a poem for dar

i wish i could be half as talented as dar williams

she makes characters i know well

the babysitter

i had that same babysitter

named margaret coe

she was sort of a hippie

long brown hair that she cut all off because it got too tangled one day

she couldn’t tell her left from her right

her mind was always other places

when she went to college i cried

i still cry sometimes thinking about her

i wanted to be her

she made drawings for me and my little brother

and cut them out and let us use them as toys

i remembered her even when i was older

and depressed

and i couldn’t remember anything anymore

i have always remembered margaret

when i want to make the choices of mark rothko

but haven’t yet created anything worthy of being kept in a museum

when i hold my bottle of pills

so often it becomes comforting

maybe it’s because i haven’t met yoko ono yet

or seen a sunrise that broke me more than killing my own baby