family stories -- dorianne laux

Family Stories
by Dorianne Laux


I had a boyfriend who told me stories about his family,
how an argument once ended when his father
seized a lit birthday cake in both hands
and hurled it out a second-story window. That,
I thought, was what a normal family was like: anger
sent out across the sill, landing like a gift
to decorate the sidewalk below. In mine
it was fists and direct hits to the solar plexus,
and nobody ever forgave anyone. But I believed
the people in his stories really loved one another,
even when they yelled and shoved their feet
through cabinet doors or held a chair like a bottle
of cheap champagne, christening the wall,
rungs exploding from their holes.
I said it sounded harmless, the pomp and fury
of the passionate. He said it was a curse
being born Italian and Catholic and when he
looked from that window what he saw was the moment
rudely crushed. But all I could see was a gorgeous
three-layer cake gliding like a battered ship
down the sidewalk, the smoking candles broken, sunk
deep in the icing, a few still burning.

daughter -- nicole blackman

daughter | nicole blackman
one day i'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream and i'll make sure she never stops.

i will kiss her before i lay her down
and will tell her a story so she knows how it is and how it must be for her to survive.

i'll tell her about the power of water, the seduction of paper
the promise of gasoline, and the hope of blood.

i'll teach her to shave her eyebrows and mark her skin.
i'll teach her that her body is her greatest work of art.

i'll tell her to light things on fire and keep them burning.
i'll teach her that the fire will not consume her,that she must take it and use it.

i'll tell her to be tri-sexual, to try anything, to sleep with, fight with, pray with anyone,
just as long as she feels something.
i'll help her to do her best work when it rains.
i'll tell her to reinvent herself every 28 days.

i'll teach her to develop all her selves
the courageous ones, the smart ones, the dreaming ones, the fast ones
i'll teach her that she has an army inside her that can save her life.

i'll tell her to say “fuck" like people say "THE"
and when people are shocked to ask them why they so fear a small quartet of letters.

i'll make sure she carries a pen so she can take down the evidence.
if she has no paper, i'll teach her to write everything down on her tongue,
to write it on her thighs.

i'll help her see that she will not find God
or salvation in a dark brick building built by dead men.

i'll explain to her it's better to regret the things she has done than the things she hasn't.
i'll teach her to write her manifestos on cocktail napkins.

i'll say she should make men lick her enterprise.
i'll teach her to talk hard.
i'll tell her that her skin is the most beautiful dress she will ever wear.

i'll tell her that people must earn the right to use her nickname,
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing.

i'll make her understand that she is worth more with her clothes on.

i'll tell her that when the words finally flow too fast and she has no use for a pen
that she must quit her job, run out of the house in her bathrobe, leaving the door open.
i'll teach her to follow the words.
i'll tell her to stand up and head for the door after she makes love.
when he asks her to stay she'll say she's got to go.

i'll tell her that when she first bleeds when she is a woman,
to go up to the roof at midnight, reach her hands up to the sky and scream.

i'll teach her to be whole, to be holy,
to be so much that she doesn't even need me anymore.

i'll tell her to go quickly and never come back.
i will make her stronger than me.

i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember