This piece, The Shape of a Wish, is a soft letter to myself about what I notice, inherit, and release.
I rarely asked for my mother’s stories,
so she rarely told them.
I inherited deep privateness from the woman who made me,
and yet I diverge.
I write to tell.
I tell the story of the paw paw tree and the fingernail moon.
If I pass it along,
press it into a shape like I press wildflower seeds into soil,
then I can sigh in relief—
I shared what I noticed.
I was alive and I felt it.
I named it.
I didn’t wait for you to ask.
And maybe that is the difference
between staying small
and growing vast.
A blinking cursor has patience.
So, too, I am patient.
For many beats, there is a journey without a destination.
Ribbons of incense smoke,
finches passing seeds in the rain,
beak to beak like a French kiss.
In a letter from me to me, I feel present.
Dear Sabrina,
I’m writing from a bench at Turtle Park.
The bench is new to me,
I wouldn’t have spent time on it all those years ago.
Or would I have?
A little brother sits from a vantage point
by the stone serpent’s mouth.
I imagine him finding peace in the dangle of his legs,
watching cars zip up Highway 40.
He climbs down on the green and shuffles closer to them,
the cars just below.
He makes his way toward chain netting,
toward a division of worlds,
neither devoid of danger—
moving child, and moving adult.
A resounding warning, from dad.
The child somersaults his way down the green grass,
back to his protector.
If I’m writing in the park, I’m living.
We are in the spring-summer cusp–
the flavor of the air is humid
and a special kind of play’s in resurgence.
I lived here once, walked here
with a young mother
to slide down statues of shell and tail.
The myth of me closes a loop here
before threading a needle for a new project.
A small red-haired girl
picks a dandelion and steps onto a raised platform
to make her wish.
She places the plant on her open palm and blows,
sets something free
To follow The Shape of a Wish with a look into its shadowed twin, read Even Stains Aren’t Permanent.