Catch The Light


Until I turn pink and transparent,
I will eat this lovely magenta vegetable.
How could I resist such a flamboyant,
pickled and extroverted root
that turns scarlet everything it touches?
But me, I am just a plain old turnip
someone pulled from the ground.
I try to shake off this clumpy fortress of dirt
that clings, leftover from some bygone era
and I’ve only just lately noticed that
I still haven’t washed myself off,
that I am afraid to go near water,
afraid to let anyone see my purple striped skin.
That is why I have been devouring so many beets.
I think maybe one morning without realizing it,
I will walk by the sliding glass door
as the sun shines through me
and like pink stained glass you will see everything
inside me that I haven’t been able to say.






Clover, Red Ants, Wooden Tables


Danilo watches winged insects sit on his skin
and he rubs dirt from gopher mounds into his pores.
He can make himself turn green from the grass,
he says, “Come on, let’s try it!”

I warn him about the cactus on the slope because
at five years of age, it is as if he has never rolled
down a hill or had a rock stuck in his shoe.
He jumps from bench to bench as birds
twitter above in the oak trees.

I thought he’d never walk again after his doctor
told me I was in denial, but the doctor was wrong, dead wrong.
All I wanted was to get back to this place again
and here we are. We spin Frisbees up to the sun,
toss sticks and bones into the air like voices
that call down from the mountain.

There are clover and red ants here, wooden
tables with names and years carved in them.
Danilo’s little legs no longer tremble, they sing
more and more in tune with the music.

He throws a rock at a metal trash can,
it clangs and bangs. The call of a dove beats out
and fades away on a wind that brushes us,
a wind that rustles through yellow flowers and tall weeds.

He falls lightly like a leaf sprawled under the sky.
“No, no!” he says dramatically, “I can’t do it,”
but he is stronger now, he gets up again, no help.
His little legs re-sprouted from some tulip bulb
planted long ago. It is Spring and my boy is back.






These are by the glorious Gabrielle Mittelbach. Please come hear her read more at Our Little Open Mike Friday, May 25 at 9 a.m. at the Starbucks at 24100 El Toro Road in Laguna Woods. Wuhu