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.