floor before I could quip over my shoulder "I know"....

Of course he knew I wouldn't remember to be careful...
couldn't,
it's not in my nature....
And before landing at our last stop,
I parachuted out the door
and landed in a pile of pick up sticks on the gravel driveway.

He cringed. I laughed. And we called it a night.

In the morning, black and blue, and hobbling yet again, I remembered falling in slow motion... the click clack of the door opening, the billowing waves of wind as my ruffled and crumpled skirt sailed behind me, the smile creeping up fast, frozen laughter captured in polaroid color, right before I hit the ground.

In the morning I remembered,
that sometimes,
I just like to fall....

Face first into the moment.
Kiss the gravel goodnight.
Take chances.

And sometimes,
I skin my knees.

It was a crying moon,
And I could have cried,
but it wasn't in my nature.....

I needed to save that for a day I was steady on my feet....

Butterflies and other True Stories...

She was a plain jane. Faded yellow with raggedy little wings, windswept,sidewalk scuffed, Cinderellish. But Oh God, could she dance....swirly twirls in the air, and head first dip~dives straight from the sky, barely missing her nose on the upturn. And she's lived to be a 100 years old or more....in Storyland...

The yellow butterfly of San Marino...

with her dirty little feet and freckled petticoat....
she's a gypsy.....
in her husky morning after voice,
she's a sunrise....

Counting days until we travel to her homeland again...
until she lands, teetering on wobbly show~girl legs, on the lip of my Michelob....
until she barrels in, Mardis Gras style, right before Santa Claus...
until she tickles my nose,
or my toes,
or my fancy...

And reminds me to laugh,
to live,
to dance at the very,very edge of the ocean...

I still believe in butterflies...

and peace
and love
and all that
hoo~hah....