Maria’s Little Elbows
after Sparklehorse
She sleeps sideways
when she sleeps, which isn’t often.
On Sunday mornings
she likes the bells and scuffle
of hard soles along the sidewalk
below my bedroom window,
and on Wednesdays
the wheeze of the double doors
of my little boy’s school bus
arriving at the corner—
she likes to listen
in her sleep, when she sleeps,
sleeping sideways.
And so
I sleep sideways, too,
when Maria comes to visit.
I remember my little boy
singing along
when she sang her one song,
loneliness its one word every other
measure like a hesitant mantra
stuttering its way to peace,
her little pill-derived piece of peace.
My Maria and her small
sweet kisses, like the surprises
I hide for my little boy
in his lunch box:
a caramel wrapped
in a paper napkin;
the quarter in a plastic bag
so he can buy a carton of punch
from the lunch lady
in a hair net.
My little boy loves
Maria and helps me sweeten
her coffee with milk we stir
full of brown sugar and
cinnamon; we whisper
in the kitchen as we heat
and swirl a whirlpool
of brown and white, until
it slowly softens to beige, to
palomino says my little boy
for his favorite horse.
And we take it to Maria
sleeping sideways in my bed
on Sunday morning.
My little boy watches
while she dreams;
he whispers, She is worth
hundreds of sparrows.
And on Thursdays when
he is with his mother
I wake sideways next to Maria
and wish
well never mind:
my Maria, my little boy,
my perfectly delimited life.