Halfway North

At the end of the week we dragged our various brokenness

west on highway 29, across the Mississippi river, through the tangled Cities

and landed on a Minnesota lake encircled with plenty.

Not quite the wilderness but at night you can still see the stars and the light

shines in yellow parallellograms on thick green lawns that roll

all the way to the shore.

And though I am 56 times around the sun I throw my pillow on a couch

my backpack in a corner my Kwik Trip chicken strip box in the fridge –

I fill my cup with ice and whiskey and Sprite

and we walk out to the dock in the late October sunshine that skitters on the lake.

Are we not all broken-hearted,

half healed half hurt and cracked like clams half buried in the mud

half pulling ourselves across the muddy lakebed

while dappled sun filters down through the weeds, don’t we ask only for the

light shedding softly from the surface?

Loons push themselves away from any trouble,

diving and coming up again yards and yards away, calling out to each other

and giving themselves away for trouble to find them again.

We all carry the chains of heartaches big and small:

frayed and lost love, holes ripped straight through our families,

cop cars parked sideways in the lawn, midnight trips to the ER,

catfished hearts and thumbprint bruises in the arms,

narcissism where love should be, stony silence,

fuzzy toys and water bowls untouched,

sirens piercing the night.

And yet, and yet –

we can stand with bowls of chili in the kitchen in the warm light, chilled from the lake,

neighbors and friends and kids bursting in with coolers and crackers and Fireball whiskey,

exclaiming over the house, over each other, over wedding bands and majors declared we

build a roaring fire despite the wet wood we

tell stories beneath our blankets, flames against the lake, we

reconnect the dots we throw the empty cans on the ground for tomorrow, we

call out for songs we stand at the table with cups filled, unfilled, half-filled we

flip and stack and share and tease and chase and we

are young again, the years falling away we

laugh until we cry, we cry, laughing.

Though we are all still somewhat broken and we will stay ever broken

our edges are maybe rounded a little and tomorrow when we bundle ourselves

in jackets and blankets and Birkenstocks for the last pontoon boat ride of the year

the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald blasting unironically across the lake

we are made ready to carry

those smoothed broken bones back home with us again, back across the state,

having turned them over and over and tested them by fire and worn them down

by lake water lapping maybe we

can carry them a little further, a little longer

down this uncertain road.

(for Maria)