A little boy told me

We put the animal heads

on the wall so we can

pet their fur

whenever we want.

I am four but they tell me

I am going on eleven.

I don’t want to grow old so fast.

I want to feel six and eight, too.

Blueberries are good

because they have

antioxidants.

Blue is my favorite color.

I would never growl at you, Auntie.

I only roar

like a truck engine.

You see I am still around.

I don’t want to go home, Auntie,

please don’t make me.

Home is carrot sticks

but you are Cheez-Its.

I don’t like being human. Can I be a puppy?

Roscoe gets to eat whatever he wants

and he’s allowed

to sleep on mommy’s bed.

I am four, Auntie.

Is four happy?

I want to be happy. I declare

all fours are happy now.

Jack to his daughter

My Dearest G,

     Your mother tells me you have found a potential someone. A young man, I gather, though you know how your mother is about “labels.” Personally, I cannot see you with a woman anyway; they would slow you down with the gentle dispositions you were never afflicted with.

Oh my dove, how you used to scoff at your mother’s and my monogamy.

     “That is no way to live,” you would declare. “There is no one person I could love more than I love living. How many loves are lost because of unnecessary monogamy.”

     I supposed this would have been an awkward conversation for most fathers with their teenage daughters, but for us it was purely spirited debate. It’s not like your mother had the temperament to speak of carnal things with you. She is so free, a flighty little leaf in the wind. 

     I asked her to talk with you and she told me, “Oh mon amour, mon beau, love comes and goes. What we have is special; let Genevieve explore. La corps veut ce que la corps veut, just like the heart. No words can stop that. Mayhap she will find a love as ours, but until then, let her live the way you know she will. She is your daughter after all.” There you have it, my dove: your mother would have you be a whore. But I jest of course, she was right.

     However, I hope you find someone who can give you more love than even your passionate heart can hold, my little imp. You will understand then.

With all my heart,

J, Dad.

Our new friend

Our new friend, a photo by samsigelakisminski on Flickr.

Thoughts of a Father

I always marvel

at how delicate your hands are

when they hold mine,

practically avian.

You look up at me

comma-like lashes, sandy colored.

One day, they will charm

today they are just endearing.

Those hands are stronger

than they first seem.

They clench more like talons, yet

I am still afraid to squeeze.

The hero worship in your eyes

scares me more than war ever did.

I will fight battles unknown with you

one day, not today.

Today we walk in the park

you coo in newly learned French,

your mother’s language.

Your hands would have matched hers.  

Minekill Falls

Minekill Falls, a photo by samminski on Flickr.

Jack's letter to Gwen (Novella)

My Favorite Little Imp,

     You have so much passion for life. It is a passion I’d like to say comes from me; your mother, though beautiful and one who enjoys the “fun” of life, does not have the same burning need to live as you do, to drink in oxygen as though it were fine wine and taste all of the foods the Earth offers. You and I are eternally looking for ways to live more fully, and are ever left with disappointment by others’ apathy. You may hate me now, for losing my way but you can never deny that we are two of a kind.

     I suppose nothing I say could possibly divert your passion away from hating me, but I don’t even know if I want to. Passion of any sort, even hatred breeds art of the purest form, not tempered by human trappings. But also, your hatred cannot compete with my own self-loathing that consumes me and probably blocks my archetypal road to recovery and redemption. I lost everything of yours, my darling Daphne’s, and at the risk of sounding self-pitying, of mine the most. Not only did I lose our money and lovely homes, but I also lost the two sole loves of my life. Without you even my job does not have the same meaning it did. How can I make these students, my Tabula Rasas, believe in the same passion and need for art when I cannot even believe in myself or in my ability to make you believe I am invincible?

     Now I am just the fallen father, not infallible god who will save you from everything. This has left you troubled I know. Don’t be; nothing is as complicated as we make it. Someday I will make it up to you perhaps, but only if I first escape this Underworld I have begun to reside in.

Love Always, tout l’amour,

Dad.

excerpt from the nove, part 2.

Mother and I share a bathroom at our new lodgings, The Starling Inn. We wake every morning together and begin our separate morning rituals; brushing teeth and hair, sharing shades of organic blushes and shadows for the eyes. It is these mornings that have us communicating so much more than we ever did in our two-story penthouse.

       “Gwen, do you know how your father and I met?” She is slipping something glittery and rose-colored on her lips.

         “I do, maman, but tell me again, s’il te plait.”  I may hate him but need to hear it, these happy times. These memories keep her lively, and me believing.

         “We met at an art galleria opening, a retelling of mythology through various mediums. I opened the event, an immigrant intern at the time for the galleria itself, with an offhand joke about my name; how they were lucky I could still talk through my wooden lips. Gods, I barely knew English yet, mon Coeur.” She blots her lips on a thin napkin; it floats to the sea glass pebbled floor. “Jack approached me during the chicken tartar hors d’oeuvres, and insisted he escort me. He wanted to be the man Apollo could never be for me. I giggled of course, but was, how do you say it…? Hooked.” Mother pronounces her words with silent “h”s and beautiful vowels.

     Oh, ma belle mama. From free water nymph to maid at a seaside inn? Well, I guess at least you are near water again, more real than the Hudson ever was.

Things I Have Gained

•          The Atlantic ocean
•   =    Clarity
•         New aprons and shoes, you to work in and me to turn into new fall fashions
•         Books for my new school life.
•         The Inn cat who I call Autumn from her vibrant colors and volatile nature
•        (Maybe) mysterious Deputy Jared Larson.

A novel, perhaps.

The leaves are falling again. Daphne’s tears that fall because she knows she cannot love hi, the sun god, the way that he needs. Every year, Apollo comes and crowns himself in her boughs, and every year Daphne weeps unnoticed.

“All things gold cannot stay,” Mother whispers into my ear. We survey our new lodgings, two rooms at a bed and breakfast right on the sea. “We can polish our lives to a shine, hold them to the light, but it will leave eventually.”

         I do not respond; it sounds too much like an excuse to me. Why did he give up on us? Was the polish not working, the golden liquid more luminous than the life you made?
         You would scoff at the accommodations we have found ourselves in, at the new golden lives we are not forced to live.

          “Your mother doing labor? You, my princess, sleeping in a rented bed? No art studio, extra closet, city sounds to serenade you to sleep? How will you ever survive?”

          You talked in beautiful tones, Jack, when you were sober enough to think. A teacher and an artist, you were always foremost an orator, if such a profession still existed. I choose this hole in the wall over any cheap apartment you have stumbled into in Hell’s kitchen. Your own private Hell.