NATALIE SOLMER

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My mother’s eyes—a green sometimes blue, or gray—   my father
studied them
    the way he studied light     with his camera lens

constantly, there was a sadness, Slavic and cloud-like.
    My parents trailed this into the high school gymnasium.

Tall and shy, they danced an awkward sway.    What clouds
did they give me?    What did I take?

I worry them, I think of    my mother’s Polish nickname—cebula.
They called her onion   for her eyes,   huge and moony.

She was lonely and in love    with her record player, nightly
lifting its needle.    My father’s heart was full    of math,

and broken    cherry trees.    I was born blue
    at the end    of tornado season,

spent time    in an oxygen tent
    while a storm’s green soup    passed through.