“Abandoned” (2024)
Albert John Belmont
Oil on Canvas
where magenta bougainvillea cascades over
adobe walls and yellow orioles chatter
above my hammock, the morning should be
suffused with promise, yet I wear discontent
that itches like a wool sweater on a winter day.
I am born of women dissatisfied.
My great-grandmother left home, ran towards
anything-else when she was just fourteen.
Her daughter cut windows and doors
into walls that already had doors, windows.
My mother moved from state to state
in search of the majestic, chose reinvention
when new became old. My daughter was so restless
she strode right off the stage to dance with needles
and dealers whose very currency was change.
And I, who try so hard to breathe in here and now,
am pulled by strings of DNA across miles and years,
threads that curl and bind like the creeping vines
that strangle cacti and desert trees.
Can I rid myself of ghosts who whisper and suggest?
Can my daughter break the ties before
she is overwhelmed? My son tattooed these vines
up and down his arms to prove that he is free.
Here where desert meets sea, I reach for
a kind of alchemy: a small moment to rest,
appreciate now a tiny crab peering from a hole,
now, a giant frigatebird soaring on thermals, and now,
to know this brief interlude as enough.
the clouds on the horizon
pulsed indigo-edged
surged across the ocean
to erase our sandcastles
our driftwood forts
the tempest was rife with thunderbolts
jagged as the cuts razored
onto my daughter’s arms
electric as her need
for black tar heaven
I cowered behind concrete walls
shut the curtains piled sandbags against
the deluge of accusations of excuses
that forked swift
as lightning from her mouth
what if instead I had gone to meet her
gathered her into my arms—
let my body be a breakwater
after the storm
the crimson bougainvillea hedge
by the front door has withered
desiccated by loss
Cindy Buchanan: I am a 69-year-old white cisgender woman who lives in Washington State and Baja California Sur. My poetry tends to straddle these two worlds, and the beauty and challenges of each place find their way into my lines. The questions and meditations I nourish and explore infuse my poems of place, grief, and life in all its wonder and sorrow. I belong to two poetry groups and study poetry at Hugo House in Seattle. Poetry is the place where I live, grow, and can be in communication with others who share my interests. Online: cindybuchanan.com.