Unbendable Light

The ocean will not swallow us
if Grandpa is watching. In photographs,
he faces away from the water, says the thought
of his mother dries his throat—her unbendable
light, her blue dresses. Centennial Beach, Grandpa,
twenty years sober, my arms around his neck. I am
naked but for beach shoes. My shadow cuts
his ribs in half. Behind us, my sister holds
Semiamhoo Bay between her outstretched hands.

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The Radium Girls

In lunchrooms we appear and disappear,
chimera breathing fire in storerooms—
our fellas fetching flowers on the way home,
we greet them in shadows with Cheshire teeth.

In darkrooms we stand over photographic paper,
Watch the exposure of latent constellations in alpha particles
that radiate from us.

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Long Lost, Long Gone

Loss, too, of other fears, albeit
never night and what scuttles through it.
And yes, there is loss, too, of one’s friends,
even the ones who don’t die. But you
make good ones, who still call when they’ve seen
some story of bad luck, or even
just to say a long-unheard hello,
nothing much, you, and even ignore
your panic aroused by the upward
inflection, the question, the question
of loss, even a loss imagined.

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