Barbara: turning forty

She was born an asteroid
in Jehovah’s solar system,
where Ma kept her cool
with Sunday brunches, and Pa
with the paper, sitting
in his wooden chair.

But her ambitions were those
of the Apollos; her stamina
that of a rocket. And when
the family scoffed at her
dreams to travel, she put ten
states and light years of emotion
to good use, clogging the post office
boxes and weighing the telephone
wires down to the pavement.

In the days when Mexico was
imaginable, when the Portland rains
could bring Monsoon rejoicing, among
feathers and peyote, communes
and collectibles, there were always
men, who knew little more
than how to shape a conversation
into a long euphoric spiral
whose point was good sex.

And Earth would take hold of her
at the speed of a doctor’s visit
and an ultrasound.
Grown, a fallen meteor
raising children in a crater
taking aspirin in the morning
fixing dinners in a cramped kitchen
her days stretched thin
as the orbit that lost its grip
on a discontent and thrashing young wrist.