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.