Read Skyscraping for Free Online Page B

season to change,
    less than half the summer,
    the time it takes a baby
    to learn day from night.
    It’s taken less time than that
    for my life to
    break.
    To think of losing him
    feels like losing
    the ground.
    Here, white bottles
    of lost hope
    filled with herbs
    still sit,
    gathering dust,
    on the indigo glass
    coffee table.
    I line them now in a row.
    Wipe their dust.
    Place them one by one in a bag,
    head back to the hospital.
    A month is enough time
    for the moon to fade
    and be remade.
    But not long enough
    to say I’m sorry or
    goodbye.

UPSIDE-DOWN KINGDOM
    Hover outside the room with this bag of herbs, a spy.
    Fight my own impulse to run the other way, fly.
    Dad, broken lips, bruised arms, hospital bed.
    A rough white washcloth, James pats his head,
    reads to him from his favorite book,
Don Quixote
.
    I shift in the doorway.
    All of spring break spent catching up on homework,
    taking turns caring for Dad,
    I’ve been reading him
Alice in Wonderland
,
    she almost drowns in a river of her own tears,
    lost, confused in an upside-down kingdom,
    something he used to read
    to us before bed.
    James walks out, nods at me,
    passes me the rough cloth, a baton,
    and, like Alice, given no choice
    but to bathe in her own tears,
    I take it—
    trade places with him,
    the cloudy white room of
    my own upside-down kingdom,
    with cloth,
    bag of herbs,
    tape recorder
    in hand, I wade in.

RECORDING SESSION
    March
    SESSION SIX
    Dad, I have what I need for school.
    But I’d like to keep asking you questions, just because.
    (Coughs)
    Okay, let’s keep at it.
    What do you have in your sack there?
    The herbs.
    Maybe April’s right—maybe they could help.
    (Pause)
    (More coughing)
    Okay.
    (Pause)
    I’ll think about it.
    (Pause)
    Dad, what would you like to do . . . with your time?
    Finish reading
The Byzantine Empire.
Cook. Create.
    Spend time with the people I love.
    (Pause)
    Dad, I’m sorry for—
    I know, Miranda. It’s okay. Me too . . .
    (Coughs)
    Could you pass me a tissue?
    Sure.
    (Coughs)
    Mira, you, you have to—
    (Coughs)
    make a future you are proud of—
    Dad.
    Life’s short, Miranda. Make it matter.
    Okay.
    I know.
    (Pause)
    I will.

LIT BRIGHT
    F ULL M OON , 24 D AYS L EFT
    i don’t take a cab
    the end of March air coats me
    it is cool breezy and my jacket is thin
    but after the hospital i just want to walk and
    savor time the moon is full follow it down
    the city streets one month and almost a week’s
    passed already Dad’s words about my future en-
    circle me i know i need to use the time left
    to grow love from something waning
    to something waxing, watered,
    bright,   round,   full

ANOTHER LAYER
    Dad home in a few days,
    I sit and do homework.
    Time seems to slow
    if you focus on words, facts, solving problems.
    Interrupted by April, crying.
    I rub her back, tell her
    I brought him all the bottles.
    Told him I think he should take them.
    She smiles through tears,
    goes out to see Gloria.
    Mom’s doing laundry, sorting, folding.
    Guess we all have our ways of coping.
    Wander into the kitchen, wonder what Dad
    would cook if he were home.
    Pull ingredients: Onions. Tomatoes. Noodles.
    Dice onions evenly. Measure. Pour.
    Brown the meat. Pink fades,
    a nest of oil fills the pan.
    Move the cheese along the grater,
    Mom walks in.
    She asks how Dad was today,
    if I’m ready for school tomorrow.
    I say he seemed okay, ignore the school question.
    Keep grating.
    She says she wants to answer the question I asked
    months ago:
    why she had children.
    I pause.
    Keep my head down. Continue.
    Chop tomatoes, pieces pool in juice,
    seeds swim and scatter.
    She says she wanted to do things differently than her own mom,
    says she fell in love with Dad fast,
    wanted him, only him, to be the father of her children.
    She says wanting children is different than having them.
    I stir the onions in with the tomatoes.
    We scared her. Our need. He was better with us, always.
    First layer into the pan. Neatly laid.
    Noodles,