Rabbits From Nowhere

It is almost like a game,
calling Bob.
My father wants to put an ad out
in the paper with the hope he will call him back,
but he won’t call.
He doesn’t even remember who he is.
I want to tell him to let it go,
but he can’t.
His repertoire is getting smaller and smaller,
like an ailing magician down to his last few tricks.
Gone are the days of sawing assistants in half
and pulling rabbits out of hats.
Now,
there are only a few card tricks left and the occasional quarter
magically appearing from behind someone’s ear.
I want to shake him out of this space,
to show him the libraries
he has left behind.
I want to walk him to the new grocery
down the street
with the wood burning pizza oven and the freshly made sushi
and say, “Eat, eat. Look at what you’ve been missing.”
But I can’t even get him out of his bed
or into a clean shirt.
I want to get him to pick up a racquet
and hit tennis balls with me
but all he wants to do is watch t.v.
I want to tell him I love him
but he is too busy calling me a thief.
It is as if he has stepped behind the magic curtain
and disappeared forever.

Silent Language

It is quiet
or at least there seems to be
no sound
of the spider making his way
to my thigh.
The morning light spreads across the trees
and I am here in the woods
comforted by heat and fabric.
Listen,
can you hear the leaves speaking?
They shake and dance like epileptic hands,
but what do they say?
No one can understand them,
not even the birds.

Spider Dance

I do not know what to do
to stop the fall
of numbers.
It is like trying to keep the leaves on the trees.
I do not have enough hands.
I could glue,
and erase,
and blow,
and run,
but another would come.
In the garden, the spider walks past me
carrying a dead insect.
He does not worry about things he can’t control
in this world.
He is busy preparing
his dinner feast.
I watch him cross the red brick patio,
each step a delicate dance,
part warrior,
part Fred Astaire.
He is so busy,
he never even sees the shoe coming towards
his tiny head.

Warner Woods

I walked in the woods today without you
and saw your black shadow
everywhere I went.
I heard you run
after the squirrels
and felt you brush past my leg
as I rounded narrow corners.
I sat on your favorite bench,
the one you marked each time we came,
and I smiled at the other dogs who passed by with their owners.
I walked up the steep hill,
the one you led me up
when you were young,
the one you trailed behind me on
in later years,
and I wrapped my arms across my stomach
trying to hold you in.
It has been six months since you’ve been gone
and I miss you more each day.
The leaves are yellow now
just the way you liked them.

10mg

He is on the warpath again,
in his valium haze
demanding
money and pills
and quiet.
He is sitting in that blue recliner
with his hands on his chest
like he were a king
holding court,
fighting
and spewing
and expecting everyone to bow down before him.
I wish I could make him behave,
this man I call my father.
For years he forced his way
down my throat
expecting me to believe
and swallow his every word.
Now I look at him
and see a pathetic ruler,
an ineffectual child
trying to get his way
when he has no idea which way
he is going.

Fish And Ginger Tea

The wind chimes are blowing
and I am all alone.
I wish my mother were here
but I am alone
on my big white bed
with the window open
and the wind chimes blowing.
And I don’t know what to do.
I want to call her
but I can’t.
She isn’t there.
She is lost
in her world.
She is a child
drinking ginger tea
and making fish.
And I want to say,
“Mommy, mommy can you hear me?”
But I know she can’t.
Her smile is crooked as a broken bottle
and her eyes are flat and lifeless.
She is the small doll
I carried in my arms when I was little,
the one whose head bobbed from side to side.
She is barely here
and I am all alone.

My Life

This morning I woke up in a Zytrec haze,
hung over from a night of congestion
and tossing and turning.
It was dark out,
grey
and raining.
When I woke,
Mark was gone
and I stretched across the entire bed.
In the morning,
I forget who I am,
where I am.
It’s almost like each morning I have to re-remind myself,
yes,
I am Diana.
Yes,
my dog is dead.
Yes,
I wish things were better.
It is like that now.
Each morning,
waking in to the anxiety
of my life.

Breathing

is getting harder and harder
it seems.
Time
to sit and find
the space
between the lines
and worries.
Everyone around me is stressed out.
I can’t tell whose stress I am feeling.
I feel my own heart racing
with black tea
and thoughts.
I have juggled so many balls
I look like a professional.
Appointments scheduled.
Money transferred.
Vehicles repaired.
All with lightning speed.
I am like that octopus
In the commercial
with eight tentacles going in every direction
but in.
I miss going in.
I miss sitting with myself and hearing the birds
and watching the squirrels run.
Now there is only breathe in breathe out
and run.

The Zoo Keeper

The zoo keeper
with her mighty arms
and white teeth
swings down and scoops them up
like ripe bananas.
She is there to watch their step,
to steer them clear
of poop
and crumbs.
She brings them meals on trays
of vegetables and meat
and watches them devour her work.
She helps them wash
the years of skin down the drain.
She makes their bed,
the one that he lies in for hours at a time,
the one that she never sleeps in.
She gives them tea
and pills
and checks pulses and sugars.
She wears a red thong
and smells of the jungle.

A Prayer

Surely spring
will allow
a girl to stand by
and cook wrinkles in a pot.
Just once.

Daddy Sweet Daddy

I do not know when he became
the drug addict that he is,
lying in bed with his white tennis shoes still on,
breathing in smoke
and listening to the air conditioner hum.
He wanders down halls now
sometimes singing,
sometimes screaming.
His deep voice
always telling me
“I’m a thief and a control freak.”
I do not know who he is anymore
or what he is.
All I know
is he is not my father.
I wonder how different my life
would have been
If we had gotten him off the Valium
thirty years ago.
Would I be attracted to different men?
Would I be able to sleep at night
and turn off the tape recorder of fear.
He scares me.
He’s always scared me.
He is why I had nightmares
and felt my stomach flip every time
a man left me.
He is why I disappear
at the sight of a cock.
He hurt me.
He might as well have held my hand to the stove
and burned me
till there was nothing left.