Mustard

The bread
where I eat
Mustard
is the balm
of an appetite.
Swallowing the world
whole
not even stopping
to chew.

Forever Yours

I’m going to write everything to you
from now on.
You with the brown eyes
and the soft tail.
You
who has never spoken
a harsh word
to me.
You
who waits for me
by the door
when I come home at night.
You
who wants nothing more
than a walk
in the park
or to have your rear
rubbed.
You,
I am
forever
yours.

Just Like the Buffalo

I don’t ever want to come back to this house again.
This $985,000 house
with the white death walls
and the real estate salespeople
telling me how great it must have been to grow up here.
If walls could talk,
they would be screaming.
The knock down fights.
The fucked up birthdays and Christmases.
The empty swing in the backyard.
The lonely girl sitting on the diving board
wondering why
she wanted to die when she was just seven years old.
Marble doesn’t make a fall any softer.
Neither does Karastan carpet.
My mother sitting in that chair
talking,
always talking
and always saying nothing.
How I hate her.
I don’t even care how that sounds anymore
I hate her.
I swear to God I do.
This morning when I was chopping carrots
with a knife and she came into the room
I thought about it.
I thought about turning around with the knife
and stabbing her.
I understood how people could go crazy
in an instant.
How one person could drive them over the edge.
She just kept talking and talking
and she wouldn’t stop.
She just wouldn’t stop.
This house,
this $985,000 house
should have had such happy memories.
It should have been filled with laughter
and stories I could grow up with
and tell my own children.
But there is nothing here.
It is as empty as my father’s closet.
He too was driven out
just like the buffalo.

If I were A Chocolate Souffle

I don’t feel like calling him
or anyone.
I am so embarrassed.
I want to fall off the planet,
to disappear,
to vanish.
If I were a chocolate soufflé
I would have fallen
In the middle.
And if you were to look for me,
all you would see
is a hole.

On A Clear Day

There is a moment
when everything shifts,
when the light goes off
and you see your hand reaching for the phone,
your lover,
your mother,
your valium,
your vodka,
and you see,
you see
what you are doing.
And you stop.
You stop your mouth,
feet,
tongue,
hands,
lungs,
lips,
and
you go left
when you would have gone
right.
You hold still
for three seconds longer.
You walk down the hall
and play gin with your father
rather than call your lover
and cry about your mother.
And you know
you just know.

My Mirror

I want to go home,
home to my lover,
home to my dog,
home to the insanity of there.
I can’t take it here anymore
breathing in my mother
like asbestos.
Her fear sticking to my lungs.
Her craziness.
Her panic.
What was she thinking when she had me?
Why did she have me?
So I could be a slave girl
to fulfill her every desire?
Bring her water by the cup,
make her meals,
and do her laundry.
For years I have ridden on her broom
round and round
till I have lost my way completely.
She is the darkness inside me.
But when I am with her my mind is quiet.
When I am with her I do not hear the voices in my head
because I am so busy listening to her voice.
When I am with her I have someone to see the craziness in
so I don’t have to see it in myself.

I'm No Donald Trump

The market is falling!
The market is falling!
I feel like Chicken Little
running from room to room
shaking my head
and wringing my hands
unable to stop it.
Yesterday I was up $1,000.
Today
I’m down $1,200.
My days are about numbers and decimal points
and recommendations from people
I don’t know,
don’t like,
and don’t trust.
Most of them seem to know even less
than I do,
except that they’re on t.v.
claiming to know a lot.
I miss the days of just sitting and writing
and getting a dividend check in the mail.
I didn’t worry about how much money I’d lost
or gained that month,
I just filed the sheet of paper away
and kept working
and somehow I always had enough.
Now I spend entire days in front of the computer
watching red and green numbers like I were watching
a bad made for t.v. movie.
Will it or won’t it?
Should I sell it or keep it?
It’s sick.
It’s like video gambling.
And I can’t stop.
When I’m ahead,
I’m all knowing,
and I’m sure I can triple my net worth in less than a year.
When I’m down,
I see myself ending up with nothing
and having to get a job
at Starbuck’s or Kroger’s.
I’ll be in my seventies sacking groceries
or mixing Lattes,
when all I ever wanted to do was write.
Everything about the market feels like a bad ride
and I want to get off
before I throw up.

Imaginary Friend

I’m once again ready to run,
to give up myself.
The man with the knife is at the window again
and no one sees him but me.
When I call her
she hasn’t eaten all day.
She is sitting in front of the t.v. watching
“The Price is Right” or “Jeopardy”
or “Antique Roadshow”.
She is still wearing the same shirt
she threw up on
yesterday.
When I tell her I’m worried about her
she asks me a “jeopardy question” in response.
The man with the knife’s hand is on the door.
My sister, the doctor, isn’t concerned.
“It was a rainy night,. She didn’t want to go out for food.
She’ll eat tomorrow.”
As if that were perfectly normal.
But I am scared.
I want to run there and cook for her.
Bring her back to health
But it won’t matter.
After I leave
she’ll be back on the couch
eating take-out ,
or not eating at all.
The man with the knife is coming in.

Edith Stick Your Head In The Oven

I am sitting here on hold,
listening to the musac
of the gas company.
Every so often a man’s voice comes on to say,
“Our Customer service representatives continue serving other customers.”
Then it goes back to the musac.
I have been on hold for ten minutes.
I really believe they
hope I'll get so annoyed
I’ll give up
and just pay the bill.
I’m about ready to,
except that I find it very hard to believe
that my gas bill should be two dollars more this month
than it was last month,
especially when I was out of town this month
and it was unusually warm here.
I have been on hold now for sixteen minutes.
I don’t know how much more I can take.
This is not how I’d want to spend my last
few hours on earth.
Tonight I’ll hear that crappy musac in my head
in my dreams.
They know that.
I know they know that.
I have now been on hold for eighteen minutes.
I’m hanging up in another five minutes.
I am.
I swear I am.
I have now been on hold for twenty three minutes.

Someone’s idea of Heaven

is a woman selling carnations
on a sidewalk in the clouds.
Her hair,
braided,
down her back,
curling like waves at the bottom.
On Sunday
she comes,
in spite of the sun,
with her plastic bucket and her flowers,
and waits for the new arrivals.
They look so unsure
in their white gowns.
She hands them a red carnation
and smiles.
Yes,
You are here.
You have made it.

Identity Crisis

You would not recognize me
watching the pigeons return.
The shade of blackness
blended
in mirrors of washrooms
and smoke.
I speak
in a murmur
of accidents,
confessing who I am
like some hired assassin.
Always
missing the bus.
Standing in my corner
groping for the light.
Who am I?
You ask.
Does it matter?
I am all names
and none.

Google Me

George W. has done it again.
This time he’s taken on Google.
He wants the company to hand over their records
under the excuse that it’s to stop terrorists.
How absurd.
Next he’ll be asking every
Thirteen-year-old-girl in America
to hand in her diary.
I hope to Hell
they don’t give in.

Cat Food

Her mother won’t eat fish
and her daughter won’t eat fish.
She says they claim
they were fish
in a former life.
Me,
I like fish.
But then again,
I used to be
a cat.

Rice and Beans

I don’t want to worry about beans
Or rice
Or my laundry
Or the floors
Or if Trouble threw up
Or the tile around my stove
Or the wobbly toilet
Or the leaky faucet
Or my sixteen year old car with the non existent shocks
Or what I’m going to make for dinner
Or who’s the “biggest loser”
Or how Madonna survived twenty years
Or why Brad left Jennifer
Or if I’ll ever get married
Or why my father won’t get a hearing aid
Or if my mother will sell her house
Or why my sister dates thousands of men
Or how my record is selling
Or if this pain in my neck is ever going to go away
Or if I accomplished enough today
Or how much money I should be making
Or why the man on the treadmill yelled at me.
I don’t want to worry about any of it.
I just want to sit down with myself
and meditate,
and relax in to the part of myself
that knows
the only
thing
that matters
is where I am
and whether or not
God is with me.

White Bee

I am not the small limp body
underneath you
waiting to receive your hips.
I am an animal woman.
A white bee
stinging your lips
with the kiss
of my tongue.
I am your killing field,
the dark night,
where you come
to bury
the dead
and forget
your past.

For Rev. King

On this day
I think about
the poor of Katrina,
the lame and blind soldiers of Iraq,
and the Pakistani’s,
one moment standing innocently on their land
and the next,
lying in graves.
I think about the little children in this country
and their single mothers struggling to get by.
I think about the homeless I see on the streets
and the black woman I saw at the Kroger today
buying as many lottery tickets as she could get her
hands on.
I wonder where Martin Luther King and his dream is
in all of this.
I hear his voice,
booming like a trumpet in Memphis
calling us all home.
I hear him
telling us that we can reach our dreams,
that he has seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
I hear him
and I want to believe him,
but I am worried with all that I see.
We need King now.
We need someone with vision.
We need someone who will stand up
to the man
in office
whose only dream
is a foul smelling nightmare,
played out with human soldiers
instead of the toy ones he played with as a boy.
We need someone who respects life
and the dignity of all.
We need King.
Oh Reverend King,
Reverend King,
where are you?
If you were here
there would be marches in the streets
over what our country has been turned into.
If you were here
New Orleans would be being rebuilt right now
instead of decaying into a hell of greed and corruption.
If you were here
we wouldn’t be in Iraq in the first place.
And there damn sure wouldn't be a ‘W’.
We would be talking about building dreams
not tearing them down.
If you were here
we would be proud.

Miracle Worker

Hanging up from them
I see the world black as Dylan’s Tarantula.
There is no cure.
No brain game
to play to reverse what years have done.
My sister tells me,“I’m out of touch.”
My mother hasn’t bathed in weeks
and my father has started falling.
Every solution I offer her is met with
a hundred reasons why
it can’t be.
But I don’t believe it.
When I was little
growing up in Texas,
I always wished for snow every Christmas,
and every Christmas it was green and dry.
I remember one year
standing at the bathroom sink in our blue bathroom,
praying we’d get snow.
Then we wouldn’t have to go to school
and for once we’d have a white Christmas,
like in the movies.
My sister came in and saw me praying.
She asked me what I was praying for.
I said, “snow.”
She said, “that’ll never happen.”
Two days later it snowed.
I felt lit up inside,
like God had been listening.
Those little white flakes were my sign
that miracles were possible.
I still believe it,
even if nobody else does.
Now if I could just get my mother
to bathe.

The Food and The Whore

The seagulls fly
in search of sweet tea and pie
and dream of pimento cheese rolls.
The ambrosia of green
and pineapple cake,
The smell of the blues
keeps me awake.
I’m gonna dance
and shake my ass silly
and take everything I can grab.
Oh yes,
give me more,
the food and the whore
but keep the dark smell of tomorrow.

Dying Butterflies

I have a friend
who has a tattoo
she’s been trying to have removed.
She says she isn’t getting anywhere with that process.
So now she says, she’s discovered some artist girl in L.A.
who does “amazing” tattoos.
She’s thinking of going out there even though she “doesn’t have the money”.
She’s going to fly to sunny L.A. and have a butterfly
drawn on her leg.
She thinks that will fix her.
When she gets back,
she’ll find something else
that needs fixing,
like her deck,
or her dog,
or her car.
She'll wonder why she doesn't feel any better.
Me,
I’m on the treadmill
at the gym,
running,
telling myself
I’m getting somewhere.

Hold On To Nothing

Forget what you know
for a moment.
Forget that two plus two
equals four
and that sex between a man and a woman
is “normal”.
Forget your mother’s guilt and your father’s deafness
and the way the t.v.
sucks them in like a tsunami.
and then spits their motionless bodies
on the shore with Swanson’s t.v. dinners beside them.
Forget that time is ticking
and you are fighting a losing battle.
Forget the night cream,
and the vitamins,
and the coffee,
and the treadmill,
and the hormones,
and the laugh lines,
and the whispers of girls.
Forget that you have lived half your life
and don’t have a clue
about either half.
Forget
the fighting,
and the screaming,
and the crying,
and the birthdays.
Forget it all
and just
fall down
into the down
of your bed
and feel
what it feels like
to hold on
to
nothing.

To Understand Doing

I have spent too much time
trying to understand the past.
There is no understanding,
only doing.

Goddess

Why do you treat yourself so badly?
Don’t you know there are plenty others
out there
who can do the job just as well?
You must remember who you are
and treat yourself as such.
You must bathe in fine water
and drink sweet nectars
and whisper the delicate words in your ear
you would hear from your lovers.
You must give yourself flowers and jewels
and fine linen.
But most of all,
you must give yourself
time
to walk
alone
on sandy beaches
and revel in the sound of your own laughter.
You must remember
all you are
for no one like you
will ever come again.

Orphans

We are like two prize fighters
battling in the center ring,
then withdrawing to our respective corners.
Each one licking our wounds
until the next round.
The guilt of your mother
on my arm.
The blood of my sister on your shoulder.
The teeth of your brother left on my face.
The voice of my mother in your ear.
They are all here
battling
with us,
urging us on,
keeping us fighting.
If only we had kept them separate
from each other.
If only we had been orphans.

Live Wide

My grocer said to me today,
"live wide, and embrace life."
So I bought the mixed berry turnover
and ate one.
Now I feel sick.
I'll have to find another way to
"live wide".

Still Life

Tonight
on the hill
the blue
is coming down.
I am living
inside
some great
watercolor
still life.
So afraid to move.
So afraid to change
the picture
and ruin it.

Neighborly Love

I lost her phone number.
I had written it down
on a little piece of paper,
but now I’ve lost it
and they aren’t listed.
Which means I can either get my coat on
and walk over two houses down
in the thirty four degree weather,
or I can be lazy
and drive.
I'll probably drive.
My fear is that she’ll be home
and she’ll invite me in,
and I’ll have to sit down
and catch up with her
about what’s been going on
with her family
the last few months
and where they went for Christmas,
and where I went
and how everyone's new year is.
Then she’ll offer me tea
and I’ll think how nice she is
and how awful I am
for having such bad thoughts.
But that’s absurd.
I’m nice.
I just don’t want to talk to anybody.

Bird Seed

Why would you give it away?
You share it too quickly.
You give it to someone else to hold
before you even know what you have
in your hands.
Don’t you know they’ll never hold it like you would?
It is yours.
Keep it to yourself.
Otherwise,
you will be scattered like bird seed
and then wonder
where you went.

Squinting At The Sun

The white foam.
The green and red mosaic
of bricks
sinking down
into the dirt.
Outside
the black birds
sing
and poop
on my car.
The filthy creatures
carry seeds and worms.
The sky is alive
with them.
Listen.
They squawk and flutter
from branch to branch
while we wait below
with the sticks and mud
and windchimes.
We are ground creatures,
you and I,
bound by the garden hose
and the asphalt,
squinting at the sun.

Reunion

When I come back,
the weeds seem to grow faster,
spreading like rumors
through the bricks,
waiting to entangle me.
When I come back,
the plastered walls,
already cracked,
seem to have grown new cracks
and the faucet,
long dripping,
has gained another drip.
When I come back,
everything moves faster,
and looks worse,
than when I left.

Listening For Keys

I should have stayed in Texas.
It was 75 degrees there.
I could have saved my skin
from the heat and learned
what loneliness feels like.
I could have slept in late
in the room with the blackout drapes
and walked down the halls of that
white house
listening for keys.
I could have dipped my feet
in the pool and watched the wasps
build their mud nests.
I could have cooked on portable
gas burners and hunted for pots in my mother’s roach
cabinets.
I could have sang to my dog,
and gotten needles from Hui,
and sat on the beach alone.
I would have written songs
there
with no t.v.,
and no internet to distract me
from myself.
I would have sat in that closet,
the one my sister locked me in
when I was a child,
and learned that nothing
can hurt me
in the dark.

Leave

Telling you to leave
is the hardest thing
for me to do in the world.
I never got to tell anyone to leave.
Not my father,
or my boyfriends,
or the doctor who drugged me
and raped me
the night before
he operated on me.