Second Year of Type 2 Diabetes

You prick your finger--
Blood smudges on a white paper bed
And spreads out.
Like it can't get to where it needs
Fast enough.
Should I be used to this by now?
You can't seem to make the bleeding stop
With the single tissue you're pressing onto it.
I want to get another tissue
And stop the bleeding myself
But can't.
When you were seven,
We made a water slide
In our backyard
With a hose
And our yellow playground slide.
You went first--
Bigger, older, heavier--
Just as now,
You let your weight pull you down,
As it always does.
You tried to run back up the slide,
Slipped,
And hit your tooth.
Crying, shocked, hurt,

You were spitting out blood

Onto the mud

Made by the water slide.
I so wanted to run to you,
But couldn't,
Yet couldn't not,
Stuck in my place
Trying to move,
Just as now.
I was four.
In the car, I couldn't see your mouth
Because you kept a tissue pressed to it--
I kept asking you if you were okay.
I knew you weren't,
But I didn't know what else to do
But ask
Are you okay?
I couldn't hear over your toothless sobs.
I asked louder.
Our blood smudged on the white tissue bed.
Louder,
Your mouth is moving--
I can hardly hear over my sobs.
We're both yelling,
Are you okay?
We keep yelling
And no one answers.

A Gift From My Father's Girlfriend

Black hemp scratches my wrist with every move.
I don't know what she was trying to prove
By giving this to me.
Its tacky gold beads are cold
And there is a hair rolled
Up, entangled between the bracelet's
Three twists around my wrist,
The hair looks like it could have been mine,
Dark brown, straight, and fine.
I unloop the bracelet,
Take it off and try to forget I have it
But the flesh
On my left wrist is left
Red and sore.
I put the bracelet back into its clear plastic bag--
Delivered by my dad--
I get up and throw it in the trash
And hope he never asks
About my rash.

Covered in Ash

The mountains were bare
And looked like they were on fire.
Their smoke fell down
And onto the highway
Trying to keep us from driving any farther.

Triolet 2

I am a tree
And he is snow;
He is afraid of bees, but
I am a tree,
So they find home in me.
They know that soon they'll have to go, because
I am but a tree
And he is snowing.