My older brothers spoke so fast and told such complicated jokes full of puns, rhymes and double entendre it was hard for me to find space to speak at the family table. They ran fast and made films. They went skateboarding and took their surfboards on the subway to go surfing at Far Rockaway in Queens. When I went with them I stood on the sand heron still (although at that point in time I had no idea what a heron was) to watch them. Sometimes we would wake at 6 am on a Sunday morning before the traffic emerged to go skateboarding in Manhattan on 96th Street and Park Avenue where there was a good hill and a smooth pavement. Sometimes I was afraid if I got too close my brother might grab me and take me down the road flying on the skateboard or taunt me to climb up some cliff by the ocean. Perhaps I wanted to be taken like a mouthful of feathers. But most of the time I just wanted to stand stock still so my brother would not see me while I watched him drop things off the sixth floor roof in the dark. I remember writing about a nest made of wind–not knowing how to spell the word wind–but I knew I wanted the wind to hold me while we watched the sunset from the roof.
Nest
Sometimes I am afraid if I step close
my brother will take me, the way a fox
carries a small crow in his jowls,
over hillside, under shed, wherever
fox go. Some part of me wants
to belong inside– mouthful of feather,
a tuft of dark that makes us both.
Sometimes I am afraid if I stand heron-
still, my brother will not see me
at all, no matter the light, not hear me
no matter how pitched the shriek.
Between fears, between wants,
I am building a nest out of wind.
I am asking the wind to hold us.