our existence.
I tell him:
I am not in crisis.
I am part of the rotation.
Ask him if he’s thought more
about where to apply for college.
Mr. Lamb’s voice cuts through,
Constellations aren’t just pretty pictures.
I gaze at the star map,
down at my table black as night,
make sure no one sees me
as I constellate,
dotting
Wite-Out
on the table’s edge:
my
sky
own
night
little
WHERE WINDOWS ARE
STARS
Once when we were little
Mom guided us outside—
past Dad handing “little cigarettes”
to his friends from Mexico—
“Gloria” shouting from the record player—
she left us on the balcony and returned to their smoky haze.
Told us to search for stars.
Sisters in matching gold-speckled party dresses
out in the air
a thousand blinking lights
April asked where the stars were.
I moved her hand from pointing up to straight ahead and said
in New York City, April, windows are stars.
CAPTURING TIME
For some, Yearbook meetings
are gossip sessions.
I try and organize the staff
on copy, quotes, Senior pages—
They call me a stress-case
but they don’t know how relaxing
it is to cut and paste
draw boxes of ruler lines
glide a pen down
and around
smiling faces.
Give them a place to stay.
A memory design.
So that, years later,
we can look and see our faces,
stare into the past
as though looking into the night sky,
where stars that have already died
keep showing us their shine.
When our future might be up in the air,
not knowing where we will be next year,
this is the only way to capture time.
I tell them:
so much will change,
even us,
but this book
will stay the same.
Some nod, some roll their eyes,
but all of them draw
frames like plane windows
on blue graph paper,
the color of sky over water.
REAL-LIFE THINGS
Lasagna night.
We layer
noodles, sauce, cheese,
Dad asks me
if I’ve given more thought
to touring Columbia
(where he teaches)
before I apply early admission.
Heart races as I
imagine my dorm room,
glimpsing Dad in the courtyards,
hosting April uptown for meal plan dinners.
Say, okay, sure, maybe in a few weeks.
James,
dark eye makeup, piercings, tattoos,
Dad’s Teaching Assistant and April’s tutor,
eats with us
then helps April with Spanish,
plays chess with Dad.
Mom, home later after blowing glass all day at her studio.
April and I sit, discuss her new teachers,
my new staff,
spin ice cream into a sweet soup,
watch 90210.
Dad says we should watch shows about real-life things.
Mom tries to join, asks questions about Brenda, Brandon.
I turn up the volume.
Mom eats cold lasagna alone.
TIME TO REMEMBER
I.
Later, on the phone, Chloe yawns,
she and Dylan smoked up,
says her guy is cheating on her.
Hear Chloe’s nonna screaming.
Parents gone. No siblings.
Chloe tries
to smoke it all
away.
But it’s Senior Year, the time to remember
everything.
II.
A long machine message from Adam
saying hi, hope I had a good first day
at school, leading my first Yearbook meeting.
Ever the editor,
offers to brainstorm
yearbook themes with me.
Says he’s been pretty busy,
plans to join a frat.
Lie in bed,
wonder if he’ll drink,
something we used to not do, together.
Eyes closed, listen to Dad listening to opera,
banging around the kitchen, house sounds stirred
with the whooshing cars on the Henry Hudson—
a city lullaby rushing me into easy sleep.
ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN
In the morning, Dad gives us breakfast.
Mom gone again,
like we’re a TV family,
there at her convenience—
she can choose
when she wants
to switch us on, tune us in.
OTHER PEOPLE’S WINDOWS
Twenty Seniors chosen to mentor Freshmen.
April says she has me, why does she need them.
She opts out,
I opt in.
In a room on the twelfth floor I’ve never been to,
the windows here show us into
other people’s lives.
Huddled around a wooden table,
Mr. R tells us congrats on being chosen,
assigns us a partner, a group, tells us
we also have to interview our own mentors.
Something catches my eye,
I peer into the windows:
TV flickering in one.
An old woman in a turban, smoking.
Curtains. A potted plant.
And a little girl staring out,
unblinking like a doll,
too little to be alone.
I raise my hand to wave but
Mr. R calls on me to share with the group.
My mentor is my dad.
I look back to the windows:
TV still flickering in one,
the woman still smoking,
but the little girl, staring out—
gone.
RECORDING SESSION
September
SESSION ONE
So, this is my dad, Dr. Dale Stewart.
He’s a Spanish Literature professor at Columbia.
He’s pretty smart.
Gracias, mija.
Okay, Dad, so we are supposed to interview our mentors. I have a list of questions here.
Shoot.
Number one: What’s the most important quality of a mentor?
Well, before I answer that, do you know who the original Mentor was?
What do you mean?
From the Odyssey. Odysseus left Mentor in charge of his kingdom when he went away: Mentor watched over Odysseus’s son. He did this gladly. You see, a mentor teaches for the love of teaching. A mentor leads his students, sometimes indirectly, to the answer.
A mentor can be sneaky.
(Laughs, coughs)
What’s your answer to the question