with fins of fuchsia.
I spoke indigo to my kin.
My grandmother’s oceanic tongue
whispered in my seashell ears
our saltwater stories.
I wish for those little girl
sea lungs, pink as petals
blooming in rain.
I wish for the little girl
who dreamed in aquamarine,
the taste of a saltwater speech,
the nautical native tongue
speaking the language of the sea.
“FAIR TRADE”
During recess, Mary and I
carved our names into the dirt.
Mary,
such an easy, whimsical name.
Short.
I like short.
I watched Mary begin
with a mighty-shouldered M,
her angelic A, the R reaching
for the Y I always wanted.
MARY.
Short and sweet.
A name you never tire of writing.
I never had it that easy.
I could never find my name
on those miniature license plates.
No namesake characters on TV
or Bibled in verse. No Parneshia
had a little lamb.
PARNE…
Mary skipped around,
already finished with her four letters.
I was still on letter five of nine,
tired by E,
my arm aching the question,
why this name? Why so long?
Ask your mother, why such a riddle of a name?
PARNESHI…
Leaving off the final A,
I stared at Mary’s crooked name
sprawled in the dirt.
Hey Mary, want to trade names?
Mines got so many letters!
Lots of great letters, Mary!
It’s got a P, Mary, a P!
P, like princess. A, R,
Mary, R, like Roll-ups.
A, Mary, two of them,
like two angels in my name.
Mary, so sweet and easy,
shrugged her shoulders.
Okay, she said without hesitation.
You’re Mary now and I’m PARNESHIA!
PARNESHIA!
My name is PAR-NE-SHIA!
I watched her twirl about
shouting my name, claiming it,
and a sense of panic came over me.
I want Parneshia,
my nine-letter riddle,
my PARNESHI and that last A,
the one I always wrote sloppy
because I never thought it
was as important as the first.
No! My name is PARNESHIA.
My Mama gave it to me!
It’s mine and you can’t have it, Mary!
Mary, hands on hips, skirt twisted,
chocolate milk stained to her top lip,
Okay. Let’s go on the swings.
Mary, so sweet and easy;
so deserving of her short, sweet name.
PARNESHIA
I draw the last A,
make it count and stare
at my moniker: long, complicated,
hardly sweet, but mine.
LEGACY
for Evanston
We came with histories,
planted centennial stories along freshwater coasts.
An earthly heaven of emerald lagoons
and godly oaks shadow the chiseled
trails of our arrival.
We are the northern folktales.
Copper-back ancestors, with cotton-tipped,
woodcutter hands—
the heirlooms that built this landscape of jubilant
churches and miniature châteaus.
A harvest of migrating hearts
tell our way back when.
We are porch stories, buttermilk aprons,
lovers
