A Compilation of Bday Wishes for Jose Padua
Happy Birthday Booklet for Jose Padua
A sample:
Houses
–for José on his birthday
You send me another one, at work, mid-morning, pixels
flying through the ether to form pictures of a life
five feet closer to perfect: emails that link to dream house
after dream house, each one more virtuous than the next,
at the beach, in the city, hidden in towns we’ve never heard of.
You don’t tire of looking because what if it exists—
that single impossible find—like an undiscovered planet
in an infant universe spinning miles from the skittish
dogs next door, the cops stopped across the street again,
and the bleary-eyed woman, cigarette alight, whose racist slurs
fail to break the lawn guy. What if it’s out there, far
from small-town stillness and mortal time?
The house we live in now, one hundred years old, sits
on stone, telling fortunes to the wind, whispering
sweet nothings we love but should ignore. Remember,
years ago, on the train ride out west, my hand warm
under yours, yours solid over mine as we sliced through the night,
shrinking valleys and mountains, searching. Remember
the births—a girl, then a boy—their tiny bodies like harbor lights
in the darkness of our room, signaling this is home? It’s enough
and never enough. We all deserve a roof—of metal, wood, or clay—
but also something diaphanous that lets in moonlight
and distance, that serves up stars in their eternal shining. We’re always
building houses, all of us, in our own blood, in our lover’s eyes,
real ones for shelter and metaphors to stretch out in as we run.
–Heather Davis
Heather Lynne Davis 