Texas Pride

I will always be a Texan,
even if I never live there again.
I will always know
pecans,
bar b-que,
refried beans,
pork tamales,
brisket,
and seventy degree winters.
I will always know a Texas sky.
That blue cloudless
sky
with the golden light.
The warm air.
The bluebonnets,
proud and strong.
I will remember
no matter where I am,
where I came from.
I pity the rest of you
non-Texans.

Silently Screaming

His name is Hui,
pronounced we.
I let him stick needles into my
back and neck.
Yesterday
he stuck one in the top of my shoulder
and I screamed.
He said I needed it.
He said I carried the weight of the world
on my shoulder.
I guess I do.
After I let go,
after I stopped feeling the sting of the needle,
I felt a rush of emotions,
almost as if someone had popped a zit
on my face
and let the pus run out.
I thought about how much pain I carry
and wondered how many other places
in my body
are silently screaming.

Typical Houston Weather

It is hot here.
The kind of weather you pay
thousands of dollars to have
in winter.
The kind of weather that thaws your bones
and renews your faith
that Spring will come again.
Walking with my dog,
I see the small green buds
coming out of the ground.
The ones that will bring the tulips
and the daffodils.
I am like those flowers
buried under ground
for so long
I thought I would die
before I would ever feel the sun
on my head again.

Perfume Bottles and Pills

There is something wrong
in thinking you are wrong
all the time.
What a terrible thing to go through life
questioning every turn.
Should I have gone right instead of left?
Should I have walked instead of run?
Should I have left the beans in the pot
two minutes longer?
There is no winning
in this thinking?
Every choice becomes an obstacle course.
Every decision a regret.
I know a woman
who lives in regret.
locked in perfume bottles
and pills.
Each day is one more
she could have done
differently.

The Truth

The truth is
no one gives a damn.
The truth is
you just have to keep your head down,
shut up,
keep going
and find the soft
dewy
spot
you have longed for all your life
somewhere
other
than in others.
It is there.
I promise.
There
in
your downy pillow,
the one that keeps your head afloat.
The one that is flat and limp,
and lifeless,
and stained.
The one you have hugged
and cried into
and vowed to
and screamed in to
night after night.
The one that has silenced you
when no one else could.

Solitary Motion

How many times have you said
you were committed
and I have turned back to find you
scratching your head,
and shifting from one foot to another
like a little boy
needing to pee?
Perhaps I should stop
looking back
if I want
to go
forward.

Walking In Circles

I thought we were walking
together,
you and I.
Arm and arm
against the wind,
against the tide.
But I was wrong.
You were walking on your path.
And I
was just walking
in circles.

Christmas Shopping

At the beach
in December,
we walk
and play
and throw the ball
to our dog.
It is seventy degrees
and everyone else is Christmas
shopping.
But I can think
of nothing I want from a store
that could ever take the place of the sand on my feet,
the sun in my hair,
or the sound of the waves,
as they roll in to greet me.

Tom

On Saturdays
you would come visit me
while your girlfriend was at work
at the Homeless Shelter.
We would walk along the beach,
our hands barely touching,
like lips.
In class,
you would read your poems aloud,
your beautiful love poems
that pulsed with a heat
like no one else’s.
You would look up from the page,
your blue eyes blazing
lovely,
and you would stare at me
burn me,
melt me.
When you finished
we would both be red.
Breathless.
Wetness,
under me,
folding my legs
like a flamingo,
hiding my
pink, soft flesh.
Looking down,
avoiding you,
and your gaze.
No one in the room knew
your words
were about me.
I was your
Wild, Dark and Passion.
Now
I think of you
and of her,
the milky, soft spoken
plain girl,
who I called my friend,
and I wonder
if she shares your name.
I wonder
who you are writing about
now.

Honey Boy

I have tried to be good,
to let your indiscretions fall away
like dead tree limbs.
To stand still,
and not fall in to the mud pit
you so often leave behind for me.
I have tried to hide
the soft wet tears
and smile
when you claw at me
with your beak.
I have tried
to keep my head above water
even when the rocks have slipped out from beneath
my feet.
I have tried
to tell myself,
you mean only goodness
and do not know
that you offend.
I have tried to offer myself to you
like honey
hoping you would drink me in
and I could soothe the rage inside you.

I didn’t deny it
when the librarian pulled up my card and said,
“Oh, You still work at the library, don’t you?”
And I didn’t deny it
when she asked me,
“What do you do?”
and I said, “homework assistant.”
And I didn’t deny it
when she asked me if it were a long
commute from where I live to the Pruitt Branch.
"It’s not too bad," I said.
I don’t know why I did it.
I just couldn’t bring myself to say
I didn’t work for the library anymore.
Maybe it’s the fact that I never get charged late fees,
or maybe I just want to be a part of something,
or maybe I just don’t want to let the library know
they’re so fucked up
they think I work for them
even when I haven’t worked for them
for almost three years.

Doctor Laura

She is the doctor,
doling out prescription pills
like she were Willy Wonka
handing out Everlasting Gobstoppers.
Pink and green.
Blue and white.
She hands them out
night after night,
confident
she knows best.
All the while
killing them
one small swallow
at a time.

Empty Bottles

They tore the beige house down.
The one on the corner
where the little black girl
used to sit with her grandmother.
The little girl would drink Orange soda.
The grandmother would drink something
that came in a long thin brown paper bag.
Now nothing’s left
but their empty bottles.

The Ghosts of West Meade

I have to get away
from the ghosts of West Meade.
They chase me down the long hall
and into the pink tiled 50’s bathroom.
They moan at me
from underneath the crawl space
where the cave crickets live.
They drink mint juleps
on the hill
behind the fence
in the civil war graveyard
and laugh
and laugh.
They sleep in the wood piles
and inhabit the sticks my dog plays with
on the blacktop.
I see him
running with them in his mouth,
spinning round and round
like he were possessed,
like he were holding
more than sticks.
They are everywhere,
breathing
fear into me,
keeping me locked
in their grasp.
Today
I left them behind
in my house in West Meade
and went to the ghetto.
There
no one can get me
but the Crips next door.

Tradition

I should go and bring some Christmas.
I should go and bring some cheer.
I should buy the tree and put up the lights
and bake cookies for them
and the dogs.
I should go and bring some Christmas.
The kind we never had when I was growing up.
One with quiet,
and laughter,
and the smell of pie baking in the oven.
Not the backyard,
dog shit,
poison ivy,
dirt trail,
run into the ground,
leading no where,
wreath
hanging on a door
no one can see from the street,
screaming,
remote,
crying,
showerless,
struggle,
burn the dinner,
blame
game,
t.v. re-run,
Christmas.
I should go and bring some Christmas.
But who am I to break
our traditions?

Test Tube Baby

I had an MRI yesterday.
Me ,
the claustrophobe.
It was my third one
in the last five years.
I was supposed to have it on Monday,
but I was near the place
and I had a weird feeling
they might have an opening,
and I was feeling kind of brave,
so I stopped in.
Sure enough,
they’d just had a cancellation.
I quickly
popped half a valium,
unwrapped my new lavender eye pillow,
and said, “o.k.”.
I hate MRI’s.
The fucking tube they stick you in
is a nightmare.
But this time
I said I wasn’t going to look.
So before they ever slid me in the tube,
I put my eye pillow over my eyes,
put the headsets on they gave me,
and let them push me in.
I kept trying to think of that song
“Ground Control to Major Tom…”
pretending I was an astronaut in a space ship
orbiting the earth
on some really important mission.
But it didn’t help.
The only way I could get calm
was to have one of the techs keep their hand
on my leg
so I knew that I existed “out there”.
It really helped.
I told her “leg toucher” should be a paid position.
But I couldn't hear what she said back.
I was listening to the Beach Boys sing
“Help Me Rhonda”
and “Little Deuce Coup,”
and whatever else they had
on the oldies station.
I felt the valium kick in
and I slid into this weird alternative universe
where someone could knock but I
didn’t have to get up to answer the door.
I just kept listening to the knocking
And thinking about her hand on my leg
and hoping it was a her.
The truth is
I didn’t know who was touching me.
Thirty minutes later they slid me out
like a body at the morgue.
I lifted off my eye pillow
and squinted under the bright lights.
The girl who had been touching my leg leaned over and said
It was all over with.
I wanted to pay her,
or bless her,
or take her to dinner.
Something.
I have never been so comforted by a stranger.
She just smiled.
But she didn't know
what I had just done.
I walked through my fears.
I did it.
Next time I’m going to try to do it
without the valium.
But I really hope
there won’t be a next time.

Beauty

I stood over them,
a shattered knife,
my eyes
picnic tables
smoking
marbles.
I know how desire blooms.
The orchid
flames
without ever knowing
the boy
across the street
then shrinks like a child
in a box.
For me
beauty
comes
in meters.
Words
fall and crest
like waves,
riding to the shore
and lapping at my feet.

Single Mindedness

There is so much here
to clutter up my mind.
The hawk in the tree
hunting for lunch.
The sound of the dishwasher
moaning over and over.
The telephone calls
of my father
as he slips
further
and further
into insanity.
I do not know
where to begin.
This morning
I pushed a mop
and scrubbed the kitchen.
I accidentally bleached
the vinyl breakfast seats
leaving them streaked,
half dirty, half clean.
I wish I had never touched them.
It didn't matter.
Now there is sun
and the hawk
has come down.
He has only one thing
on his mind.

Mother Love

Why did I stick my hand in your mouth
and expect you not to bite?
You who have bit me over and over again?
You who have taken the bread from my hand
and left me nothing?
I came to you
and shared my news,
my glorious news.
I stood there,
naked,
as my diary,
and waited for you to love me.
But all you did was shit upon me,
uncurl your tongue
and strike
with your cynicism.
All you did was ask me
to be
what I am not.

Frankenstein's Fingers

It’s 11:30
and I am sitting at Starbucks
shivering.
Winter is here.
Last night
I went out looking
for gloves
at Target.
Everything there was Made in China
and Made of Crap.
I tried on one pair of gloves.
They made my fingers look like Frankenstein’s,
all round and distorted and stitched
like a drunk man got hold of a sewing machine.
Even the “designer” gloves were crap.
They had fancy names
but they were lined with acrylic.
Acrylic doesn’t keep your hands warm.
Neither does polyester.
I should know.
I have a pair of those polyester polartech gloves
and they never kept my hands warm.
Now I see people walking around in the same gloves
smiling,
and I know their hands have to be freezing.
Unless they’ve gotten so numb
they don’t even realize their hands are cold.

A Real Fake

Tonight I had a grilled cheese sandwich
for dinner.
Well, it wasn’t real cheese,
it was soy cheese,
but it tasted so good
I didn’t have to convince myself
that it wasn’t the real thing.
It was melty and crunchy and brown
and it felt just like real cheese
going down.
For dessert
I bought a Hershey’s Chocolate bar with Almonds.
I didn’t like it.
It must have been too real.

Proverb

Don't waste your time
talking to the deaf.
They'll never hear
what you have to say.

No

In retrospect,
I know what I did wrong;
I discussed it with him.
That was my mistake.
If I had just said “no”
I would have been spared
the verbal beating I got.
But I tried to convince,
and to plead my case.
I tried to make him understand me.
As a result,
there is bad blood
between us.
Now, the curtain is down.
I have seen sides
of him
I never wanted to know
existed.

High Anxiety

I’m having an anxiety attack.
I haven’t had one in years,
but I still know the feeling.
My stomach knots up
and begins to churn
and it gets so tight I can’t eat.
And what I do manage to eat
wants to come up.
I start breathing really hard,
or not breathing at all,
and then there is this feeling of complete panic,
like a rat stuck in a cage,
running back and forth
trying to find a way out.
I didn’t think I’d ever have them again,
but I’m having one now.
The last time I had one
I was in L.A.
driving in my car
down Fourth ave
in Santa Monica.
I don’t remember what caused it,
probably an ex-boyfriend,
or my agent,
but I remember hyperventilating
and the palm trees
swaying above my head
looking like they were going to fall in on me.
I remember running to get inside my apartment
and grabbing a paper bag
and breathing into it.
I watched it expand and fall
over and over
till I was sure it had passed.
Now it’s back,
and all my bags
are plastic.

Pink Island

Today I took a picture of my nipple
while I was in the bathtub.
It sat there
like a small pink island
floating at sea
separate from all the others,
happy to be alone.
I looked at it.
The round head
blossoming above the water
just like the pink cloud formed
when they dropped the A bomb
over Hiroshima.
So much white
flesh
below.

Doggy Style

He is almost seventy years old
and he still has sex twice a day.
Maybe that' what keeps him so young.
It isn't the tofu, or the seaweed or
the brown rice I feed him.
It isn't the daily walks in the park
that keeps people asking
"How old is your puppy?"
It's the sex.
Just the sex.
He rolls his bed up on its side,
straddles it,
and then fucks it over and over again.
Then when his penis is out
and huge,
he gives himself a blowjob.
He does it twice a day,
once after each meal.
I've never seen anything like it.
When I ask the vet,
he just rolls his eyes and says,
"he was neutered wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was neutered.
He just doesn't seem to know it,"
I tell the vet annoyed.
But secretly,
I'm proud of him.
I only hope when I'm seventy
I'm having sex two times a day.

Winter

is on our branches.
The tree limbs shudder in the breeze,
narrow bony fingers
fronzen at the tip,
ready to break.
I would like to cut them,
take them home
with me
and put them in warm water.
Watch them thaw.
Watch their insides bleed.
Winter is upon us,
like some robber in the house,
ready to steal
what little
we have left.

$280
and the birds are flying home.
I'm stretched out on the table
and the birds are flying home.
My mother still is calling
and the birds are flying home.
I soon will be forgotten
and the birds are flying home.

Bare Amrs

Today
they shipped a rifle
to the dog.
He held up his paw
and moaned
and howled
like a beast.
The pain wrapped in brown
like so many roses
on the kitchen table.
We did not disturb him
or the woman
who lay beside him
lapping up his blood.

Black Friday

It’s Friday,
and America is shopping.
Buying gifts
for one another,
trampling each other,
spraying each other
with mase,
shoving,
grabbing,
yelling
and screaming.
Isn’t it festive?
Isn’t it fun?
Hunting for a parking space,
the lights,
the glitter,
the crying,
the Santas,
the groaning of husbands who’d rather be home
watching t.v.
than smelling body lotion
and sorting through slippers.
Ah Chrsitmas!
When I was a kid
I used to go shopping with my mother and sister.
We’d set the alarm clock,
and crawl out of our beds and into the darkness
like three vampires.
We’d search through mountains of sweaters,
and ties,
and shirts,
and pants,
and buy slippers for my father in EE width.
We’d buy nightgowns
for my mother that she’d never wear
and spend hundreds on the latest gadgets we’d play with for a week
then they'd end up stuck in a closet for years.
We’d open presents and drink Eggnog and argue
and no one would ever feel any better
from what was underneath the tree.

Thanksgiving At My House

For Thanksgiving
we had carrot soup,
fennel salad with walnuts and apples,
stuffing,
wild rice,
sweet potato casserole,
salmon,
green beans,
zucchini,
pumpkin pie,
and a $250 visit from the plumber.
It started Wednesday night,
when I stuck sweet potato peelings
down the disposal.
Big mistake.
Next thing I knew I was running to the store
for Liquid plumber,
which did nothing
except bubble and foam.
The next morning,
the clog was still there,
and so were the dirty dishes.
So we went to Wal-mart
and came home with a ‘snake’
which neither of us knew how to use.
After two hours of yelling, and snaking
and pouring more liquid plumber,
I called a plumber.
I was amazed at how many plumbers
were actually working on Thanksgiving.
We called Waylon.
He showed up in less than an hour.
He first told us it would be about $100
but that was before he had to crawl under the house,
cut pipe and spend two and a half hours with us
on Thanksgiving
when he could have been home with his family,
watching football and eating
a drumstick.
When he told me $250,
I didn't care.
I wanted my sink back,
and my dishwasher,
and my stuffing.
I wanted Thanksgiving back
before it was over with.
So I handed him my Visa,
and at four o’clock,
I was eating,
and everything
everything
was going down.

The Last Man

She said she wanted to be alone
on Thanksgiving,
so I didn’t invite her.
I didn’t feel sorry for her either,
sitting behind the reception desk
answering phones and writing emails.
She had changed.
Her long curly hair was blown straight now
and she was hard.
Jaded.
Her humor wasn't funny.
It had an element of tragedy to it
and it was bitter,
so very bitter.
As I sat looking at her,
I was sure she was
destined to be alone.
I imagined her thirty years from now.
A yenta,
sitting and gossiping with her friends.
Remembering me,
her curly red hair,
and the last man
who stole her heart.

Burdock

Tight
in this corner
life once grew
with its back to the wall.
Now
shriveled and bent,
gnarled as old fingers,
nothing will ever spring from it.
Leaves gather round
coming and going
like party guests
at a wake,
but nothing
can ever wake
the dead.

Give Peace A Chance

Today
I know the peace of Valium,
the soft tranquil feeling of numbness.
The kind that makes me smile at my neighbors
and be mellow about the arrival of Thanksgiving
and what time my boyfriend comes home.
Now
I know what all the fuss is about.
This little blue pill
is a slice of pecan pie.
It’s golden.
It should be in every medicine cabinet
in America.
Readily available
for every stressed out mother,
father,
teacher,
cop,
soldier
and music reviewer.
It should be handed out like those samples
of pineapple they give out at the grocery store.
Think how much nicer
everyone would be to each other.
No more fighting over parking spaces
or screaming at sales clerks.
Just blank stares
and smiles.
No wonder my father has been able
to put up with my mother
all these years.

Love

Like a nun.
Like a stone.
The curious
call
inside the pale red wound
naked
and throbbing.
I fell apart
like the nest in my roof’s awnings
the robins used last spring.
But now,
I am back,
back inside
where I belong,
smelling pie
and riding beasts.
I am clean as a stone.
A nightgown of two colors
melded
into
candy.
So hard
you could suck on me for hours
and
I would never disappear.

My Illusion

Andrea and Sara broke up.
So did Steve and Molly.
And Brad and Jen.
Why is it that the couples I think are perfect together
always break up
and the couples that me seem like they’re completely wrong
for each other stay together?
I don’t get it.
Are the mismatched better at juggling their personalities?
Or do they just demand less from each other?
Maybe they never had much of a real bond
so they’re both happy in their mediocrity.
They just pass each other on their way to work,
wave,
fuck every Saturday night,
have 1.2 children
and call it a day.
I don’t get it.
I thought Andrea and Sara would be together forever.
Last fall when we saw them at a restaurant in Italy,
they shared pasta,
just like they did in that scene from The Lady and the Tramp.
He fed her linguine off of his fork.
She touched his leg under the table.
I sat there watching them,
imagining the children they would have.
imagining their growing old together.
Now I find out they’ve split up.
He’s moved into a separate house.
And I don’t know where she is.
And I don’t understand.
I want them all to sit in a room with me
and tell me everything.
All the dirt.
The jealousy.
The arguments.
The late night waiting up for the other to come home.
I want them to make me understand
that I was wrong about them.
That I didn’t see what I thought I saw.
I want them to give me back
my illusion.

Hoping For Normal

“Remember I love you,”
she said.
Then she got up from the table
with her Gucci bag
and walked away.
He just sat there
licking the foam off his cappuccino
waiting for his next blind date to arrive,
hoping she might be normal.
Her name was Madelyn.
She was a blonde dental hygienist
from Iowa
who scrapped plaque off of teeth
for a living.
She noticed his immediately.
She told him they were stained
from too much coffee.
Then she reached into her purse
and handed him a coupon
for a ten percent discount
if he ever wanted to get them bleached.
He said he’d think about it.
But they both knew
he’d never see her again,
in or out of the chair.

Black Son

So much blackness
there in the sun.
His muscles rippling
like waves.
For years he has leaned
into the hope,
smelled the wind
and dived in.
The outsider.
The observer.
Watching
always watching.
Hoping they won’t see him.
Hoping they won’t know
he isn’t one of them.

She's No Hazel

She arrived at 10:15.
Fifteen minutes later than the original time
she had said she would come
and forty-five minutes later than the time I had asked her to show up.
She looked exhausted,
lack luster as my mother’s sterling tea pot,
the one that’s been shoved under the kitchen cabinet
for years now.
I tried to tell myself to calm down,
to not make any judgments.
But that only worked for the first few minutes.
My fear came back when she stood there talking to me
for half an hour about my macrobiotic diet
without cleaning a thing.
It was as if she had no idea that she was there
to clean.
If I had wanted to have her over for tea
I would have baked cookies.
It was weird.
I was the one who had to keep saying,
“Well, I better let you get to work now.”
She never said it.
It didn't even occur to her.
But I have to admit,
I didn’t feel any better when she finally
did start cleaning.
I watched her drag the mop over the floor
with as much effort
as a little kid pulling his deflated balloon behind him.
It was as if I had hired my mother
to clean my house.
(My mother doesn’t clean).
She was moving in slow motion.
I told her,
"You're gonna have to scrub a little harder,
to get the floors cleaned."
I watched her intensity go from a 'two'
to a 'three'.
What could I do?
I was late for my physical therapy
so I had to leave her alone in the house.
She's worked for a friend of mine for years
so I wasn't too scared about her stealing anything.
An hour and a half later
I came home,
and she was gone.
I walked around the house,
hoping she’d surprise me,
hoping she’d really started cleaning
once I was out of her way.
But she hadn't.
There were still hairs in the tub,
and the base of the toilet hadn’t been touched.
Even the kitchen sink wasn’t scrubbed.
It was as if she hadn’t done anything
that required squatting, bending,
or sweating.
The only thing good I can say is
she was nice and she didn’t steal.
But I can’t pay $60 a week for that.

Cherry Coke Salad

There must be some happiness
to be found in all of this.
The accident.
My neck.
The tornado coming this way.
My head tells me to run,
to go to Seattle or New York,
to lock myself away
from him,
from everyone.
To go back to being the observer.
At coffee shops I would sit with my pen and paper
and write about strangers.
Their hands.
Their hair.
The smoke that curled from their lips.
It is so much easier to get lost in them
than to try to get to know myself.
This year,
they will sit without me,
exchanging comments
and jabs
with sweet potatoes
and Cherry Coke Salad.
All that sweetness lost
on their conversation.
I am
in all of this,
between
the light
and the table,
swallowing pills
and scooping up mashed potatoes
for my dog.

Rain Dog

Who let you sit in the rain for so long?
Didn’t they tell you
you could come in?
Didn’t they tell you there was a fire blazing
in the fireplace
that you could sit beside and warm yourself?
Didn’t they tell you it was o.k.
to uncurl your self,
that no one would hurt you now.
How long you have sat
there
in the mud,
watching the squirrels
as the rain
fell
on your head.
How long you shivered
in silence
alone
and wished someone
would come
and open the door.
Who let you sit in the rain for so long?
Didn’t they notice?
Didn’t they care?
Perhaps you didn’t tell them
“I want to come in.”
But they wouldn’t have heard,
no matter how loud you cried.

Liar

I’m a liar.
Not the kind that is malicious
or will steal and lie about it,
but the kind that says, "yes"
when they want to say, "no".
The kind that says, "move in",
when they want to say, "move out".
The kind that says,
"Yes, let’s have lunch,"
when all they want to do
is stay home and write.
I pretend that I’m happy
when I’m not,
clean when I’d rather create,
call when I’d rather be alone.
and bake cookies when I'd rather
play my guitar.
I’m such a liar
I don’t even know
what I’m really feeling right now.
I don’t even know
if I’m lying.

Kaleidoscopic

Today must be the most glorious fall day
God ever gave us.
It is seventy-five degrees
and the woods look Kaleidoscopic.
If I did LSD,
I’d swear I had just taken it.
The reds and oranges are blinding,
like every tree were on fire.
I want to run through the leaves.
Hear the crunch of fall under my feet
and pretend this day will never end.
I want every leaf to stay
exactly where it is now,
to hold on,
and refuse to give in
to winter.