just a little light reading

It always felt like Stävö was golden.

The two yellow summer cottages,

the sun never ducking fully below the horizon,

the swans and vipers and elk all, somehow, 

coexisting. 

The peeling bark of the birches – gold leaf 

parchment waiting for the indelible pen of 

midnight dusk to write fairytales into its fibers.

I was a goddess, or maybe just a witch,

and no place woke me the way the archipelago did.

Pappa sang and my mother was the kindest

ambassador anyone could imagine. I was always

in the woods or scampering up a rock wall or diving

for seagrass, and my sister – who definitely was a

pagan deity – watched for vipers at my ankles

and mosquitoes at my ears. I was a witch for certain.

Nothing is as calm as a sunlit night, and nothing is as wild. 

No one is ever surprised by how warm it is

in the summer. Everyone danced while Farfar

played the accordion, and nobody saw the tear

fall from his smiling eyes because everyone 

was champagne sparkling from the inside out

and the bonfire was glowing and the sun was

just at eye-level as everyone sang “Helan går.”

The vodka shone gold in all its little cups.

Farmor took Farfar’s hand and kissed him on

the head the way she always did.

“Sjung hopp faderallan lej!”

I ran through fields and scuttled up

over glacial mountains, chasing elk

and running from minks with my 

sister and our cousins - a coven of

the smallest witches you could hope

to find. Even before we all shared

a common tongue we were able to 

send out incantations in row boats

and midsummer bonfires to be

received by seagulls and nattfjärilar. 

Blueberries grew wild in white 

birch forests and strawberries 

sprung up in the summer wherever

there was ground to hold them. 

Farmor taught us everything we 

needed to know about magic.

In the forest: where the trolls

lived, and the fairies, and which

mushrooms were chanterelles 

and which were a trip 

to the hospital. 

By the sea: why you must

look for vipers, how to

save their shed skin, how to

kill them. 

At home: why sea salt is best,

how to make a salmon soup

to cure all ailments, which

boxed wines are ganska bra,

where to find your family.

Now Pernilla lives in Stockholm,

Paulina in Sydney,

and Emilia - my tiny magic sister -

is learning new magic in New Orleans. 

We tell ourselves that someday

we will buy back the property

and rebuild the house where our fathers

grew up and where we

were taught to be wild.

You went to Brooklyn once and you

listen to jazz now. Now, when I am

in your bed without you, I am writing

for the music I have lost. I am always

writing for the things I have lost. I wish

I could write about my cat or Boston or

Poppasquash in the summer.

There is the sharp and lovely voice of

a pair of stilettos on the icy sidewalk

below the window which you opened 

just before you left to get to work. It is

9:10 on a Saturday evening and you are

off to serve drinks to strangers at a bar

downtown and I am sober in your bed

trying to string together a phrase that

will capture the light and the sound of

the room so I can tell you about it –

how much I miss you – when you get

home at 3:30 in the morning. 

                                               This 

room is heat and the cotton on my

skin burns like feathers in a fire.

I am afraid I will not get out of bed

and I will lose my hair to the 

uncontrollable rage that loses itself

inside me and then still manages to

find its way out. While you are

pouring Long Islands and nuclears

I am pouring ink into my mouth 

and I am praying – though I don’t – 

that when I kiss your face you will

be so consumed by the poetry that you

will read it back to me and 

                                           when we

are in Marshfield again, you will offer

me your favorite pillow and the inside. 

And air is clear and green. It is, except

for when it is red cold breathing into your sinuses,

creeping into your skull to squeeze

the last bit of the Atlantic Ocean

out of your brain. And it doesn’t have 

body, it doesn’t have anything, 

but you still see it when it leaves

your face.

And did you tell your mother about 

them – about the leaves? God, if 

she could see peak season in the

Finger Lakes region she would know – 

by the magnitude of colors and 

the richness of the cooling and also

the odd harmony with which everything

is happening – 

how much you love me 

(and why I can’t get married in

a Catholic church).

And well, I would right now – 

I would marry you with coffee rings

from an old wooden table, with

bouquets of rosemary and sage and

giant sprigs of dill, with red wine

and no gown and a veil of frost –

by the moon 

and the lake

and the popcorn kernels stuck in your gums,

I would do it.