Poems by Rose

The Shipwright’s Gift
 
The meandering vessel drifted
In an ocean of endless possibilities,
Winds had her thrown and twisted,
A maiden voyage out of the Philippines
Landed her in the midst of hostilities.
 
Two and a half decades forgotten 
When she felt the Shipwright’s hands—
For her a steadfast rudder was begotten 
And set her course by unseen plans,
Toward quiet, waiting sands.
 
She answered softly to each tide,
A smaller will beneath her hand,
Where once the wilder currents vied,
She turned her gently, sure and grand,
And found her course not hers, but planned.
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My Little Regular
 
I’ve never tended bar before,
but two years in, I know the type:
a customer who cries for more,
convinced that every want is right.
 
Her high chair is her barroom stool;
her Cheerios fill the snack bowl.
She stuffs them in, then drains her cup,
then lifts it high: Fill this back up.
 
Her speech is slurred, conviction strong;
she knows she’s right when she is wrong.
She sways and staggers when she walks,
then babbles on as though she talks.
 
More, more, more—she wants her fill;
I cut her off; she protests still.
She has no notion when she’s through;
her shirt gets half a serving too.
 
She spots a child and points their way,
then points straight down beside my chair.
I set her down; she sways away
with sudden, fearless social flair.
 
No names exchanged, no shy hello;
she lifts her shirt without a care.
Her belly button steals the show—
she’s certain friendship starts right there.
 
She soils herself, she throws up too,
then smiles as only toddlers do.
Her eyelids droop; she fights the call,
still certain she’s not tired at all.
 
Bartenders may be underpaid
for every spill they clean and clear.
I cannot make the same complaint—
the best gift of my life sits here.
 
I make last call and clear the mess,
then lift my regular to rest.
She fights the sleep she cannot win—
tomorrow’s shift begins again.
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Do You Remember?
 
Do you remember when we went to dinner for your first birthday, 
black pearls looped lightly around your wrist? 
The chef sent onions blazing in a bright display,
and wonder turned to tears through smoke and mist. 
After dinner, five short minutes—the strand gave way, 
black beads bounced beneath each chair and shoe; 
I knelt to gather every pearl astray, 
learning how fast childhood slips from view. 
 
Do you remember when we went through the car wash when you were two, 
where brushes beat and colored currents streamed? 
Your little head kept darting, unsure what light might do, 
while every window shimmered, shook, and gleamed. 
I sat beside you, holding tightly to your hand, 
while water drummed and whirled against the glass; 
your dad and I were still together then, our lives still planned, 
not knowing that year would be our last. 
 
Do you remember when we went to our smaller home at three, 
after your dad and I had gone our separate ways? 
One bedroom waited; it belonged to you, not me, 
a place for play, for little toys, for brighter days. 
I slept out in the living room each night, 
and painted Peppa’s hills across your wall— 
her house, her pond, her flowers soft and bright, 
a little world to soften it all. 
 
Do you remember when we went on safari when you turned five, 
where animals wandered close beside the lake? 
We slept in a tent high above, the whole wild world alive, 
while dusk drew down and every shadow seemed to wake. 
Then midnight filled with calls across the night, 
low cries and rustling replies from shore to shore; 
we listened from our high tent, hushed by sound and sight, 
while all the animals made music once more. 
 
Do you remember when we went to pack Thanksgiving food with care, 
frozen turkeys, baby pumpkins, produce set in rows? 
We filled each box for families waiting there, 
passing plenty hand to hand as kindness grows. 
Did you know, since your father and I said goodbye, 
boxes just like these had helped us make it through? 
I packed them knowing how it felt to just get by, 
and what it meant to need one, too. 
 
Do you remember when we went to celebrate your seventh year, 
when I asked what gift you wanted most that day? 
You said, “Tesla stock—it’s going to do well,” so clear, 
as if you knew which way the world would sway. 
So I bought the share, then took you off to play, 
where Disney filled the hours with its thrills; 
then by helicopter we rose above L.A., 
and watched the city glitter past the Hills. 
 
Do you remember when we went to Our Exhibition when you were nine,
in San Francisco, where our paintings shared a wall? 
Your work was framed beside my work, your name beside mine, 
two artists there together in one hall. 
Strangers stopped and studied what we had made,
then chose the pieces they would take away; 
our paintings left with strangers; still, that moment stayed, 
and I stood beside you, proud of us that day. 
 
Do you remember when we went to the Philippines five months later, 
to celebrate the holidays and all that we had done? 
We crossed an underground river, bats above the water, 
then surfaced into heat and island sun. 
We bought golden pearls, then sailed a yacht at sea, 
where you tasted tropical fruits beneath the sun; 
by New Year, fireworks flared from our balcony, 
while I, by journey’s end, could taste not one. 
 
Do you remember when we went to Paris when you were twelve, 
and climbed the Eiffel Tower in summer light? 
The city spread beneath us—rooftops, roads, hotels, 
all running to the edges of our sight. 
We stayed inside a little hotel with a bidet, 
then ate saucisson beside the Seine; 
of all the grand things Paris gave that day, 
I remember how happy you were that we came. 
 
Do you remember when we went to our apartment rooftop in the sun, 
where pots and vines pushed color through the gray? 
Your tomatoes bore the most when harvest had begun, 
red fruit ripening richer every day. 
Across from us, one neighbor showered plain in view, 
her window bare, with nothing there to blind; 
still, by Fall, we had enough to see us through, 
and laughed at all the madness left behind. 
 
And if you do not remember, Alexa, that is all right, 
if photographs hold more than memory can keep; 
I will remember every color, sound, and light, 
each little thing the years may bury deep. 
I’ll keep the pearls, the gardens, sky and sea, 
and carry what grows faint across the years; 
the hand I held, the child you used to be, 
the laughter, losses, love, and little fears. 
 
You do not have to remember every place. 
I will remember them for us.
 
Just remember me.
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What I Carried Into Bloom
 
I planted one rose in careful soil,
worked the earth until the roots sat right,
thinking all I had to do was tend it—
water, wait, and watch it find the light.
 
But aphids found the tender growth first;
mildew whitened leaves still opening green.
I reached for what was sold as protection—
sprayed and sprayed, yet still they clung to green.
 
So I learned each leaf by its underside,
picked the pests before they reached the bud,
wiped the white away, retied the canes,
kept feeding roots beneath the soil.
 
And still—
the rose grew.
 
New canes reached beyond the battered branches,
roots ran deeper than the damage knew,
until one morning red broke through the green—
there it was:
what I carried into bloom.
 
For years I thought the damage was the sorrow.
It wasn’t.
 
The rose still flowered.
The rose still grew.
 
What I lost was spring—
the quiet right to watch a bud unfold,
to touch a leaf without first checking under,
to simply see what every season told.
 
Eventually, I stopped treating symptoms
in soil that would not let the sickness end.
I loosened every root with careful fingers,
lifted what I loved,
and planted it again.
 
Not because the rose had failed to flourish.
Not because its roots refused to stay.
But living things deserve more than surviving
whatever keeps returning day by day.
 
So I carried it beyond that garden,
gave its roots more room to spread and breathe,
and watched new growth reach freely toward the sunlight
with less to fight,
and less to lose.
 
Now sometimes I pass another gardener
kneeling where the newest roses rise,
hands free enough to notice what is opening,
nothing overhead but open skies.
 
I do not want their rose.
I would never trade mine.
 
I only mourn the season spent protecting
when I should have had the peace
to simply watch it grow—
 
each first leaf,
each first thorn,
each first perfume—
 
all the little miracles
I carried,
then carried farther,
 
into bloom.
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Are You Proud of Me?
 
Are you proud of me—
of every locked door I learned to leave,
of all I built with blistered hands and nerve,
the work, the words, the life I dared retrieve
from every loss I somehow made me serve?
 
Are you daunted by me—
by how much room I finally learned to take?
Do you think I’m too much because I grew
too sure of who I am, too firm to shake,
too whole to make myself grow small for you?
 
And what about the wreckage—
the loves I chose, the promises misplaced,
the years I poured where nothing learned to bloom,
the times I left with dignity half-wasted
and swept my scattered self out of the room?
 
Are you proud of me?
 
Not you.
 
You.
 
Alexa—
 
your eyes outweigh the praise of crowded rooms;
your voice can quiet every doubt I knew.
 
Follow my footsteps—I will light the way.
Carve your own road—I’ll marvel where it grew.
 
Go farther.
Grow wiser.
Choose what I could not see.
 
I never need you to become like me.
 
I only hope, when every road is yours,
you’ll know I never asked you for my stride.
I taught you how to listen for your own,
then trusted you to choose where it would guide.
 
Let others count the doors I opened wide,
the things I built, the losses I outgrew.
 
When all of that has faded into distance—
 
Alexa,
 
are you proud of me?
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Where the Inheritance Ends
 
Mama, I know now what I could not know then— 
how love can bow beneath a vow, 
how silence settles under skin, 
how staying can be sacred somehow. 
 
You stayed for us. 
I left for mine. 
 
Divorce was disgrace, 
duty called divine. 
 
You thought a mother held the house 
even when the house held harm. 
 
I was one of three, 
but I was first— 
the eldest branch bent first. 
Sister, sentinel, second mother, 
small shoulders serving every other. 
 
I learned the room 
before I learned myself, 
learned to shelve 
what I felt 
for everyone else. 
 
At your table, 
my body was not mine. 
When I vomited, 
you made me swallow it again— 
warm, wet, sour, 
obedience served for supper. 
 
Now when my daughter says, 
“I’m full,” 
I let the bread go cold. 
I let her body tell the truth. 
I let her NO stay whole. 
 
Mama, there were two of you. 
 
Honeyed voice, helping hands— 
then footsteps feared from far. 
 
They got your kindness. 
I got what kindness hid. 
 
They called you Saint 
because they never had to be your kid. 
 
Your nails left red crescents in my skin— 
small blood-moons blooming where your fingers had been. 
Now I leave crescents on my daughter too: 
lipstick-red, soft, gone with a wipe or two. 
 
Same crescent. 
Same red. 
Yours drawn in blood. 
Mine drawn in love. 
 
You left me black and blue— 
colors I had to hide, 
bruises that kept me home from school 
until the evidence subsided. 
 
My daughter and I paint black and blue now— 
black canvases bathed in blues, 
galaxies, nebulae, deep-space light 
made by hands allowed to choose. 
 
Yours kept me hidden. 
Ours hung in a gallery. 
 
Mama, you had one man 
with many forms of harm. 
I had many men, 
each carrying one shard of him. 
 
I did not repeat your marriage. 
I repeated its fragments. 
 
Mama, I think about your breasts— 
the place where hunger first is fed. 
Milk, warmth, shelter— 
then cancer rooted there instead. 
 
Not justice. 
Not punishment. 
Not debt the body earned. 
 
Only the cruelest contradiction: 
what nourished 
became what burned. 
 
And I am a mother now, Mama— 
close enough to see 
the Wife beneath the rage, 
the Girl before the Cage. 
 
But understanding does not erase 
the plate, 
the bruises, 
the crescents, 
the shame. 
 
Pain may explain the hand that strikes. 
It cannot make the striking holy. 
 
Still— 
I forgive you. 
 
Not because the hurt became sacred. 
Not because the past grew small. 
Not because death made you innocent 
of what I still recall. 
 
I forgive you because I see you 
whole enough to hold both truths: 
 
the Saint they knew, 
the woman I knew, 
the hurt you gave, 
the hurt done to you. 
 
Mama, I am ten years 
from the age you were when you died. 
 
Not mother over daughter. 
Not child beneath command. 
Just two women, 
wounds between us, 
finally old enough to understand. 
 
I would tell you I was angry. 
I would tell you I survived. 
I would tell you I became the mother 
I once needed in my life. 
 
And then I would say: 
 
I see you. 
 
I see the woman beneath Mama. 
I see the Wife beneath the rage. 
I see the frightened Girl you must have been 
before the years became a Cage. 
 
I see what you could not break. 
 
And I see what I did. 
 
So when I kiss my daughter’s cheek 
and leave a little red behind, 
I think forgiveness may be this— 
 
the bruise becoming lipstick, 
the silence becoming speech, 
the hand once raised in anger 
becoming one that reaches 
only to hold.
 
You stayed for us. 
I left for mine. 
 
And here, 
the inheritance ends.