"All the Lovely Normal Stuff" by Mary Soon Lee, Poet of the Week

All the Lovely Normal Stuff

Mary Soon Lee

       In Memory of Amber Miro

I combed the tangles from my daughter's hair;

sliced bagels, put them in the toaster;

poured juice into plastic glasses;

read my book at breakfast,

interrupted by my son telling me

seemingly every one of the cartoons in his book;

sorted out bills to pay, stamped envelopes;

walked down the road

in the blue sky sunlight;

watched my daughter stretching high

to put the letters in the mailbox,

and then the ritual race

back up the hill;

all the things I'd done a hundred times,

all the lovely normal stuff

you used to like to hear about.

Poet's Notes: Amber Miro was my best friend since I was six or seven years old. When I was in her company, I was exhilarated and slightly wilder. I didn't get into trouble often when I was a child, but the little I did get into was mostly with Amber. She died of cancer in 2012. In an email message written the month before she died, she told me that she wanted to hear about "all the lovely normal stuff." And the week after she died, I tried to write about it.

Editor’s Note:  Mary does a fine job transforming the quotidian into the poetic in this moving elegy for her friend.