TIN FOGDALL

Small Wind

Einstein’s theory unravels on occasion
gravity still too weak

but watch 

                      the imagination can bend time

I may be infinitesimal
but in my head
 
it’s the Milky Way 
Su Hui stitches her poem into the 
Fourth Century’s skirt along 
a cracked curb I’m walking
to first grade 

           pink alarms shout HANNA 

on every telephone pole

I was trying to read a constellation

aunt dead 
grandmother still numb
my father pulled down the shades of his face for good

                      Years later someone 

found Hanna buried in blackberry vines 
under the freeway ramp

I was nursing my daughter then 

           small wind 

she was tapping in my arms

My father took a photo 
called us Madonna and child

His single reflex mirror swallows light 

           time flexing   

                      the imagination 

in the living room he’s listening 
to the Stabat Mater I’m drawing flowers that
won’t open Mary touches 
the nail head becomes an allegory while 
Krakatoa explodes

           Hanna turns the corner out of sight

Who hasn’t watched
as if her child would live forever

shut the lens
proceeded through days