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Love, Dare, Grow: Part 3

5/26/2020

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Love, Dare, Grow: El Cerrito Families Part 3

For part three of my series of interviews with El Cerrito families, I interviewed my daughter Magdalene Gabriel. Her ideas about family ended up very much fitting with my own, but it was also beautiful to read the way her ideas and feelings are different. Magdalene is a 14 year old freshman at El Cerrito High School.

Who is family?

My family is my mom, dad, brother and my dog. My family is my uncle james and my aunt amy and Erik and Terry.

How do you know?

I know because they’re the people that I love and the people that have raised me.

What is unique about your family?

When a lot of people think of family, they think of people related to them by blood, their ancestors. When I think of family, I think of people like my aunt amy and uncle james, and those people aren’t actually related to me by blood, but regardless they are still my family and I love them.

Why is family important to you?

Family is the people that have raised me. Family is the people that have helped me with my homework and influenced my interests. Family is the people that have and will support me unconditionally. Family is the people I will always go to, no matter what. That’s why they’re important to me.

What does home mean to you?

Home to me is the place I go back to after school and the place I wake up at, but home can also be the place that I feel most comfortable and most myself, just like family is the people I feel the most comfortable and myself with.

What does home look like to you?

Home looks like a house with a red door. Home looks like a backyard with a laundry shed and a bedroom with blue floors.

What are your dreams for your family?

For us to go to Iceland together. For my mom to win every poetry contest and award you can think of. For my brother to graduate from OSA and then whatever art college he decides to go to.




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almost summer love poem

5/20/2020

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almost summer shelter in place love poem

i have spent
almost twenty five years
trying to write you
the perfect love poem.
this will not be it.
this poem will
sigh
the way you sigh, deep,
at 4:30 am
not ready to exit the bed
but called out
into the world of heat and wire.
summer is folded up
on top of the blankets, waiting,
just a few more weeks.
i want to tell you
that when your truck
pulls out of the driveway
my heart sinks,
and in the afternoon
i wait for the sound of your engine.
when i say
i love you
i mean here, in this moment,
in the almost of it:
the repeated sighs,
the early rising,
the hot coffee in the kitchen,
the wilted spring
and the joy
that’s not quite here yet.
i love you
even if may never ends,
an eternity of the light on
in the bathroom,
you brushing your teeth
and zipping your work shirt,

everything
about to happen.




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teenage zine

5/17/2020

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teenage zine

my daughter orders
a zine in the mail,
smoky teenage art
featuring liquor bottles.
i was excellent
at that genre:
collages and stories
that featured
absolut, and razor blades,
and witch lesbians.
i was epic in high school,
so much so
i only finished sophomore year.
this girl i love
starts 10th grade in a couple months,
and i am
the parent now, paging through
this photocopied offering,
reminding her
she can come talk to me
about anything.
i hand her back this testament
letters swimming in high proof alcohol,
practically ripping the paper:
14 is a lot of truth.
my girl
i welcome you into the world
a second time,
with equal struggle,
this universe of words
that cut and defy and
end.
you are the child
of language
that panicked all the grown ups:
grown now yourself
curled in your tiny back bedroom
with pencils and notebooks
and plenty to say.
i’m listening.







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the favorite child

5/10/2020

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the favorite child

my daughter is obsessed
with being
The Favorite Child.
she brought it up
in my Mother’s Day card,
then again at the dinner table.
this has gone on for years.
my son has gotten touchy
about it, fights back,
no I’M the favorite child.
their papa tells
whichever one he’s with
they’re the best, then,
shhhhh
don’t tell the other.
i’ll tell you the truth,
which i don’t dare tell them:
i could not possibly
pick one,
but i do love
that they both fight for it.
each one knows
that they’re worthy
of being the favorite.
both day dreamers
imagining a better world
in the leaf shadows
outside their windows,
both certain
of their own genius,
confident in their ingenuity,
both not too shy
to declare themselves
the center of my spinning universe.

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last poem in the series...

4/7/2020

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freeways: pandemic poem #10
for amy

i made it through oakland
in minutes
racing the freeway
arcing the lake
looping back past the bay
pulling the reins in hard
to halt at my corner.

traffic is a thing of the past
back when i wore slacks
and went to lunch
and had more to do
than just pick up my medicine
and hurry home.

i don’t see anyone on my street
either: usually
the high school kids
would be tossing wrappers in my bushes
jaywalking extravagantly
away from my disapproval.

it’s quiet here
in the after.
but then
unexpectedly
you call,
and even more unexpectedly
i call back.

there might be space
here in this great sudden
emptiness
for conversations
about losing
and what comes after:
wouldn’t we all like to know
what comes after?

i think it might be the
truest thing
i ever said:
which was i love you.
that’s
what’s left
here at the end
of all the empty roads,
the coiling freeways that
sped us back home.
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four more weeks sheltering

4/2/2020

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four more weeks sheltering: pandemic poem #7

the strings of emails
the tasks accomplished
the drafts
the submissions
the hours billed:

none of it adds up
to one room full of laughter,
one walk grazing shoulders,
one knee to knee
strategy session.

can i talk to you
through the fence
i asked
thinking it might keep me
from breaking.

i now have weeks
of lists and jokes,
terrors and dreams and
things i had wanted to ask
backed up behind
a polite fine:
this dam threatening
cracks.

i can’t wait til it breaks:
beware the obsessive
love notes
and messages marked
question
a giant
earnest wave
wrestling the mud and rocks
all the way
to the ocean.

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poem for the Molotov Mouths

3/27/2020

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pandemic poem #5
for the Molotov Mouths

this molotov cocktail
is loaded with
a love poem:
hot
sharp
devastating.

it’s sailing
over their chain link
their barbed wire
over their massive concrete:
it’s leaping
every barrier.

it’s exploding
windows
splintering doors
warping steel
this
burning love.

i am standing
in the middle
of this smoking apocalypse
launching the one thing
i have left to say:
i love you
like a riot
like an avalanche
like a hand
that just
won’t
let
go.
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March 27th, 2020

3/27/2020

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pandemic poem #4
for jonah

i can’t think
of anything better
this morning
than telling you

the way you glance at the floor
and half smile
when i say
i love you
is devastating,

the way you
carry the weight of waking:
make your lunch,
zip your bag,
grab your keys,
convinces me to
start with coffee,

the way you
place your hand
on my shoulder blade
is just enough
to make me believe
i might make it
through the day.

turns out
when we get to the end of the world
all i have left is love poems
and the memory of your
5 am kiss
as you headed out
into the tangle of danger and fog.



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praise be to the leftover night

3/23/2020

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love poem on a monday morning: pandemic poem #3

Praise be to
the leftover night
and to the sun
itching to rise.

Praise be
to the ones
who woke up tired
sitting here
with coffee
about to rise.

Praise be
to the babies
and youth
coiled in their blankets
dreaming
with their fists raised.

Praise be
to the ones
zipped in tents
layers upon
layers upon layers
to raise the heat.

Praise be
to the gloved hands
that heal at all hours
and praise be
to the thermometer
that’s numbers
do not rise.

Praise be
to all those who didn’t sleep
terrified
of the mistakes they made
worried the cost
may rise.

Praise be
to genius
tapped out on keyboards
sung out in songs
written out in documents
praise be
to the people organizing
the people
who will rise.





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staying dry

3/15/2020

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staying dry

the tents
on the side of the road
sag under the rain.

my friend says
we’re staying dry.
i say that’s good to hear.

meanwhile i’m reading
a lot about the markets
and banks and businesses. bailouts. priorities.

i’d like to see a trillion dollars
or even just a billion (hell a million)
distributed down here by the tracks.

loosen those hundred dollar bills
like butterfly wings,
land them in every palm.

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