Expecting my daughter to come in
late, I slept lightly, attentive
to the slightest sound.
Imagine my surprise when my son,
dead four years, came into my room
and spoke soft in my ear
to let me know he was home.
I hugged him so long. Wondered
aloud why I hadn’t been expecting him.
Let him know his sister had
taken over their old room. Together,
we sorted through his old art projects,
old shirts, old shoes. When his sister
came home we hugged her, too,
and played chase, leaping over the bed,
the chairs, laughing, squealing, alive.
Soon, I was floating—zagging
through the air with wild delight—
not because I was trying to fly, more
like I was a leaf lifted by wind, soaring
with no effort of my own. I chased them
this way, through the dream to the day,
and our laughter was then and now
and somehow inside me forever.
Posts Tagged ‘laughter’
But Not a Moment Sooner
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, laughter, self-acceptance on December 18, 2025| 4 Comments »
Eventually we learn to laugh when we drop
the glass and it shatters all over the floor,
finding laughter more fun than a shackle of curses.
We can wiggle our butt more when someone
says it looks big instead of trying to tuck it
tighter beneath our hips. Eventually we learn
there is no way to not be exactly ourselves.
What freedom then. We can listen to the sound
of our own voice without cringing. Can dance
in front of anyone. Can wake up grateful for our aging face
in the mirror. Can wear questions like exotic perfume
and see how they grow us. Eventually,
we can look at each other and say,
I’m so glad you are exactly who you are.
After Four Hours of Driving, We Arrive at What Google Maps Said Would Be a Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, driving, laughter, map, surrender on October 2, 2025| 3 Comments »
There is no park.
Still, we park at the edge
of the road and look out
over the Hudson
beyond the thick trees,
inhale the yellowing
scent of autumn,
reach our arms up to the sky,
play chase around the car,
and laugh the whole time,
at first in disbelief,
and at last in surrender.
One more chance to meet
the world that is here
instead of the world
we expect. One more chance
find ourselves grateful
to be exactly where we are.
Ongoing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, joy, laughter, memory on August 20, 2025| 1 Comment »
I don’t know how, after your son has died,
you go on, she said, and I don’t know either,
but this morning, I walked through the field
where he used to drive the Gator, pulling his
friends behind him in an old red canoe, all
of them howling their laughter, shrieking their joy,
and I stood in that empty field and wept, my heart
in halves, and a scrap of old joy slipped through
the crack, and I laughed, tears streaming, I laughed.
Sitting in a Circle of Friends
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, laughter, Lisa Issenberg, paradox, togetherness on July 20, 2025| 2 Comments »
We are laughing, and the sound
is sweet as honeysuckle—
the way it clings to the air—
and even as I laugh,
I’m aware of the many wounds
each of these women
have endured, imagining
how often we have wept,
sometimes with each other,
sometimes alone. Knowing
the ache somehow makes
the laughter all the more sweet—
and the joy of it stitches into me
like a golden thread.
I welcome the pierce
as I feel it connect us,
knowing if I tug on this strand
twenty years from now,
it will bring me back to this night
with its warm summer air
and low summer light,
this radiant night sparkling
with a laughter we nourished
for years by loving each other
through all those tears.
When I’m Feeling Serious
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, joy, laughter, mother, wildflower on July 18, 2025| 4 Comments »
Curled up beside me,
my girl studies the laugh
of a man she admires
and the more he guffaws
the more she guffaws,
which of course,
makes me laugh, too,
and soon the evening
is a riotous bouquet
of giggles. I gather
the sound in me like a field
of wildflowers, a pleasure
that reseeds itself,
lovely as lupine, common
as blue flax that thrives
along even the busiest road.
The Gathering
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, glass, laughter, sea, softening on April 27, 2025| 3 Comments »
for Ali and Sherry
Laughter, it softens us,
just hours ago I was
broken glass, but now
after giggling through
dinner and flopping
on the unmade bed
it’s as if I’ve been tumbled
in a warm and shallow sea,
waves of laughter doing
what waves do—
rubbing my sharp edges
against the grit of life
until I feel like a treasure,
like something that belongs
here in your hands.
One Hearing My Daughter Laugh
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, laughter, transformation on October 24, 2024| 4 Comments »
just when I think
I’m made of sludge
you candle me
Falling Asleep to the Sound of My Daughter Giggling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, joy, laughter on July 31, 2024| 6 Comments »
Whatever in me feels sodden,
soiled, weighty, it slips from
my body, as if her laughter
is rain until all that is left in me
is sky.
Christie Sends Me a Photo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, friendship, habits, humor, laughter, patterns, solids on May 29, 2024| 7 Comments »
Her head is pasted onto my body
wearing a very plain black dress.
My head’s pasted onto her body
wearing a flamboyant jumpsuit
with pixilated technicolor chaos,
a jumpsuit she’s tried to get me
to wear for months.
She knows wearing patterns
makes me queasy. And what
is it in us that loves to make
our beloveds squirm?
I’m an easy target.
She knows I will squeal and
splutter and rail, so when I call
in a righteous outrage
over how she’s dressed my likeness
in a blenderized rainbow,
she laughs and I laugh
and something is so right
with the world then—
this goofy, giddy moment
when the stakes are low
and I am uncomfortable and prickly
and feel so deeply seen,
so able to laugh at the lines I draw.
I fall inside the laughter,
feel it wrap around me
bright as that flashy jumpsuit.
And I, who crave what is solid,
I dissolve into that brightness.
Blustery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, friendship, laughter, skiing, wind on March 3, 2024| 4 Comments »
for Corinne
Into the wind, the whipping
wind, the fierce, tempestuous,
mighty wind, we skied
as it pushed us and
bent us and slapped us
in a language made wholly
of howl—how alive we were,
laughing into the gale,
taking the storm into our lungs,
as if our breath could learn
its syntax, translate
its tongues of gust and squall
into wild, untamable mirth.
This is how we carried the storm
home in our bloodstream.
This is how, even now,
I feel it in my lips,
an uncontrollable, reckless smile.
One for Father’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father's day, laughter on June 18, 2023| 2 Comments »
inside my laughter
stencil of my father’s laughter—
an audible tattoo
In Julie & Carla’s Living Room
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged games, laughter, music, wedding on June 10, 2023| 4 Comments »
The night before they renew their vows,
Julie and Carla sit in matching chairs,
kazoos in hand, playing “Come On, Eileen”
and greatest hits from Fleetwood Mac.
Around them, we play our own kazoos—
“Who Let the Dogs Out” and “Lady Marmalade.”
The night doesn’t care if we can’t
guess each other’s songs.
It cares nothing for wrong or right.
it cares only that we laugh,
that we meet each other
with the hum of warmth, with joy,
that we honor what happens
when two people grow their love
and share it with the world.
For an hour, we hang on each other’s notes.
Long after, we hang on the laughter.
When the Audio Engineer Told Me She Needed a Few Tracks of Me Laughing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged laughter on March 24, 2022| 5 Comments »
I sat in the closet with a microphone and laughed,
spinning golden mirth out of nothing.
I giggled and chuckled and let the laugh grow
like a peony in spring, like the shimmer of a gong
when struck soft and often, like the scent of coffee
that starts in the kitchen but soon infuses every room.
The laugh began stilted, perhaps, but soon I was laughing
with honest glee like a baby amused by its own hand,
laughing like a woman who has lost something precious
and now knows the value of laughing. Laughing like
a weed seed that lands in an irrigated field. Laughing
like dry kindling found by a match.
Laughing like a puddle that expands in a downpour,
like a door that’s picked its own latch. And the laughter
made so much space inside me—as if my inner map
had new boundaries drawn. As if I were released
from some old metal trap. And long after I’d recorded
a long track of laughter, I laughed. Till I cried, I laughed.
That Passes All Understanding
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged church, dad, daughter, death, family, hospice, laughter, peace on November 21, 2021| 14 Comments »
from our birth … to our death … the wonderment …
—Dr. Charles Henry Wahtola, Jr., November 19, 2021
And so as the priest leads us
in the litany for the time of death,
and though we are sincere
as we pray, Have mercy on your servant,
we laugh as my father tells Father Keith
the sermon can only be as long
as the pole at the entrance to the building.
We pray, Grant him your peace,
and I weep for the impending loss,
and then we laugh as I tell Dad
for the first time he has a front-row seat
for the service (he strongly
prefers the back row).
And mom delivers an impromptu sermon
and the priest steps back and listens.
And we fondly remember how my childhood priest
would sing the longest rite in the book,
and my brother and I look at each other
and recite in unison, this fragile earth our island home,
and we break into irrational joy.
We pray The Sursum Corda, The Sanctus,
The Lord’s Prayer, my voice
barely a whisper through tears,
then we’re laughing again as we remember
how Dad and my brother would escape
the service as fast as they could to go cast
in the river behind the church, and
there in the hospice room, we keep the feast,
Alleluia, alleluia. And all day long,
though perhaps we speak of football
or grilling or ducks, with every word, every tear,
every laugh, we are saying, Peace be with you.
With every hug, every kiss, every
touch, every breath, we respond,
And also with you.
Winter Evening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, friendship, grace, laughter, memory on November 21, 2020| 4 Comments »
Though I sit alone
on my couch at home,
I’m somehow also sitting
with Rachel and Julie
and it’s summer and
we’re laughing, laughing
until we tumble
into each other’s laps,
laughing as we collapse
into a puppy pile of giggles,
laughing because it feels
so good to laugh—
even now I laugh aloud
with no memory of why
we were laughing then,
but many years later,
it’s still contagious.
Sometimes we tumble
so wholly into the grace
of a moment
that it opens in us forever,
continuously blooms
and spreads its perfume
like night-blooming jasmine,
christens everything
with its fragrance,
even this empty room,
even this tired woman
now so surprisingly awake.
Parting Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged film, laughter, mistake on July 31, 2020| 5 Comments »
Parting Gift
Friends, I will be your blooper girl,
your end-of-the-credits buffoon.
You can film me as I fall, as I fail, as I flop,
as I drop the tray of glasses,
as my strapless top slips.
I’ll make it easy on you.
At least twenty times a day
I forget my lines.
At least ninety times a day,
I trip on my certainty.
Yes, I will be the one
who will flub most every punch line.
I’ll be the poster child
for sincere ineptitude.
I know, my outtakes
are better than my A roll.
But dang, the path of failure
has always served me.
And man, most of the time
I can laugh as I blunder,
laugh until you wonder why
I am still laughing,
laugh because what else
can a woman do when
gaffes are her saving grace?
Ephemeral Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged laughter, prayer, science, sun on April 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »
In five billion years, the hydrogen fuel
at the core of the sun will be spent.
Forces of gravity will take over,
compressing the core. The rest of the sun
will expand, vaporizing the earth.
I’ve studied the science, read the texts.
In the meantime, I live in a canyon
with rock walls one-hundred-fifty million years old—
and sometimes, like this morning,
despite rumors of doom,
the forces of gravity take over
and I fall on the floor laughing—
a riotous squealing and braying,
tears leaking, chest heaving,
grateful to big time for this very moment
when I am almost seamlessly joined with my shadow.
It rolls with me on the floor as I hoot and giggle,
praying in the language I know best.
New Approach
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged japanese myth, laughter, poem, poetry, sun on January 14, 2017| 5 Comments »
On the thirteenth day of gray and winter rain
I remember the story of Amaterasu,
the Japanese goddess of the sun, who,
attacked by her brother, hid in a cave,
and the world was cast in darkness.
There have been more attacks
in the last few weeks than the world
can bear to hear. Sometimes we forget
how to cry. Sometimes in anger we forget
how to sing, how to pray. Sometimes,
like the younger brother, Susanoo,
we hurl things at those we love most—
perhaps not a monstrous flayed horse,
but blame, judgment, accusations, disgust.
It’s no wonder whatever is light
finds a way to retreat. It’s no wonder
we find ourselves in darkness.
In the story, the rest of the gods
try to lure out the sun with roosters
all ordered to crow outside the cave.
I, too, have tried to tell myself, others too,
that it is morning when it is not.
Always, I am left with darkness
on my tongue.
Then the gods placed a tree
draped in glittering jewels
just outside the closed cave door
and at its center they hung a mirror
so the sun could see her own loveliness.
I, too, have tried to put shine
on the tawdry world,
and never did any sparkling thing
make what is ugly more beautiful.
It was Amenouzume, another goddess,
who danced with abandon,
who took off her clothes
and twirled and teased
until all the gods in heavens roared with delight,
and, out of curiosity, the sun finally
opened the door to see.
Oh world, I am the one who knocks
on the door until my hands bleed,
the one who speaks to the door
and begs and threatens and cajoles
until she is hoarse. None of it
has brought back the light. I am ready
to try dancing and dropping all my layers.
I am ready to try flinging my head back
and letting loose a reckless, untamable laugh.
Millennium Park, Chicago
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boy, chicago, joy, laughter, poem, poetry, puddle, running, son on August 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
In the heart of the city
the boy runs,
he leaps and arrives
in every puddle
until he is drenched,
dazzlingly wet.
His laugh is the laugh
we forget is always here
waiting to be laughed
come sun, come rain.