Sunflower
The biggest I’ve seen—
size of a steering wheel
in some friend’s grandma’s garden—drove
the world into me,
dragging the sun with it,
reached like a voice from a cave
where it’s always night, knocked
me down without touching me, then turned
away. That night Mom had to lie
with me until I fell asleep,
tell me I’d be alright
and the next morning
I watched some cartoon I loved
and ate a sugared cereal,
a stem of sunlight resting
on the edge of my bowl.
Meditation
After Baudelaire
So a new sky, the town surrounded.
If there’s no breeze, the locals will make one.
Not one hair will flicker. No dandelion will nod
sarcastically until December. The interim
still warm and nighted I’ll spend with you,
gray sadness. Someone shot the sun down already
so I could write a shadow to your face
that hides from me the color of your eyes.
You’ve read me under the covers
with a flashlight long enough.
The turquoise edges of our antipodes lie
serrated as Indian Ocean shores.
But at night you soften like white morning glories.
There’s a morning in me
the branches haven’t learned. Please
walk with me until we see hills again.
I Was Seven
Mom cut her hair short.
I asked if someone had died,
and I meant her.
She held me while I cried.
She said, I’m still me,
and her arms felt like her arms.
She said, Hair is just your head
when air happens to it.
And I wondered if the air minded.
I prayed for rain, to show her
the air agreed with me
while she breezed her fingers
through my hair
and let me happen to her
as long as I needed.
We Must Go
I’m usually happy when my kids are happy.
My daughter chases a bubble across the yard.
My son digs a hole in the sand with a stick.
Leaves click their tongues like fire as a breeze ribbons
from the west and lands cold in the grass.
They don’t mind. They’re having fun, aren’t they.
But I know soon I’ll tell them it’s getting dark
and we need to go, and life
will have turned against them.
And I, on behalf of life, will say I’m sorry
as I buckle seatbelts
against their will, against their cries for mercy.
I’ll lie. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll say.
I’ll do this to move them forward
because tomorrow won’t be like today. There will be
appointments, errands, a drifting from place to place.
In the morning, my wife and I will gather them
from their beds and bring them with us
where we must go. But for now
let her try to catch that bubble
before it bursts. Let him see how far down
the hole goes. Why not?
It’s not dark yet,
and there’s nowhere we have to be.
Marcus Whalbring’s poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Spry, and elsewhere. His first book of poems was released in 2013.