For your birth,
metal instruments sing you
and your fluorescent halo
into being.

At your baptism
you are pressed
by the hands of power
into stale water
against your will.

This is your first day of school:
sick with the bus’s diesel fumes,
tripping on the toes of giants.

For your wedding
the family dynamite flies in.
Their coat tails trail with thick fuses
that you navigate in your blue shoes
you keep your fire to yourself
as hornets sleep in the palms of your roses.

In midlife,
your parents leave you
in explosive fashion.
They leave their coats to you,
the coats you already wear.

At your death,
you throw open a window.
You walk to the fishing pier,
down across the blinding planks
alone, and smile.

Tess Matukonis has found her way back to Charlottesville, Va. When she is not writing poetry she is camping, foraging, eating raw oysters or moshing. Her poetry has appeared in Tule Review, Vilas Avenue and The Wax Paper, and is forthcoming in great weather for MEDIA‘s yearly anthology.