What's Left

It is all on the left now,
piled up and waiting to move.
Cameras and pens and recorders and tuners.
four-tracks and cassettes and boom boxes
no one wants.
I have let myself get caught up in all of it,
tangled like a dolphin in a fishing net,
fighting and struggling to get
free,
unable to find my way out.
Dead.
Now,
I want nothing to hold me.
Not my past,
or bookcases,
or dressers,
or books.
I want to wake up in the morning
with nothing and no one,
and sit down to write,
knowing I have no one to answer to,
but my pen.

Note For Note

I am starting to question the costs of things.
The weight of tears and anger
against the fight.
The tolls of resentments against surrender.
I am slowly learning that the objects
and emotions I have carried around with me,
are no longer as valuable as I once thought.
The veil has been lifted
and I am learning that the weight upon my shoulders
has not been worth it.
People and feelings,
once held sacred,
are now nothing more than chalk marks on my forehead,
wrinkles around my eyes,
dark circles and dry skin.
How precious I thought they all were!
And how wrong I have been.
What I once thought valuable, isn’t.
And those things that I took so little notice of,
are now more valuable than ever.
So, here I sit, scared to let things go,
for fear I will never have another house or piano as nice as the one I have now.
For months I have worried about where I will live,
and in what,
and dreaded what my future life will look like.
For weeks I have worried that I won’t be able to provide a grand enough home
for my piano,
to honor the legacy my parents gave me.
That I have somehow failed as a daughter and a provider.
Now, I learn my piano isn’t as valuable as I thought it was.
Like someone who bought a Rembrandt, and is now learning they bought a Rembert,
or some other equally obscure and much less valuable painting,
I am disappointed and confused.
For the last few hours,
I have contemplated selling my piano.
Lifting some of the weight off my shoulders.
Starting over
with something different,
that suits my lifestyle better.
When I share this idea with my mother,
the first words out of her mouth are,
“you know you’ll never have another piano as nice as that one again.”
And in that very moment, I see,
everything.
That is where the voice came from,
the one that swirls round my head over and over again.
The one that keeps me tied to all my STUFF!
There it is,
as plain as the ivory keys,
I practiced scales on for hours.
It is her fear that I have ingested.
Her belief system.
Her song I am singing,
note for note.

Zombies and Puppets

I understand
the big white whale
in the living room.
The one that doesn’t speak.
The one that sits there
watching
it all unfold
like cardboard puppets.
We are all just
zombies,
brushing past each other,
never really touching,
always on our way
to somewhere else.

In Celebration of Less

Tomorrow it will begin again.
The cooking and the cleaning
and the eating.
When I was a child
my sister and I did most of the cooking for Thanksgiving.
We made squash casserole,
and turkey with stuffing,
sweet potato casserole with bourbon and marshmallows on top,
green beans,
mashed potatoes,
crescent dinner rolls,
fresh cranberry sauce,
a relish tray,
a cheesecake,
and sometimes my mother would make her tunnel of fudge cake too.
After four hours of cooking, the kitchen looked like a war zone.
Pots and pans everywhere.
A Sink full of dishes.
Smells of thyme and poultry seasoning,
sage, and cornbread.
My father would always walk in around ten in the morning,
after we had been up for hours,
Look at everything and say,
“girls, there’s too much food.”
To that, my sister would always reply, “no, there’s not.”
Then we would all sit down around two o’clock,
stuff our faces,
and then take a nap.
Looking back on all of it now,
I realize how lucky I was.
I never once had to worry about whether or nor that there’d be enough food
at Thanksgiving or enough presents at Christmas.
I never once had to worry about where the money would come from
to pay for my holiday.
I never made the association between the large house I grew up in
and my life of privilege.
The big white house was just my house.
And yes, I always wanted to give things to the poor,
and help out at homeless shelters,
but I don’t think I ever really took in what it felt like
to not know where your next meal is coming from,
or to worry about disappointing your family,
or to begrudge others for what they had.
The truth is, we were too worried about preparing our own Thanksgiving.
Everyone had to have their dish.
Nothing could be eliminated.
Especially not my favorite,
the cherry coke salad.
And my sister had to have her squash casserole.
And my mother had to have the bourbon sweet potatoes,
and of course, we had to have turkey.
No one was willing to give up anything
or there would be tears
and complaining.
But now I know,
my father was right,
we did have too much food.

Life Sentence

Why is it the words won’t come today?
I hate everything I write.
Nothing is.
It all is just.
And so I sit.
And erase.
And write and erase.
And go to the kitchen
to see what I can eat,
swallow,
cook.
Hoping
that when I sit down again to write,
someone else will have taken my place.
It has been like that lately.
My mind judges my words,
and all that I write.
It is a very cruel judge.
So unforgiving.
Sentencing me to insecurity and fear
with no possibility of parole.
I am on death row.
My last meal coming.
The sun setting out my window.
The guard with the key.
The clanging metal.
The long walk down the hall.
Leading to what?
Permanent silence.
No more judging.
No more fault finding.
No more wishing I were
somebody else.

On The Wall

Blank page
staring back at me,
an adventure waiting for my words,
I am not scared of you.
I welcome you,
like a mother awaiting her first child.
There is so much more for me to discover
than the basketball and grave.
There are roads to go down and get lost on.
Fields of green and blue.
Flowers blooming by the highway,
Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets.
Summer with heat and sweat and swimming pools
to dive into.
Chimneys full of black and birds
and soot.
There are airplane rides and trips to Italy.
Pasta and men with accents.
There are birthdays yet to come,
full of cake and ice cream and presents.
There are late nights in bed
and lights out with candles
and the feel of oil on my body.
There are memories to acquire and accumulate
and fold and paste into books.
There are sounds to breathe in,
like fireworks and laughter.
There are smells of Christmas mornings,
and Thanksgiving meals,
and rosemary and thyme.
Yes,
blank page,
I welcome you.

Empty

Tell me that it will all be o.k.,
that I will wake up from this so-called life
and find the door out.
I won’t tell you of my trials as a child,
or how God created love and suicide.
Or why the professor’s dog runs
and scratches
sucking at beer cans and bitches.
I suppose in two or three days
it will be different.
I will mail myself a letter
and leave out the pages,
just an empty envelope
will arrive in my box.
I will dump it out over and over again
onto my blue sofa,
attempting to solve its emptiness,
just as I have attempted to solve my own.

Fo Fo

When I look at him
sitting in the orange chair,
with his lips puckered out like a deranged monkey,
I wonder how much longer.
The man I knew is fading.
I can still playfully yell, “Fo Fo”, at him
and he’ll say, “Diana, leave me alone.”
I can still give him a hard time about his deafness
and he will respond without fail,
“If you need a hearing aid, get one.”
But the man I knew,
the man who made me laugh,
the man I shared football and basketball games with,
and “Who’s on first,”
is disappearing.
He forgets which room he is sleeping in,
which toothbrush is his,
where his underwear drawer is,
what he ate for dinner,
what day it is,
what pills he’s taken,
and he forgets when I tell him
I am leaving in the morning.
I come into his room to say goodbye.
He tells me he didn’t know I was leaving.
I tell him I told you yesterday.
He tells me I didn’t.
Then he tells me he will miss me.
I tell him I will miss him too.
I already do.

Brown Rice

It doesn’t matter any more if she sends it
or doesn’t send it.
If my eye clears up,
or if my thyroid is off,
or if the doctor who examined me is a condescending ass!
I am tired of scrimping my life
into little boxes of worry,
that are too small for me to breathe in.
I can’t go on like this,
tied up in knots,
wondering if I will marry or not marry,
reproduce or walk through this world alone.
Where is all that Goddamn brown rice
that is supposed to calm me?
Where are the lentils and tofu
and sweeteners?
Haven’t I given up enough already?
Hell, I’m purer than anyone I know,
but what has it gotten me?
Driving to deposit checks
and visits to Dr.’s,
waiting in line while some idiot,
who looks like he just got out of prison,
scoops up
filling for my burrito,
praying the plastic gloves on his hands
haven’t been in his crotch.
Fighting with water services,
and insurers,
and attorneys.
Driving behind drivers that don’t know where they are going
or how to get there or how to make a turn.
Weaving my way
through lane after lane of traffic
and tedium,
wishing someone or something would make me move.
It is all too much.
I can’t undo any of it.
I can’t make any of it right.
There is no one here to help me
but me.
And all the brown rice in the world
can’t make it better.

Solitude

Where is the black snake in the grass?
The one who was curled up on my brick patio
in the sun.
The one that slithered along the fence
outside my window.
Where has he gone?
I look for him when I am writing
and I see chipmunks running through the leaves.
I wait for his wide flat head to rise up
like a submarine coming out of the waves
and snatch any thing in his path
down
to a quick death.
I keep my eyes peeled
along the back fence
watching
for movement.
But all I see is stillness,
and the faded basketball
that has remained motionless
in the corner
since Trouble died.

Sleeping Salesman

I don’t like salesmen.
I don’t like how they slither
their way towards me
like creeping poison ivy.
They wrap themselves around me
and try to pull me towards their table
where they hope they will try get me to hand over my check,
or credit card,
or even,
cash.
They feign such concern over my well being,
such loyalty to my every need.
But the truth is,
they don’t really care about me.
They only want what’s in my pocket.
The minute I leave,
they will find a new mark.
Mattress salesmen are the worst offenders.
They’re like whores waiting for a customer
in a florescent showroom.
They pace back and forth in their empty stores,
full of pillowtops,
praying some unsuspecting idiot will come in.
Today, I was that idiot.
When I first walked in,
the salesman was all ears.
Then I told him I wouldn’t be buying the bed from him,
but from a store
in Denver.
You should have seen him.
He pulled away quicker from me than a hand on a hot stove.
His whole posture changed,
like a deflated balloon.
And that twinkle in his eye,
the one that met me when I walked in the door,
was now just mucous.
I felt it happen.
I saw the shift.
Gone was the façade.
Gone the dear uncle I had come to know and trust.
He no longer cared
about my back,
or my neck,
or who would be sleeping on what bed
with whom.
He just wanted me gone.
After all,
I was of no use to him now.
I was just a body.
A body
taking up his time and his space,
(even though there was no one else in the store).
He had things to do.
New customers to attract.
He tossed me out of there like a dust bunny
he found under the bed.
I wonder how he sleeps at night.
And what he sleeps on.

Brownie Batter Yogi

She told me there are yogis
who live on breath alone.
They can sit for days in meditation
needing only oxygen to sustain themselves.
I do not know if I believe her.
But then,
I watched her spin her stomach
round and round
like brownie batter.

Fall Amnesia

O.k.
so maybe this isn’t the first time
I’ve written a poem
about Fall.
Maybe it’s the fifteenth time,
or the thirtieth.
Maybe it’s number ninety-nine.
I don’t know.
I can’t help it.
Fall comes once a year,
and I’m a writer.
And every year there are yellow leaves,
and red leaves,
and brown leaves,
and leaves on the ground,
and leaves at my backdoor,
and leaves in my hair,
and leaves in my car,
and it’s always the same leaves,
well, it seems like it’s the same leaves,
and there’s always leaves to rake,
and bag,
and carry,
and they keep coming and coming.
And each year,
I sit with my journal in my lap,
and stare out the window
and take it all in.
That’s what writers do.
I notice the way a leaf curves,
or bends,
or points.
I notice the variation in color.
The subtle shades of red,
and orange,
and violet.
I listen for sound.
The rustle.
The crunch underneath my feet.
The squirrel digging for nuts.
The deer.
The hoot of the owl.
I look and listen and try to find
the poem in it all.
And as I sit there
listening and looking,
I realize I am getting hungry
for cool nights,
and pumpkin,
and apples,
and cinnamon,
and hot chocolate.
And
I wonder how it is possible,
that
even though Fall comes every year,
it is all still new to me,
as if I had never experienced
any of this
before.

Balloon Boy

It is easy to become obsessed
with the latest Balloon Boy drama.
To sail away with whatever crisis is at hand-
Family, boyfriend, hair, stock market,
job, agent, career, neck or mole.
But just like the balloon sailing up in the sky,
these so called crises, are empty when ripped open.
There is nothing inside of them but hot air.
Nothing to have wasted days or hours of worry upon.
What matters is the work.
The doing.
The sitting with and meditating upon.
The being still even when all else is going crazy.
It is too easy to get caught up in the next drama,
to watch the years get swept away
by some silver UFO that turns out to be nothing but a balloon.
Oh, yes, the years and hours lost are real,
but their captor is not.
Therein lies the lesson of the Balloon Boy -
Tell the truth.
Do honest work.
Don’t get caught up in the drama of others.
Don’t believe everything you see.
And most of all,
Reality T.V. – isn’t.

Suji

The writing comes from unwriting.
From sitting with the blank
and letting the truth creep out
one painful word at a time.
I think about living in L.A.
Fighting the cars,
and the sun,
and the blondes.
Giving in to the Valley girls
and the starlets on Hollywood Boulevard.
I think about palm trees,
and eighty-degree Chirstmases,
and how hard my body would have to be
just so I could walk down the street
without feeling inferior.
I think about Third Street,
and the Promenade,
and Ted Hawkins,
and the waiter at the Indian restaurant
who had a crush on me
and used to watch me write lyrics
and poems
while I ate Saag Paneer.
I think about the cliff
and sitting on the edge
watching the traffic
and the seagulls below.
I think about the rain
and how it never came,
and the homeless man
who lived in my laundry room
and ate out of the dumpster,
and the way the laundry room
always smelled like urine.
I think about USC,
and your old Honda,
and late nights fucking
in my bed.
I think about going back to L.A.,
and talking to agents again,
and
kissing asses,
and trying to act like I did when I was twenty.
That was before I knew
just how much
I hate the sun.

Puh-lease

Today they came and offered him
a hundred dollars.
“A hundred dollars for inconvenience,” they said.
Hell, it wasn’t inconvenience he suffered
when that woman plowed into him from behind.
Inconvenience is when you have to wait in line at a grocery store,
or when someone brings you the wrong meal,
or loses your dry cleaning.
That’s inconvenience.
This was more than inconvenience.
This was pain and suffering
and they knew it,
the little liars.
They come out to our house in their white Jeep with their clipboards,
acting like they know what’s what
when all they really know is what some fool in an office told them to say.
See, I’ve been down this road before.
I know the score.
I know the game.
They want to get away with paying as little as possible.
That’s how they can keep paying for all their fancy ads,
and the Jeeps that have their names on it.
Well, let me just say right here and now,
they’ve come to the wrong house.
A hundred dollars?
Puh-lease.

Worry Wart

I am a worry wart.
I worry about everything.
I worry that my house won’t sell.
I worry that my house will sell.
I worry about what will become of my parents.
I worry that my sister will spend all of their money and I’ll have to support them.
I worry about the stock market.
I worry that my father has cancer.
I worry about the gray hair I’m getting.
I worry that I will never get rid of the numbness in my arm.
I worry about my career and if I will ever make money.
I worry about getting married.
I worry about not getting married.
I worry about not having children.
I worry that if I have children, I’ll hate it.
I worry about where to move.
I worry that if I pick Portland we’ll be too close to relatives.
I worry that if we pick New York I won’t like the winters.
I worry that I’m not as talented as I thought I was.
I worry that I’ll never get to where I am supposed to go.
I worry that by worrying I am ruining my life.
I worry that I can’t stop worrying.

Sharks Kill

The sky is so grey today
it is as if it were full of soot
from some nearby coal company.
There is not an animal to be found.
They are all up in the trees
watching the sharks kill Beethoven.
Hey, get down from there!
You little whores.
Don’t you know the horses are dreaming
of horses?
I gave the water a drink
and waited for India to come out
from under the bed.
Tomorrow I will chase the ribbons
in my wallpaper.

White Writing

The truth is,
I hate writing
on a computer.
I hate the sound of the keys clicking
beneath my fingers
and the feel of cold
metal
on my wrists
like handcuffs.
I like the flow,
the softness,
of
paper.
The curl-myself-up in a chair kind of writing
that can only be done with a journal.
Sitting in front of a keyboard isn’t writing,
it’s being a secretary,
and I have no desire to be one of those.
I don’t want my page to glare at me,
or have a cursor blink at me
demanding direction,
or a swift ending.
I want the quiet of pen on paper,
the glide,
the flow,
the stream
of curled letters
leaning and falling
as they find their way into a world
of my creation.
I want to hear the sound of frustration,
paper being waded up,
crinkled,
a pen scratching out changes,
not a cursor running backwards eliminating
any trace of what could have been.
I want to leave an ugly mess behind me
for everyone to see.
I want the world to know
just what it took
to get me to
the end.

The Red Queen's Bidding

They’re out there.
The bastards.
Crawling on the holly.
Flying in and out of my gutters.
Winged henchmen
willing to do the red queen’s bidding.
I watch them from my kitchen window,
while I sit safe inside
eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
One by one they come,
until there are
five, ten, fifteen
red bodied devils,
all lined up on my white gutters,
each one taking flight in some weird insectian order
like World War II pilots going off to war.
I want to scream at them.
I want to tell them to leave my gutters alone.
I’d shoot them from my window if I could,
but the screens are in the way.
They seem to know they are well protected
tucked in the gutter.
We both know it.
They won’t be happy
until I climb up on the roof in the middle of the night
with my flashlight
and attack them while they sleep,
face to face.
They want my blood.
Tomorrow morning we’ll see
who comes back alive.

Still Seven

I am out of paper.
Out of journals.
Out of pages to put down thoughts.
I have scribbled my last scribe.
Dribbled out the last adjective.
The last verb.
What does it matter?
All these thoughts and feelings
swirling around my head
like merry-go-rounds
gone wild.
I am still here.
Still extolling the same virtues
I did in 2001.
I am still here,
sitting in my room
with my back to the door,
looking out the window
at the squirrel and the bird.
I haven’t changed.
I am still seven,
twelve,
eighteen,
walking to school
dreaming of movies
and Academy Award speeches.
But everything else,
my parents,
my dog,
my sense of purpose,
has morphed into something else.
This morning,
the air is cold,
the wind ushers in fall,
and the leaves seem to laugh
with delight.
At last! At last!
Soon they will be bare
and it will begin again.
It is the unstripping
that brings me back.
The undoing of things,
of worries and fears
that keeps one young.
All is changing.
Even me.
I just can’t see myself.

Cycle of Crumbs

When I was there,
she yelled at me,
drug me down by my hair,
glared at me with malice.
When I was there,
I was her enemy,
her seed
of destruction.
The dark-haired demon
she could never nurse.
For years,
I wandered,
always wanting.
Now I know why.
She never loved me.
Now that I am of age,
my only revenge is to bear her nothing.
To end the cycle of crumbs
that brought me here.
I do not want to know the damage
I could bring to another.
I do not want her to live on.

Sisterly Love

Winter comes on
like an angry mistress
spewing her distaste
over being scorned.
Again and again
she bangs her head against the wall,
against the door,
against the unyielding foolishness
of sisterly love.
One minute wanting to include,
the next,
torn away at the seams by the dagger of
betrayal.
What to do?
What to do?
What to do?
No wedding day
with family.
No bedside grief of mourning.
No dreams of children to hold,
not with the fear of repeating the past
looming so large in her head.
Here in the garden
a bird flies into her hand,
the calming flutter of preciousness,
so young
and dear.
A winged angel,
bringing messages of comfort and joy
to soothe her thoughts and spirit.
She watches the grass grow
and wonders how it got so tall
without the rain.

Scum Sucking Yard Guy

What a little scum.
What a little creep.
Doesn’t call.
Doesn’t come.
Then when I do reach him
he tells me he wants thirty dollars more
to come cut the grass.
Thirty dollars more!
I always knew he was a jerk.
He always did a shitty job.
Barely picked up a stick.
Wouldn’t pull out a weed
unless I asked him to.
Throwing limbs in the neighbor’s yard.
Blowing clippings into my flower beds
when I wasn’t looking.
I never liked him
from the second I met him.
I just didn’t have anyone else.
But now that he’s gone,
I’m glad.
Really glad.
Things are looking up.
I hope he gets poison ivy.

Bearable

On Monday,
when the rain drums down,
I want a drink.
A bit of gold at my table.
Flowers in a vase.
Lace and white
as good as salt.
The sweet smell of cider
sweating in the sun.
Laughter everywhere.
The sight of a new lover
at my door
and stars,
oh so many stars.
I do not want these things
as a bird would want a worm,
or as a dog desires a bone,
but rather as a tree reaches for light.
These are not luxuries,
I tell you,
but necessities,
in this
black
cold
world
to make the unbearable,
bearable.

The Sun Is Poison

I am lonely
on the brown futon
with nothing but the wind beside me.
Selling sex in short dresses in heels.
What kind of life is that?
Here in my office,
the cardinal cries
and I listen
with eyes turned inward.
What do I see?
A girl,
lost
in the darkness of men,
unsure of her worth,
desperate to know love
like a sea clam closing
before she can climb inside.
Oh child,
with the painted eyes,
you are not so grown up,
as you think.
Let down your hair and walk
in the garden
with the rain.
The sun is poison.

Number 9

He was my hero too,
though I never knew him.
There was something about him,
his soft smile,
his quiet voice.
The way he led by example.
The way he gave to so many in need.
Standing on the sidelines
with his helmet in his hands,
he looked like a modern day warrior,
off to battle,
dodging players like they were bullets,
refusing to be taken down,
always fighting till the end,
wounded or not.
I cheered him on from my bed on Sundays,
screaming at the t.v.
And somehow, when he had the ball,
I felt like anything was possible.
Now, that hope is gone,
buried six feet under
for me and for everyone he ever touched.
No more Boys and Girls Club,
or backyard bar-b-que’s in Mississippi
for the neighborhood kids.
No more last-minute Santa wishes fulfilled.
Or help for Katrina victims,
or football camps for children.
No more words of wisdom for Vince.
All gone in an instant.
For days I have cried,
just like I did when Ted Hawkins,
another man I never met,
died.
I’ve tried to understand why I’m so sad.
And all I’ve come up with is -
he was my hero.
And heroes aren’t supposed to die
after being shot in the head by twenty-year-old girls
they’re having an affair with,
while they’re asleep on a sofa.
They’re supposed to die in tragic car accidents,
or in plane accidents making rescue flights to Bolivia for the impoverished.
And they're supposed to stay
on the pedestal we have built for them
until they die.

Fast Motion

It is all happening too fast.
The pop icon
and the angel
gone.
My extension in ballet.
Christmases and Thanksgiving.
What I believe.
Walking on Broadway
with the heat on my back.
C.C.
My thirties.
The pull of the ocean.
Italy.
Smoke-filled clubs.
The farmer’s market in Madison.
The drive-in movie in Smyrna.
Tick bites
and Stinky.
Night after night of Seinfeld.
Popcorn and White Sox.
Car accidents and burials.
My father’s Alzheimer’s.
Jack’s class.
3 a.m. nights in the editing room.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
without the crust.
Sitting on the kitchen counter in the Meyerland house,
eating white toast with butter on it,
while my grandmother cooks hot dogs and minute rice.
I see all of these images
as if I were walking with my head turned backwards,
a strange morphed creature
trying to understand where I’ve been
without looking at where I’m going,
all the while certain
I don’t like where I’ve arrived.

Female Symphony

Oh beauty,
you blow like a horn
in my face.
An apple of birth
for me to bite into.
I am the mother of sleepless
nights,
legs turning and dancing
without rhyme.
Once a girl,
now a woman
fighting off time
with both my fists.
A lonely salesman
writing about sadness
and cups.
I have tried the deep voice,
gotten lost in to be Read and Sung,
and questioned my own muses.
But where may I ask is my Florida?
The pink pillow fights?
The laughter of children and stockings?
Have I been so dead I have forgotten the sweetness of sugar?
Each day I wake up more tired than the last.
A burned mattress
devoid of humor.
It is time to stop the voices of dread.
Time to smell the daylilies outside my backyard.
They are there for me too.
I am so much more than one lifeless sound.
I am a symphony,
waiting to be played.
Hear me Roar.

A Mother's Love

She is evil,
this mother of mine.
One minute crying to me,
about my sister,
the next minute,
attacking me for not being my sister.
She has done this for years,
pit the two of us against each other.
Now my sister and I rarely speak.
We are all divided,
nursing our wounds
and wishing for a quick end
to this so called family.
The worst part is
that I seem to be incapable
of stepping out of the way of my mother’s attacks,
or even see them coming.
You would think after seven trillion times,
I would have learned something.
Instead,
I stand there,
open as a kitten,
waiting for her.
One time her stroke is soft,
the next time,
a needle to my eyes.
When she is through with me
I leave twisted and confused,
my head filled with her voices
and opinions,
my life a whirling jumble of darkness.
Perhaps I should brush my teeth with mud,
then I would finally remember what it tastes like
to swallow her shit.

Doctor Love

You would think after awhile
she might soften,
open her heart a bit,
lower her voice
and stop going at the world
with a club.
I have watched her hitting
and lashing,
her voice constantly on the brink of explosion,
the screaming teakettle.
I try to stay out of her way,
to dodge her bullets as if I were dodging War planes
in the fields of Vietnam.
I look back to see the bodies
strewn.
Men left in the dirt,
heads lopped off,
arms severed and bleeding.
Eyes vacant
and lost.
A terrible field of destruction.
And those are just the ones she’s dated.

Pregnant Pig

This is madness.
This reaching and falling back in to
the hole
over and over again.
The calling and hanging up.
The forgotten sun.
The endless discussion.
Repetition upon repetition.
South,
East,
North,
West.
This love of darkness.
I do not like to question my hunger,
or how far the wagon will roll.
But I have napped twenty-five years in a flutter.
A deep pregnant pig.
And what of it?
My doctor offers me nothing,
but the needle.
And that ain’t gonna happen.
X-rays and MRIs
and nurses gone haywire.
Paper bags full of drugs.
What good is any of it?
I am still the same.
No treatment can cure.
Monday,
the dead turn over.
Tuesday
the snow begins again.
Wednesday,
the nuns are in their habits.
So am I.
So am I.
Thursday
and God is a purple throat,
hoarse and ineffectual.
Friday,
yes, well,
friday is August
dressed like a fighter
with no place to go.
Again,
and again,
everything and nothing
has happened.
Saturday,
the moon.
Outside,
the ocean is still going strong
while I am sobs
and tears
and rainwater in a plastic bucket
till Sunday.

Lifeboat

I am old.
A forbidden child
climbing over the garden wall
in search of a view I never should have seen.
My body quivers,
and my legs falter.
I am alone,
a rare antique
in a world of then.
It does not seem possible that so much time
has passed.
Half asleep,
I am full of the echoes of Manhattan
and Los Angeles.
My dreams, that grew up in Texas under the summer sky,
the day of your face,
are borrowed.
And still,
I can not let go.
I see you everywhere,
wearing a red Burberry coat.
Your wife
beside you
refusing to speak to me,
or even acknowledge I exist.
I think of your children
and begin kissing your neck
over and over.
How many years
since the Hollywood Hills?
Since the night of the party?
You,
driving off,
a fish
in search of the sun.
Me,
sipping my broth,
lying about my life
and our future together,
floating about on the open sea
in a cement
lifeboat.

Eeyore's Daughter

When I was growing up the character I related to in A.A. Milne’s books was Eeyore.
He was the doubter.
The naysayer.
The one who bemoaned it all.
The sarcastic, melancholy little
donkey who was always losing his tail.
Eeyore thought that whatever could go wrong
would go wrong
and it did.
Pooh, on the other hand,
always expected things to work out
and somehow they did.
Pooh annoyed me.
Whenever I expected anything it never worked out.
When I expected a birthday party as a kid,
no one would come,
or my parents would fight,
and my dad would end up walking out
and my mother would go to bed crying and I’d be left
standing in the hall
with nothing.
Same for Christmas.
I learned real fast that I was going to be disappointed
by the people who supposedly loved me.
So I guess it’s only normal that I would relate the most to the character
who believed
the worst would happen.
We shared a common heartache,
Eeyore and me.
I sat alone in the corner of my room
looking out at the world through his eyes.
It was a bleak sight,
full of greys and murk.
Gone was the yellow sun
and the pink blossom of wildflowers.
Gone was the sweet smell of honeysuckle and roses.
In their place,
black and mud.
Fear and dread.
Now that I’m older,
I’m trying to change.
I’m trying to unlearn and be,
and hope.
In five days it will be my birthday.
The day I’ve dreaded most of my life.
But this time I’m determined not to succumb
to the past.
I will wake-up and greet the sun,
or the clouds,
or whatever comes that day,
even
if it’s a damn tornado,
and
I will eat cake and ice cream,
and I will tell myself I’m loved,
and I won’t spend the day
looking for my tail.

Ten Lines and Counting


Words and windows
year after year.
To understand doing
do.
I have turned cartwheels in the sand
only to find
feet.
The last time a cowboy
came to my door
I kept him six months.
So long
soldier of joy
and the solitary sun.
So long
short hand Mondays
and Southern Goddesses
squinting at the sun.
I have run satisfied
in my red dress
waiting for Jesus
and peaches to save me.
Outside in the rabbit hole,
Trouble sticks his head in my
Naked Christmas.
The pig and the blue.
Is this all there is?
Hold on to nothing
and hope for good?
Bird against bird.
It’s all a black
Testament
to the day.
A ten line poem
gone on too long.

Grasping At Clouds

I think about it all drifting away.
Being gone in an instant.
One minute here,
the next….
I think about those poor people
on Air France flight 447.
The plane shaking and coming apart
in the air.
Their last seconds.
Did they know they had reached the end
or were they told everything would be o.k.?
I think about screams,
and hands touching,
and eyes searching one another for answers.
I think about the last few seconds.
Bodies falling out of the sky,
crashing into the ocean.
I think about how fast it all goes:
My parents.
My childhood.
This life.
I start wondering if I am living it well enough.
I don’t think I am.
Too much energy focused on bills and cleaning
and tidying up corners.
Dental floss and lint traps.
Trips to Target and Costco.
Radishes and Kale.
Meanwhile, vast expanses of my life have gone unattended to.
I’ve spent too much time trying to please,
to be good,
to be responsible.
What has it gotten me,
besides a clean conscience?
Where are the memories
for my hope chest?
Where are the bridges I’ve jumped off of?
The African elephants I’ve seen on safari?
How many albums have I made?
Where is that documentary I was supposed to start?
Or that novel I’ve been threatening to write for twenty years?
How is it that life keeps getting in the way
of living?
I think about the people in that plane
grasping at clouds
as they fell from the sky
and I wonder about what I have been holding on to.

Oh Stomach

Oh stomach
sick and churning,
stomach of night,
stomach of morning,
stomach of round and flat
and curved,
stomach of warning,
stomach of nerves.
How long will you gurgle and keep me awake?
How long until you throw up your chips
and refuse what I bake?
You’ve digested it all.
radishes,
chocolate,
tofu
and pie.
You’ve served me well,
but it’s you I defy.
Stomach of youth
and middle age
when will I listen
to all that you say?
Stomach of Thanksgiving
and Easter’s gone by,
Christmas
and cranberry
and stuffing piled high.
For so many years,
I’ve kept it all coming.
You gave me fair warning
with belches and gas,
but I wouldn’t hear it,
I said it would pass.
And so I kept eating
and eating
my fill,
all the while knowing
you’d give up,
your will.
It’s Russian roulette,
minus the gun.
Sooner or later
something will come
that will finally end
all that you’ve done.
And I will have nothing
but plastic insides
and long for the day
when I could hear your faint cries.
But you will be gone,
stuck in a glass,
for students to study
in some medical class.
And I will have nothing
but my memory of food.
Oh stomach,
please tell me,
why didn’t I listen to you?

Quigley

He is tall.
A sophomore in school
wearing Chacos and Hawaiian shorts,
walking Allie in the sun.
I remember when he first moved
to this neighborhood,
a boy-child,
a thin wiry nothing,
blowing about on his bike
incapable of calm.
Now his palms are bigger than mine.
So are his feet.
He is six foot tall
and dreams of girls
late at night
in his parent’s basement.
He mows the lawn without a shirt,
and plays the bagpipes on the hill
for the entire neighborhood to hear.
He used to be the squirrely one,
the one who got away with everything,
the coveted boy in a family of three girls.
Now,
he is like a Rorschach blot,
spreading across the paper
in every direction,
taking up as much room as possible,
unsure how far he can reach
before he falls off the page.

Still Stuck

I am in my office
watching a spider crawl
across the floor.
It is a nasty looking thing
with fast moving legs,
scurrying about in every direction
as if it were being blown about by the ceiling fan.
I want to step on him
and end his life,
before he bites me
or gets lost in my guitar strap,
but I can’t do it.
For days I have watched a roach crawl in the kitchen window,
stuck between the screen and the glass,
unable to get in or out.
At night when I would come in to the kitchen for a glass of water,
he would be in the middle of the window,
like a Peeping Tom
and by morning,
he would be pressed in to the wood frame,
flat,
as if in hiding for the day.
Each day I looked for him,
confident that he would be gone,
somehow slipped through the cracks,
and on his way,
but each morning
he was always there.
Still stuck.
After about four days,
I started to wonder
how he survived in there,
day after day
with no food or water
and yet
still remained
so full of life.
He was a marvel,
of sorts.
A weird kind of Lance Armstrong.
I wanted to free him.
To reward him for his endurance,
but I couldn’t get the outside screen open
and I wasn’t about to open the inside window
and risk him getting loose in the house.
So I just left him there
hoping he would find his way to the outside.
It went on like this
day after day,
until
Sunday morning
when the Open House arrived.
I knew I couldn’t leave him there any longer
because most people wouldn’t view him as a selling point,
like hardwood floors or French doors,
so I did the only thing I could do,
I got out the insect spray,
opened the window for a second,
and sprayed the wood frame.
A few moments later
I watched him run across the wet wood,
fall on to his back,
writhe around uncontrollably,
and die.
That night,
as I sat in the kitchen booth eating my soup,
I looked at the empty window screen
and I felt almost
lonely
without him there.
Strange,
the things we become used to.

Pain or No Pain

My stomach has hurt all day today.
I woke up with it hurting at 7 a.m.
It’s 4:30 now and it’s still hurting.
I’ve tried fennel,
crackers,
kefir,
sourdough bread,
baking soda,
and Pepto-Bismol.
I’ve tried lying down,
sitting up,
taking a hot bath and letting the warm water hit my stomach,
and walking on the treadmill.
I’ve tried pretzels,
apple sauce,
bubble water,
tonic water,
a small sip of coffee to get things moving,
and meditation.
I’ve watched two episodes of House,
one episode of Friends,
and read a chapter of Saul Bellow’s Herzog.
But nothing has made it stop hurting.
So I’m going to get up and start writing anyway.
For too long now I have waited for my pain to stop
and conditions to be just right,
before I began writing.
The trouble with that plan is that there is always something
getting in the way.
And now, I’ve waited so long
I can’t keep waiting any longer.
All I have is now,
pain or no pain.
The weird part is,
the more I write,
the less my stomach aches.

Zen

The clock
ticks
in the kitchen,
only when
I stop
to
listen.

Thundering Llamas

This morning it thundered llamas.
The green needles on the pines
shook
and I rolled
underneath the sheets
once more baking apples
in my head.
My flight to New York
left without me
without sound,
an ex-lover sneaking away on a bicycle.
I poured milk into my bowl,
and doodled with the spoon.
It all seemed to surface at will,
flax seeds,
raisins,
my anger,
circles and eights.
Just once,
I would like to wake-up
cherry.

Senseless World

I do not understand
why the following people do not vanish:

Realtors.
People who work for Insurance companies
(health, life, and auto).
Lawyers.
Politicians.
Lobbyists.
Bankers.
Doctors.
Car Salesmen.
Funeral Directors.
And Dick Cheney.
There,
I said it,
and I don’t regret it.

Flaming Pears

Right now
I wish I had something
to sell.
A Bible.
A drink.
A tube.
Sure, I can hope.
We both know a pound of grass
and a box of candy
can get you to Mexico and back,
but I want more than French Wine,
Keats
and a young boy from L.A.
How strange,
being in the chair,
waiting for the drill,
praying for the needle.
I hate the needle.
I like weather.
I like rain.
I like the thick clouds that roll in at night
and cover the city
quicker than the plague.
The box cutter
ripping into cardboard,
exposing the gifts,
the beautiful virginal gifts.
Some day the blue Madonna will be mine
and I will hide in a house in Beverly Hills
and dance to whatever I want.
And all the lies I’ve told myself
will disappear
like shapeless
walnuts.
I will no longer be
the girl
who cried strawberries
and lace.
My eyes,
breasts,
tongue,
and pears in the Waterford bowl
will burn in water.
Finally.

Artist Child

Now that I’m out
I thought I would feel better.
No more running to check
and see.
No more panicking
as numbers
go up and down
over and over.
My mood determined by the charts.
My day, a ride I can’t seem to stop.
I liked it better ten years ago when I never looked,
never checked to see how any of it was.
I just went about my day,
writing
and dreaming.
I was naïve,
a child,
an artist
who didn’t seem to worry about the future
or money.
I just trusted it would be there for me.
And it was.

Six Months

Six months from now I am going to be in a different dentist’s chair,
in a different city,
with a different hygienist
scraping the tartar from my teeth.
I will be living in a different home
or apartment,
riding the subway or the light rail.
I will be eating Chinese food,
good Chinese food
and exploring new neighborhoods:
Brooklyn or Mississippi,
Astoria or Queens.
I will be taking dance classes with real teachers
and studying with students who would rather dance
than laugh
and ask ridiculous questions
about nothing.
I will be far away from Southern accents
and the stupidity of the Bible belt.
I will be free to have an honest discussion
about abortion,
and universal health insurance,
and God
without fear of repercussion
for what I might think
and I will find restaurants that will know what the word
Vegan means.
Six months from now
I will be far away from here
either on the East coast or the West coast,
and tics and realtors
and Open Houses
will just be a nightmare
I am learning to forget,
like Chess pie
and uninsured motorists.
So when the dental hygienist
says, “See you in November.”
I’ll say, “sure.”
but I’ll know that’s the last time she’ll
ever have her hand in my mouth.

Out


Out of the screams
and trays and blue boxers
filled with poop.
Out of the hallways and wheelchairs
and macadamia nuts
eaten by the handful.
Out of the tears of parents
whose wretched children have disappointed them for the last time.
Out of the “Get well” cards and “Mother’s Day” wishes
tacked up on walls and strung across windows.
Out of the hallways,
and blinking light switches,
and nurses on skates.
No longer must I listen to the same questions.
The eternal tears of Christianity
and Baptisms escaped.
The circular mind
trapped in the same day
after day.
No more bland meals
cooked in margarine,
fried,
meat
on a plate,
vegetables
desperate to escape.
The cries of helpless all around
where no one comes to help.
Out of the depressed and the forsaken.
A Hampton Inn of Hell
tended by Ethiopians and Russians.
Out of the fake smiles by those in charge
and the knife stabs of attendants
when backs are turned.
Out of the wilted flowers
by nightstands
and raised toilet seats.
Out of the
irrepressible itch of spinals
and the deep plunged trail of staples.
Out of basketball playoffs
and nights arguing over brushing teeth
and changing pajamas.
Showers taken in protest.
Words exchanged without meaning.
Out of the blue.

Blackened Notes


Yes,
I am stupid.
I keep putting myself
into the fury of her anger
over and over again.
When will I stop and say,
no more?
When will I refuse to jump in
to the fray
and turn and walk away?
Once I sang operas,
lonely arpeggios
that ran up and down the scale
in search of tears.
I saw colors.
The blackened notes.
The thick thrill of voices.
I stood there,
motionless,
looking calm before my audience.
Disconnected from my voice,
and song,
A smiling pretty.
A sugar machine,
cranking out beauty
by the second,
while what raged inside me,
the fury,
the steel burning of years,
would not surface
for decades.
Now,
when the kitten finds the mouse,
she eats him.

The Bastard of St. Henry

The bells of St. Henry are ringing.
I hear them echo in the hills,
across the yard,
and into my window.
I am not Catholic
but I still like hearing them.
They sound celebratory
and remind me to remember the glory of life
when I have forgotten.
I imagine rich fancy weddings
and births,
and funerals of great men and women.
I see black limos,
and white dresses,
Priests dressed in their finest cloth,
and children running on the church lawn.
I have only been there once,
when my friend Sue’s husband died.
What a bastard he was.

Whatever Is Is

My mother used to always say,
whatever is is
and whatever isn’t isn’t.
I used to hate that expression because it did nothing to alleviate my fear.
But today I am trying to live by that very expression.
I am trying to live in the present,
in the black and white
and not let my head spin off into what if’s ,
what might be’s,
and what could have been’s.
It all becomes too complicated.
Too hazy.
Too grey.
Too terrible.
After my appointment with the dermatologist,
I turned to my sister,
the family doctor, for comfort and a second opinion.
She told me I was being a worry wart.
She said she doesn’t ever worry.
Well, maybe if someone told her she had Cancer
she might get worried,
but that’s about it.
I hung up the phone and realized she was right.
Gruff, as usual,
but right.
I am a worry wart.
And I spend way too many hours contemplating
and thinking
and re-thinking,
and Googling.
And the truth is it gets me nowhere.
All I can do,
is do the best I can do
and let God,
or nature,
or the magic tree fairies,
take care of the rest.
If I run out of money,
I’ll get another job.
If I have something wrong with me
I’ll get it taken care of.
If the house doesn’t sell, I’ll rent it.
If my lover leaves me,
I’ll survive.
The truth is,
the only thing I have to handle is this moment.
And today,
right now,
the sun is shining.

Peaches

No Work Today.
Or the day before,
or the day before that.
The old man just shook his head
as he stared at the sign
and kept walking.
Hands in his pockets.
He felt inside his old faded pants
for a few coins,
pulled them out
and stared at them in his deep wrinkled hands.
Then he shuffled down the street
in search of some pie
and a cup of coffee.
Something to wash down
the years.
A bit of sweetness in a day off
to a bad start.
He didn’t think about tomorrow
as he ate the peaches,
or about the fact that he had a little more than a dollar left.
He just let the buttery crust slide down his throat
and felt the cream on his tongue.
Nothing was going to ruin this day.
There was plenty of time to begin worrying again
tomorrow.

Long Gone

How stupid I was
to have lamented your leaving
even for a second.
The truth is,
I never loved you.
In the shower,
when you touched me,
I only pretended to moan
because I knew it was what you wanted to hear.
And in bed,
it was the same.
I gave you what you wanted,
when you wanted.
Your reward for pages written
was my mouth,
my thighs,
my cunt.
But you weren’t really touching me.
I
was long gone.
I
was
somewhere circling the room,
a headless body
floating,
too scared to look,
too scared to feel.
You see,
I left you first.

Bones Against Bones

Stop
and sway with me.
Old age waits
like a runaway horse
headed for the barn.
I need you
and the glory of a Sunday
on the beach
one more time.
Yesterday,
the deer was on the hill
eating leaves and branches.
She stood over C.C.’s grave
and whispered in his ear.
Bones against bones.
I swear I heard him answer.

Beautiful Dreamers

Three yellow sunflowers
lean their heads forward from the vase
as if listening in on a conversation.
They have stood there
since last Friday,
ankle deep in water,
hoping to charm someone with their beauty.
So far,
no one’s come.
Still they wait and they hope
for the mysterious
man,
woman,
or child,
who will walk up to them
and tell them
they are beautiful.
Only then
will they curl up
and die.

Quiet Rain

I do not want to call.
I do not want to hear
the latest:
gossip,
tragedy,
indiscretion,
psychic illumination.
I am tired of it all.
Tonight,
I
want
quiet.
I want to sit on my bench
and watch the clouds roll in
and wait for the
rain
to
come.

Christian Acts

I don’t know where I’m starting
or where I might end.
My legs are up on my desk
aching
from yoga and running
and walking around the track.
Today, I sampled myself sick
with Easter cupcakes,
English cheese and pizza
at the record store.
Now the healthy glow I had,
from my morning of exercise,
has faded into a yeasty brain fog.
My eyes have sunken and my skin,
just like Cinderella’s coach at the stroke of midnight,
has returned to its former state.
I don’t know where I’m going,
dust following the words
down the page
while the snow falls.
Tomorrow is Easter
and I still am not a Christian,
much to my mother’s sadness.
But I am a good person.
I celebrate love and peace
and kindness,
and I got a Honey Baked Ham
delivered to her for Sunday.
That must count for something.

Barking Dog

We have all spent years
trying to control him
with ropes,
and calls,
and tears.
It has gotten us nowhere.
He is still as stubborn and impossible
as ever.
A white-headed nut
deafer than deaf
refusing to get a hearing aid.
A man without a gallbladder,
eating salami and hot dogs.
A barking dog,
who doesn’t know
what he’s barking at anymore.

Positive Attitude

It wasn’t a cavity after all.
But I had already prepared myself
for him to tell me that it was.
Besides, what else could be making my tooth sensitive to hot and cold?
Every time I drank hot tea I felt like
I was getting electrocuted.
Isn’t that what they always ask at the dentist?
“Is it sensitive to hot and cold? Then it’s probably a cavity.”
I’ve heard that for years,
just like, “if he doesn’t call you back, he’s not interested.”
So after a couple of weeks of cringing upon contact,
my mind started imagining the worst.
Not only did I have a cavity, I had a cavity that was on the verge of needing a root canal.
I kept opening my mouth and staring at my back teeth in the mirror,
but I never saw anything, except for some kale and a piece of radish.
I poked a fork in my back molar,
trying to find a deep crevice,
but found nothing.
For weeks I looked and poked and imagined
the worst.
Finally, I called the dentist,
and prepared for the inevitable Novocain shot.
Should I take valium before I go?
No, what if I felt sick from it?
No sense in pre-medicating before I knew for sure.
Better just go in and be brave, I thought.
My regular dentist was out of town, as usual,
(probably skiing in Aspen or something),
so I saw one of the other partners.
I told him that my tooth had been bothering me off and on since last year when I bit into a piece of very cold seaweed in this Chinese restaurant in Seattle.
He looked at me strangely.
I expected him to ask me why I waited so long to come in.
Instead, he looked at me and said,
“Why would you want to eat seaweed?”
This coming from someone who is obviously a huge carnivore,
and one Whopper away from bi-pass surgery.
He blew air on my tooth, poked around, and then had me grind my molars on this carbon-like strip.
“Bingo”, he said, “you’ve got a bruised tooth.”
I didn’t know that a tooth could get a bruise, but if it meant I didn’t have a cavity,
I was happy to hear about it.
Seems I’ve been banging my teeth in my sleep he said.
He pulled out his drill and filed my top molar down a bit.
Then he had his assistant slather my teeth
with some de-sensitizing liquid that tasted like
(what I can only imagine)
paint thinner would taste like.
Sixty dollars later, I was cured.
I was cured.
No fillings.
No shot.
And no need to think the worst.

Valley Of Truth

All the pink and purple
gathering in the dark.
My stomach, a twisted rag
wanting release.
My eyes, two worn sockets,
dark and devoid of color.
The back of my head aches,
as if it had been hit by a baseball bat.
Where did all this grey come from?
The sky a thick blanket covering me,
drowning me over and over again.
I reach out for you,
because I am scared to reach out
for myself.
There is no consolation in your arms,
or voice
but still I call.
When will I learn there is only me?
Robins chase small black-headed birds away from the fence
while male cardinals jump upon their helpless mates
insuring offspring.
Where is the answer in emptiness?
Is it below the valley of truth?
This is my shadow,
my vision,
my world.
To walk alone
and not listen to any voice
but my own.

Everything And Nothing

I am floating,
ungrounded.
A girl made of linen.
Trying to hold onto books,
and weights,
and words.
Anything sweet and small
that will help me remain
connected to this earth.
The ant crawling on my nightstand.
The tissue clenched up tight
like a snowball.
The virtue of windows and wasps.
White legs
and feet.
The smell of wood,
and shoes,
and bathrobes hanging on metal knobs.
The sunlight at my back door.
Everything and nothing.

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday afternoon.
She is crying.
She says she wants to leave
Denver
and move down South.
She says she loves her daughter
but doesn’t know what to do.
She doesn’t like the cold.
Her skin can’t take it.
She says she hates where she is.
She feels like she is in prison.
There,
on the 6th floor,
in her two-bedroom apartment,
with the doors closed,
watching the snow come down,
while my father watches T.V. all day.
She sounds so pathetic,
and alone,
crying and praying for me.
I try to come up with ideas to help her:
Work on her art.
Walk-up and down the halls.
Practice one of her workbooks.
Go visit one of the women who lives in her building.
But she doesn’t feel like doing any of those things.
She says she doesn’t think she’s going to live much longer.
And I don’t know what to do.
I understand how she feels,
locked away,
unable to get free,
unable to flourish,
or find her way to where she is supposed to be.
I want to help her,
but the truth is
I don’t know how to help either one of us.
She never taught me the way out.
She never gave me the map,
the rules,
the book.
Now,
I feel as blind and helpless as she does,
I’m just thirty years behind.

Trouble The Wind

The last few days
have been nothing
but storms.
One threat after another.
They haven’t added up to much of anything
until today.
They said a tornado touched down at the airport
and for the last three hours there has been constant thunder
and lightning.
Centennial park is under water
And there is so much water coming down my driveway
Right now it looks like a Slip and Slide.
I’ve been on edge all day.
Last night, my power went out
and I lay awake in total darkness
sure that someone had cut the lines and was planning on killing me.
Thankfully, I finally fell asleep, and when the power came back on around 7:30 in the morning,
I realized I was still alive.
Now, the lights are off again,
just as the sky and my thoughts,
have turned incredibly dark.
I keep watching the news hoping the worst is over
and that whatever this thing is/was
has made its way to some other place
or worn itself out.
I used to just laugh at storms.
Trouble used to sit on the hill in the center of them
and watch the wind blow and the lightning come.
He never flinched,
until it started raining.
Then he’d come down
and get in bed with me
and we’d listen to the lightening together.
Now that he’s gone,
I feel afraid
when the wind blows.

Artificial Butter

The truth is
I hate MySpace
and Facebook and all those so called “friend” sights.
I am sick of trying to connect with people I don’t know
and don’t care about
all because that is what everybody else is doing right now
to feel connected,
to feel like they belong.
But I don’t think anyone feels like they really belong.
At least I don’t.
Having a virtual friend on a monitor
isn’t the same thing as going to the Dairy Dip with someone and
sharing a sundae,
or going to the movies and laughing while taking turns
at the big
tub of popcorn
with the real artificial butter on it.
Intimacy has been replaced by seconds
and pictures and abbreviations.
Short-hand emotions.
The art of the conversation is dying.
I don’t think anyone knows how to look anyone in the eye anymore,
unless it’s through a computer lens.

Turning Cartwheels

Consider
struggling into your mother’s pocketbook.
Invisible doll.
Yeah.
Cooking the witch,
white linen
and Hell bent?
Swim on your voyage
like a salmon,
but leave a light on
to find your way back.
Across the room
the hypnotist works his trance.
I am turning cartwheels.
The twelfth fairy.
A burgundy
religion
of sorts.
Inside,
I am like the wind
blowing and blowing
without direction.
How dark it is becoming.
Soon I will be in your bed
drinking from your cup.
A princess
painted in kisses and anger.
An insomniac listening to the clock
waiting for the unfortunate whole.
You say no weather reports.
No Sofa Blues.
No booze
waiting in neat rows.
We took our colors
and painted with them.
Green for the forest.
Red for the bed.
Each twig snapped
for the mice
under the blanket.
On Saturday,
I will crawl into the cupboard.

Too Old For Comfort

The couple that came to look at the house today
were too old to live here.
I could see that after a few seconds of meeting them.
Why their broker brought them here is a mystery.
The old man could never make it down the hill
with the trash can
and neither would be able to navigate the curve
of the driveway.
Didn’t they know my house was on a hill?
And over an acre?
I can just imagine what they must have thought
when they saw all that grass to cut.
He must have just scratched his head,
pulled his hat down lower
and shook his head, ‘no’.
And she must have looked out the windows
to the mailbox at the foot of the drive
and feared she would never be able to get her Social Security check again
without bypass surgery.
Still,
she told me how much she liked the house and
for a few brief hours I thought maybe there was hope.
Maybe the original tile bathrooms appealed to their nostalgia
or maybe the wood paneled den gave him visions of Sunday mornings
reading the paper by the fire with his slippers and pipe.
But it wasn’t to be.
The agent sent the feedback sheet saying they, “weren’t interested.”
So for now,
it is back to reality.
My perfectly clean home must wait,
along with my desires.

This One And That One

I think about why
some of them
are still available.
This one’s feet are too big.
That one has a funny nose.
That one won’t be big enough.
This one sheds too much.
That one isn’t cute enough.
This one doesn’t know how to “sit”
or “stand” or “roll over”
when told.
This one looks mean
because he has small eyes.
That one has too big of a head for his body.
This one likes to chew shoes.
That one smells funny and has bad breath.
This one is really timid
and stays away from human touch.
That one doesn’t know how to fetch.
Or thinks gardens are for digging.
All I know is
This one and That one like their belly rubbed.
And This one and That one
deserve love,
no matter how ugly,
stinky, lazy, stupid or lame.
If I could,
I would take all of them home
with me,
This one and That one.

Tamed Kitty

Woke up tired.
I don’t think I fell asleep until 2a.m.
even though I got in bed around 11p.m.
I think it’s those weird Chinese vitamins I’m taking.
They keep me up at night.
So this morning,
because I was so tired,
I didn’t get up at 6a.m. and check the substitute phone line
to see what jobs they had for the day,
and by the time I did get up,
around 7:20a.m.
there was nothing available.
It seems everyone has the same idea as me,
to work this week since you only have to work five days (instead of the usual ten) to qualify for the $100 bonus.
The only problem is,
when a job comes up,
rather than just grab it and take it,
I hesitate.
First, I mapquest it to see how far away it is
and then I look on my list
to see if it is one of the “scary” schools
that pays an additional twenty dollars
to any sub brave enough to sign up for it.
Then after I think about it for about three minutes and am ready to press the accept button,
the job is gone.
It’s happened two days in a row now.
I guess I lack that killer instinct or else I’m just not desperate enough.
I’m not willing to take anything,
just to make $100 for the day.
I feel like one of those lion cubs
who was taken from the wild and raised in captivity by pacifists in a commune.
My killer instinct, my ability to react, is gone.
When I see meat dangling in front of me on a string,
I don’t just reach out and grab it.
I look at it,
and then I play with it, and then I think about it,
and then by the time I actually decide I want it,
some other hungry mother fucker of a lion
has grabbed it and run off with it.
Tomorrow, I swear I am waking up early
and I am grabbing the first job I see.
(as long as it’s not in Antioch).

Dark Water

Purple pansies.
The ant is sleeping
in dark water.
Spring,
once buried in the South
now sings
tulips
and pies.
O,
what beauty
beneath the clouds.
I walk barefoot
picking up thorns and twigs
with my toes,
like a lost wood nymph
longing for a field of bluebonnets
to lie in.
Be still
and listen.
All of nature is here
waiting
to give itself
to you.

In The Cold Dark Mud

When I buried him
almost two years ago,
I forgot it was his bones that had stopped moving,
his heart that had ceased to beat,
his eyes that were black as empty nut hulls.
I forgot that I could go on a walk
and listen to the silence.
I forgot the beauty of mornings
and drives in the country.
I forgot the excitement of putting my head out the window
and sucking in the wind
as if it were for the first time.
I forgot the child-like wonderment of smells:
Pinecones and roses.
Honeysuckle and mint.
I forgot how to lie on my back
and let the sun bake warmth in to me.
For two years now,
I have been in that cardboard box with him,
buried alive,
struggling to find my way
in the cold
dark
mud.

Gone With The 'O'

I broke my ‘o’.
It happened last night
when the ‘o’ key on my computer
started acting weird,
like it was stuck.
I had to hit it harder than every other key
to get it to work and my wrist was getting carpal tunnel syndrome
trying to make words.
I decided I would try and fix it.
I thought if I could pry the key off I could look underneath
to see what was wrong.
It came off easy enough
but now I can’t get it back on.
I felt a wave of horror come over me just
like the time I cut off part of my eyebrows as a kid.
Or the time I got gum stuck in my hair.
Or the time I lost my baby tooth
down the drain trying to rinse it off for the Tooth Fairy.
What had I done?
I called the Apple store and told them what happened
and the kid laughed at me.
Yeah, snickered.
I couldn’t believe it.
He said I’ll have to come in for a technical appointment now
and then he said something about he hoped I didn’t break my clasp
or clip or something like that.
I hung up even more panicked than before.
Now there’s a hard plastic nipple staring at me where my smooth ‘o’ used to be.
And every time I touch it
it’s feels like I’m falling into a hole.
I miss my ‘o’.
You never know how important an ‘o’ is
until it’s gone.

Texas in April

There is so much to be grateful
for in this life:
The sun coming out this afternoon,
warming the grass.
The little black-headed bird
grasping the wooden fence
outside my window.
The people in my life who
have helped me and saved me.
The taste of fresh kale
and roasted cauliflower.
The redbud tree’s pink blossoms.
The feel of hot water on my back.
Longer days.
Spring.
The red cardinals’ mating dance.
The sound of my own heart beating.
The freedom to walk
and run
and skip
and jump.
Making love Sunday morning.
The New York Times in my bed.
The fluffy tail of the brown squirrel.
The way we can begin again
in an instant.
Texas in April.

Unleashed

Could I have a piece of
pie?
You know the kind -
Cherry red
or peach
Georgia Southern Baptist.
Sweet
and hot.
The crust a tender flaky
only for my eyes.
The curious girl stalks mushrooms
in her backyard
and never asks for more.
Not me,
I am a dream,
a target,
laughing in the hour of ghosts.
I want in.
I want the magical nightgown,
the human puppy,
strange
hands
touching
me
in
the
beans.
A pink dress
of magnolias
I can scatter at weddings.
Branches of blue
and purple
and polished chords.
I will not wait for the child
I never had.
I will inherit darkness
and daisies
and I will roll in both
unleashed.

Let It Pass

All week I have been sick.
It started last Friday in Denver
after I ate at this Indian restaurant my sister said was good.
Later that night I was nauseous.
By Monday,
I couldn’t eat much of anything
and by Wednesday everything I’d eaten
for what seemed like the past three months,
was pouring out of me faster
than you could say the word
“projectile.”
Now I have had stomach pains
so strong I have been unable to sleep.
Last night,
when I was writhing in bed for hours,
I was sure I had discovered what labor must feel like.
To combat the effects of whatever this is I have,
I have resorted to a variety of tools:
heating pads and hot water bottles,
Sprite,
apple juice,
white rice,
saltine crackers
Gatorade,
and even swallowing half a glass of baking soda.
None of it has helped much.
So this morning
I called the doctor
thinking I must have some sort of bacterial food poisoning.
I was prepared to go in,
and face the litany of blood tests and stool samples,
when the receptionist
told me there is a wicked stomach flu going around
and there is nothing that can be done for it except
to “let is pass.”
Easy for her to say.

Something's Coming

I can see it in the grey of the skies
and hear it in the robin’s call.
It is in the wind
blowing
the leaves back and forth without direction.
It is on the wings
of the buzzard
who sits on top of the metal highway light
like a lookout in a bank heist.
It is in the air,
moist with the future,
and in the slamming of my backdoor.
It is in the moment,
the hour
before
the grass turns green
and the water flows.
It is underneath the covers,
and in the rabbit hole,
persistent as a dog in search
of his buried bone.
Yes,
something’s coming.
Better shut the windows
and pull the curtains tight.

Listening For Blood

This isn’t the first time
I have sat
with my head
in my hands
waiting for words to come.
While others dine on Dim Sum,
my diet is consonants and vowels.
Each one more delicious
than the next.
Each one a titillating proposition.
It is like that with writers.
We can not help ourselves.
Our world is internal.
A zeroing in on the heartbeat,
a listening for the blood to flow.
We live for the sentence.
The ending.
The beginning.
And what comes in between
is heartache
and unbelievable
pleasure.
It’s a lonely world,
one that I would never trade for
a “normal” existence.

Jazz

I’m slipping down into the disconnect,
into the quiet
sideways
mind
of notes
squawking like chickens
arching and bending
into so much disharmony.
The non-rhythm of rhythm.
The back slide of voices.
The cool kettle of drums
and tinkle of high hat.
The back and forth slow of sound,
like water on glue,
hanging on
for a moment,
then falling
down,
down,
down.
Catch me
if you can.
Under the red
neon light
I am sputtering,
staggering to my feet,
leaning like a drunk man
from side to side,
trying to make sense of the room,
trying to undo the years.
The smoke wafts and curls around me like
a hot schoolgirl.
And now
the slow slow burn
of forbidden
love,
settling down into the inevitable.
Wake me brother.
I am having a
bad
bad
dream.

Candy

Candy apple.
Candy coated.
Candy lozenge.
Penny candy.
Candy doll.
Candy heart.
Candy mint.
Candy bear.
Candy colored.
Candy tart.
Rock candy.
Candy cane.
Candy corn.
Candy heart.
Candy lips.
Candy face.
Candy kisses.
Candy bar.
Candy wrapper.
Candy eyeballs.
Gummy candy.
Candy planet.
Candy worm.
Cotton candy.
Candy spiders.
Candy lab.
Let me be
your
candy tree.

Seed Bear

She only wants me to carry her seed,
to bear a child of her son’s name.
She wouldn’t care if I died in childbirth
as long as their name lived on.
I know that.
I have watched her
slither from room to room
gushing over her grandchildren
like some hungry boa
ready to consume them all
one by one.
Her eyes
bulge with desire
and expectation
as she quietly calculates
how many more there can be
in her fold.
She, who has professed the miracle of motherhood,
is lifeless
as a blackboard,
empty as a Texas well in Summer.
She,
the giver of life,
gives no life.
She,
the creator,
has created only guilt,
and shame,
and fear.
I watch her watching me
and I know
it is not me that she wants,
but my uterus.
The only way she can justify
her existence
is through my blood.
Yes,
she wants another one
who will look
just like her.

Come Out

Spring is coming.
I can see it in the green shoot
of the daffodils
and on the robin’s wings
as he builds his nest
just outside my window.
The trees,
once bare
as newborns,
are now threatening to bud.
Motion is everywhere
from the bird to the squirrel to the
mouse.
All of nature is alive
yelling to me –
Come out!
Come out!
Come out!

Apples and Onions

There is very little I can do
in all of this
but let go.
I woke up
yesterday,
on a bed,
blankets and sheets ripped off.
The blue of the sky in my eyes.
The sound of metal
in my ears.
The onions
and apples
recovering from their fall.
Many a great man
has walked backwards down boulevards
in search of love
only to come home
empty handed.
For now,
I must wake up early,
brush my teeth,
and keep my mouth shut.

New York

After a week in New York,
coming back to Nashville
is like checking in to a funeral home.
It’s dead here.
Dead on the streets.
Dead in people’s cars.
Dead in the restaurants.
There is no 3 a.m. Chinese dinner.
Or real Italian linguine cooked by Sicilians.
Gone are the East Coast accents
and with them,
the thick slices of pizza dripping with cheese.
No smell of subway stations
or rodents.
No four hundred square foot apartments going for two thousand a month.
No corn beef piled high
on real rye bread from the Lower East side.
No Patisserie Claude and his incredible apricot tarts.
No café con leche served by Dominicans in a coffee shop that has existed for twenty-five years
where no one speaks English.
No empty faces to get lost in
and wonder why about.
No one sitting across from you on the train,
fighting to stay awake,
lunging forward and back,
teetering on the brink of falling.
In Nashville, the pleasantries eat you alive.
In New York,
you feel like you could scream
if you wanted to
and no one would care.
It would be o.k.
even acceptable.
Here,
you’d be put away in a second.
In New York,
anything can happen.
A gang of street kids can take over a subway
and put on a loud rap show
and you’d be forced to listen to it because you’re on an express
train and you can’t get off for another forty-seven blocks.
Here if you played a radio too loud
your neighbors would call the cops on you.
In New York,
you can see neon in Times Square
and you can dream that it could be your name in lights one day.
In Nashville,
neon is reserved for fast food restaurants
and nudie shows,
and a good bagel is only a dream.

If I Were A Dog

My next door neighbor’s dog is barking
again.
At what,
I do not know.
But he keeps barking
over and over
and it’s making me nervous.
I’m imagining intruders.
I’m imagining someone coming up behind me and strangling me
like they did to Grace Kelly in Dial ‘M’ For Murder.
I’m imagining the cord around my neck and my slow death.
It feels so real I turn to look over my shoulder,
but no one is there.
Still more barking.
Why does he keep barking?
I do not see anyone or anything.
No strange car.
Or man.
Or animal.
Nothing.
Bark.
Bark.
Bark.
What is wrong with that dog?
Maybe he’s insane.
For years he’s barked at me
every time I walked down my driveway
to get the mail or go on a walk.
And for what?
He knows who I am.
He’s seen me a thousand times.
And still he barks at me.
Why?
He chases every car
and bus
and tricycle
that goes by.
And what does it get him?
If I were a dog
I would go over there and ask him
why he does what he does.
Then again,
if I were a dog,
I would probably know.

In Living Color

Remember
all around you,
the coming of color.
The hand leaving the bed.
The love letters
in the Dead Letter Office
taking up space.
The evening classes
monstrous as childhood.
The fall of heroism
and spoons.
The wild breath of animal near the fire
questioning its very existence.
Everywhere you look
tulips and chocolate.
Red and velvet.
Purple and yellow.
The colors of passion exploding in stores.
The crinkle of plastic and ribbon.
How droll it all is.
I think of you
watching the tide.
The color of blue
in your nose and on your lips.
The sea in your hair.
Your feet trodding along in the sand,
lost.
Your white hair,
short,
clipped by a butcher.
The color fading from your eyes
with each passing day.

Home Again

Now that I have a desk
I feel like writing again.
It is so weird that just the act
of having somewhere to sit,
somewhere to go
can make the difference.
My office chair
that once sat in the garage,
collecting spider webs
is now parked in front of my new
particle-board Target desk.
And while it’s not made in China,
it certainly is not Century furniture either.
But, nonetheless, it serves its purpose and
I feel like I finally have a home.
For weeks I wandered from room to room,
feeling lost and displaced.
I tried writing in my bedroom,
hunched over my computer in bed,
back curved and aching,
my eyes falling asleep
the entire time.
I tried the den where I sat
in a chair with the dining room table chair across from me,
trying to use it as a desk,
all the while knowing I was getting nowhere.
I tried my office where my old desk used to be.
I sat on the futon with a low bamboo coffee table in front of me
trying to get something out creatively
before my body gave up.
Another ridiculous proposition and position.
Without my desk I have been lost.
The discipline of where to go,
was gone.
Just like in ballet,
it is the very act of reaching for the barre
that gives meaning.
Mind and body are unified,
knowing
from year after year
the routine of what is to come.
Here,
it is the desk.
The wood.
The chair,
that provide structure
and ultimately,
the path
to words.
True,
it is not the desk I’ve always dreamed of having,
and I probably won’t even keep it.
But it is a desk.
I can get my legs under it and
I can go to it at night
and in the day.
And it is there for me,
my silent companion,
waiting for my every word.

Honey Boy

where are your lips?
Where is that sweet voice
I could glide down
like a spoon
covered in cobbler?
We have danced,
you and I
under the Southern moon.
My hair blowing like a curtain
dark and velvety
against your skin.
Honey Boy,
my honey boy,
take me
ice and all
into July.
Melt the fat from my breasts
and wash my loins
in your golden skin.
I am yours.
Braid my arms
around your body
and tie my legs up
with your joy.
Let me be your uncomplicated hymm,
the one you sing note for note,
the one you never can forget.
Honey Boy
let me gather myself in you
like a virgin’s gown
flowing and bending at will.
Lip on lip.
Tongue on tongue.
The sweetest drowning
I will ever
know.

Snow Day

When the snow came
down
we hid
inside
and snuggled beneath the covers
like two children
who stayed home from school
with sore throats.
I popped popcorn
and you made hot chocolate
and we let our feet find each other
across the white.
There we lay,
toe against toe,
you reading Ayers
while I read Grapes.
Each one exchanging sentences
as if we were in a tennis match
lobbing knowledge at one another
harder and faster,
with the hope theirs would be the finer discovery.
In the afternoon we fell asleep,
curled up,
my head on your chest
riding your breath,
your fingers on my thigh
pressing in to my flesh,
leaving
their
mark.

Fruitless Suffering

Why do I presume to believe
that by asking him,
“What happened?”
I am like a surgeon opening up a wound?
Perhaps he is not like me
and has not sat around in his pain
allowing it to fester
year after fruitless year.
Perhaps the loss of his wife is no more painful
to him than losing a pair of good shoes
or a favorite baseball hat.
I’m sure he will tell me losing his dog
was worse.
Maybe he is just as content to lie in the sun
alone
as he was to lie with her.
I don’t know.
But I automatically assume that everyone who lost someone
has to be suffering as much as I was.
What if I am the one who is wrong?
Maybe he is fine.
Maybe he will tell me he never really loved her
all that much anyway
and that he’s better off now.
He’s free.
He can leave his shoes out and his underwear on the floor
and a wet towel on the bed
whenever he feels like it.
He can see old friends and travel to L.A.
and read the New York Times till noon every Sunday.
He can leave his dishes in the sink for three days at a time,
even the ones with egg on them,
and wash the darks with the whites
and forget to dust,
and curse and burp and fart
as loud as he can.
He doesn’t have to see her family or listen to her sister’s gossip
or pretend to like her parents.
He doesn’t have to wonder where she is when she goes on her early morning jogs,
or when she’ll be home from Spanish class.
He can shut the door now
and not have to lock it
when he goes to the bathroom.
And he’s got the phone numbers
of seven blondes
he met at the grocery store
this past week in the produce aisle.
Yes,
the sparrow still is a young man
even when he has stopped
singing.

The Shoe

The sandy beach I dreamed of walking on
to pumice my feet smooth,
didn’t exist in Sanibel.
Instead, I found myself dodging shells
like I were walking on a mine field.
There were a few smooth patches to be found
but they only lasted long enough for the tide
to roll in and roll out.
The first four days of the trip were so cold
I came home with numb feet
from an early morning walk.
My ears stung
and my hands were a pale blue.
“This is Florida?”
I asked an elderly couple I passed.
It felt more like Alaska.
They smiled and nodded
knowing the question didn’t need an answer.
It was o.k.
my frozen morning walk
on the beach
was a good warm-up for what waited for me
back at the condo.
The silence.
The yelling.
The tension.
The sharp shards of language thrown at each other
like broken conchs.
This was no vacation I had gone on.
This was an episode of survivor,
except for the freezer stuffed with ice cream,
and the refrigerator full of supplies,
it was every man for himself.
One night
we managed to all be civil enough to one another
to play Monopoly.
We used to play it together when we were children.
I was the shoe.
I was always the shoe.
I hopped from Boardwalk to Park Place
to the B&O railroad,
holding my breath,
hoping I wouldn’t land on somebody else’s property.
When I got sent to jail,
I was happy.
At least jail was free.
I sat there in my isolation for three turns and watched them.
I watched my father try to remember which piece he was.
I watched my sister buy
a house for every property she owned.
I watched my mother lope around the board in cash-heavy oblivion,
incapable of reading a Community Chest Card without assistance,
and unaware of when it was her turn.
We were a weird,
weird foursome.
A reality t.v. show of our own,
that no one would ever believe unless it had been filmed for posterity.
We went on like this for two days
until I suggested we call it a draw.
My sister agreed and then insisted either my father or mother won
because there was no way she would let me win.
I didn’t care.
As far as I was concerned,
it was a never ending game
no one could win.

Second Chance

I am eating ice cream.
Lick after glorious lick,
sucking down the cool
on a winter day.
Friday I thought I might be dying.
A letter arrived asking me to return for more tests.
Now I know I am fine.
But for two days I thought about the road I might have to go down.
For two days, I read online about other’s struggle with Cancer.
I imagined myself in hospital rooms
and how I would feel when they told me the news.
I imagined the needle in my breast,
and the incision,
and the scar.
I imagined the mirror
no longer my friend,
but rather something to be avoided.
I imagined hair loss,
and constant fear,
and trying to find the bravest part of myself,
even when I was the most afraid.
My mind turned into a cesspool
of rationale for why I had given myself this disease.
I was the one who hadn’t put myself first.
I was the one who accepted the intolerable.
I was the one who took myself for granted.
I’ve been sick for the last six weeks.
Perhaps my immune system is compromised.
And yes, I have been under stress,
with my mother’s illnesses,
and the dog dying,
and three car accidents,
and my father’s decline,
and my sister’s accounting,
and the housing market.
Yes,
it was all so clear,
I had done this to myself.
Every article I read said stress causes Cancer.
My mind was racing faster than a BMW on the 405 freeway.
Now, I would have to change everything.
I would have to become that wish I had never been.
I would have to put myself first
and forget about the worry others had caused me.
It wouldn’t matter anymore
who did what to whom,
or how much was left
or why.
It didn’t matter how old I was or what I had or what I’d done.
All that mattered was
what I would do if
I only had six months.
The answer was always the same -
Write.
And record.
And put out music.
And make films.
What had I been waiting for?
How many more days did I think God was going to give me?
I told God I wanted a second chance
and that I regretted wasting so much of my life on
boyfriends,
stress over drivers,
warped floors,
grades,
realtors,
money,
worry,
and
the thousand other pointless mental mazes I let myself wander in to.
I decided that if God would give me a second chance I would change.
I would be
happy.

Backroom of Your Mind

Lift up your heads and sing.
Outside the squirrels are at play.
Outside the day is at hand
blueing the blue
with the sun.
Don’t be afraid to rejoice.
There is a garden in bloom.
There is a mountain of bees
swirling a sweet dream anew.
Do you see what is outside?
Have you forgotten the past?
I am the joker at play
riding the tide all at once.
Tear up your secrets you fool.
Let down the wall of your door.
Don’t keep yourself in the dark
when the larks beg for your call.
Lift up your heads now, I say
there are red berries to eat.
There is a circus in store
in the backroom of your
mind.
If you will only begin
to let the morning come in.

Diana Action Hero

I am in the den,
sitting in the paisley chair,
waiting for Ricky.
Two nights ago
I walked into a swimming pool
in the kitchen.
There was water on the floor and countertop,
water dripping off the edges like some fancy
Zen waterfall at a day spa.
Water everywhere.
I grabbed about forty paper towels and started mopping up,
running to the trash,
and then running back for more.
When I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere,
with paper,
I went and got my yellow beach towel
from the bathroom hall closet
and started sopping it up.
I couldn’t believe it.
We had just put a new faucet in because the old one was leaking
so we thought our problem was solved.
Now I’ve learned we haven’t solved anything.
Lately, that seems to sum up how everything’s been going.
Problem after problem.
Sometimes I imagine myself as a kind of cartoon Wonder Woman
in a video game
leaping over
giant holes,
while grenades and fireballs are being thrown at me.
With each hole I leap,
my score goes up.
But as the game progresses
the jumps becomes bigger,
the balls of fire,
hotter,
and the way out,
more and more unreachable.
I am tired of problems.
Problems that never resolve.
Problems that never should have been mine to solve
in the first place.
I want to sit down for once and know
that things really are fixed.
I want to feel the sun on my face and put my head back
and just breathe
without fear of a goblin jumping
down my throat.
I want to lay down my sword
and hand in my Warrior Princess crown
and instead pick up my guitar
and let the notes carry me away like they used to
when the only problem I had
was getting the dog
to lie down.