Kimberly Ann Southwick 

I THINK OF THE DADS

2016

it’s the tenth inning of game seven & it’s been over one hundred years
since the Cubs won the World Series. they go ahead by two. two years ago

some guy online predicted this game would end in a tie & then the world too
would end. ads for the election, less than a week away, play during commercial breaks,

& I think of the dads, those in the crowd who brought their kids to the game
or the ones standing outside Wrigley Field; those who dug deep into savings’ accounts

to buy tickets or those who walked from public transit to wait outside a stadium, in case.
I think of my dad but then of my uncle who was a dad, who will never get to see the Eagles

win the Super Bowl. I think of my cousins & of Harry Kalas, the Phillies longtime announcer
also gone. I google him & we share a birthday, high hopes. I think of all the moms

squeezing their daughters’ crackerjack hands, everyone’s stomachs like butterfly nets
or bee hives, like the radar image of a storm advancing towards Cleveland,

the orange suggesting lightning & thunder, wind & rain inevitable.
Eliot forecast a whimper, but the internet insists— a tie, a bang.

I THINK OF THE MOMS,

2016

of the texts they never want to receive from their daughters— first
I’m scared, next, I don’t know what to do, then, how could you

bring me into this world, knowing this was possible. they’re islanded,
the moms, they’re bound & bound together, they clutch at inordinately

large glasses of wine & one another. they’ve removed their glasses to cry
or worse they’ve forgotten to remove their glasses to cry, they’re smearing

tears & wire, eyeliner & lenses, across their faces in disbelief at the morning news.
it’s November ninth. I think of my family tree, my mom & my nana, I add a branch

for my best friend’s mom & put on every ring they’ve ever given me, every necklace.
I pierce new holes in my ears for every pair of their earrings now mine & throw myself

across the room like I’m dodging something invisible that’s been living here loudly
since they were born, since their mothers’ mothers were born—something they gave

their names to unknowing. I sit & stare into a mirror at my own impossible face
& with a braceletted arm, I reach inside myself & pull out a moat, an axe, an acorn.