Judith Strasser
	Some Poems Want to be Stories A boy grows up. His mother sees the veins the child inked on his arms in the young man's purpled hair. * She lies in bed. How long has it been? Fingers reach for the forest. * The younger brother studies hard; takes his trombone to the ski slopes, perfects his licks in evergreen shade. * She no longer feels the blow. It's the open-hand slaps that leave the stinging impression. * At first, it was only a dream: She left them in front of a desert rat's shack, drove over the sand for miles, seeking retreads for flats on their camper home. When she returned, the kids were gone. * Sun washes the banister. The cat bats at luminous motes. She said: Don't go with your dad. They said: We would be like specks of dust. You would be the tweezers trying to pick us up. * In the end, he commandeered the fish tank--her neon tetras flashing promise, all the silver angels, a coolie loach to scour the bottom. * He played harmonica outside the shack, bent blues into an ache that made a long-haired young woman sing. And his skill with a yo-yo! Jacob's Ladder, Walking the Dog, Around the World, tricks he'd never shown their sons-- * The eight-year-old formed sentences from his spelling words: Will his dad think I migrate? Will my dad think I hibernate? Dad is my vampire. I think Dad is disgusting. * At the new house, seedlings sprout everywhere. She grubs out oaks and maples. The younger boy replants a juniper she has pulled. * The father moved thousands of miles to a new life in a house where the livingroom floods, with a woman they call strange. * The mother's had only one lover, young and strong and skittish. He trolled for fish in the Boundary Waters. She thinks he went back to his wife. * She sleeps with the window open, pulls a comforter tight against drafts blowing cold on her bed. A schooner slips through breaking waves in the forest of her dreams.