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.

Searching For Milk

Oh muffin of blue and brown,
flax and wheat,
raisin and berry,
how did you get to be so perfect?
So warm?
So soft in the middle?
You,
who were once nothing but flour in a bowl,
are now sinfully delicious.
You,
who were once nothing more than plain ingredients
in separate containers,
have been mixed,
as if by some sorcerer’s magic,
into something to marvel at.
I see you sitting there,
row after glorious row,
in the glass baking case,
lit from above
like a high-school beauty
on her way to the prom.
You are there begging me to
pick you up and put you in the unmarked brown paper bag,
that waits on the white counter.
You want me to reach my hand in
and feel your hard crusty top
just so I will have no choice but to
make my way with my fingers
to
your soft
curvaceous bottom
fully knowing
that when I do,
I will be unable to stop
and
I will eat
way too much of you.
Oh muffin of crumb
and desire.
Muffin of peach and pear
and mango.
Muffin of cherry and chocolate,
oatmeal and pumpkin.
Muffin of cranberry
and boysenberry.
Do not tempt me.
I am weak.
Why just the thought of you leaves me
searching
for milk.

Crawling In The Dark

Last night there was a scratching in the attic.
A rap rap rapping.
A gentle gnawing.
Some animal made its way in
out of the cold
and into the pink insulation of my home.
How it happened,
I don’t know.
Lately it seems things keep happening.
One snafu after another.
One unexpected bill.
One unexpected break.
One unexpected animal
crawling around in the dark
looking for something on the inside
it can’t find anywhere else.
I for one, have had it.
I can’t seem to plug the holes quick enough.
Vegas.
Florida.
Nashville.
It is all one giant hole for me to fall into.
Condos
and deposits
and beds on metal frames.
Full size and mid-size
and vanishing seats on planes.
And no matter what I do
Someone will be unhappy.
I have turned into part travel agent,
attorney,
exterminator
and plumber.
When I transformed into this amalgamation
of nothing I ever wanted to be
is a mystery.
But here I am,
walking around with my butt crack showing
and nothing to show for it.
The worst part is,
no one cares how many people I’ve written
or called on
trying to make the perfect vacation happen.
No one but me
is capable of
undoing a ten-year–old crime.
And I have listened to recording after recording
trying to make a deal with the Strip.
Tonight I have on my exterminator’s cap and am running to Home Depot
to buy some high pitched device to drive the animal out of my attic.
I only wish I could drive
the animal out of my brain.

Dust For My Tongue

The broken tea bag sits on the counter,
its innards spilled out like some old rag doll
I used to play with as a child.
I look at it.
Lifeless.
Helpless.
And I ask myself,
“Where is the pleasure”?
It’s not in my cup.
I’ve only got clear water
mixed with some strange residue.
No bright green or
earthen brown
to meet my lips.
Just dust for my tongue.

Still Waters

You see that cup,
that one,
the one with the green handle?
You see it sitting there on its saucer,
the saucer my mother gave me?
I like drinking out of that one
and only that one.
It’s bigger than the others.
Yeah, I know,
it’s too big,
but it gives me somewhere to go.
It gives me room to get lost.
I think about jumping in to it.
Into the dark,
into the still waters
and feeling myself
sink.
It is so big
and so round,
it is as if I were drinking from a pond,
minus the lilies and toads.
I don’t know why I like it so much.
Maybe because it’s green,
or maybe because it’s the last of its kind.
All of the others broke a long long time ago.

Words and Windows

It’s getting harder to communicate with them,
harder to cross the line between sane and insane.
Harder to make sense out of words,
and windows,
and meals.
They are functioning on broken cylinders,
trying to pedal bikes without wheels.
Combing through memories with hairbrushes and nightgowns.
They think the answer is in cards and pills
and bottles.
What used to be easy,
say dinner,
is now an ordeal.
A decision impossible,
with utensils and knobs as foreign
to them
as if they had been handed tools left over from a NASA mission.
The simplest task,
like going to the store,
has become a maze they are incapable of running.
Mice stranded in a parking lot without keys to hold,
monkey-barring their way
hand over hand with the help of strangers
back to their condo.
Every day
the t.v.
in their living room
gets somehow magically screwed up,
put on a station that doesn’t exist,
like auxiliary.
Then it is left for days,
a black screen,
a mystery to them,
till someone from the outside comes
and with one simple click of the button restores it
where it stays on days at a time.
I fear for what will become of them.
They are the blind leading the blind.
Neither has much more sense than the other.
I worry that someday
someone will come and lead them away,
leave them
like puppies on some dirt road
to wander in circles and die.
And like puppies,
they won’t even know they’re in danger
until it is too late.

Out of Reach

There’s got to be a way out of this.
Out of this hole.
Out of this mess.
Out of this feeling
of helplessness.
Luna’s on the hill
staring down at my window.
She is backlit in the sun.
A black furry figure
running through the trees.
I look at her and wish I were seeing Trouble.
Christmas was spent in California
where there were no reminders of him
except for the occasional mention.
I spent the week hiding from those I didn’t want to see
and regretting seeing others.
There was no fighting
like in my family,
just an unrelenting silence
and the occasional slip of the tongue.
I learned about secrets I had supposedly violated
and I learned there are people I never want to see again.
Mainly I learned I don’t want to spend Christmas with either of our families.
When I came back
I walked in to the emptiness of wood.
The bald floor where his bed used to lay,
the silence,
the empty hill,
all greeted me with their sorrow.
This house is a box to me now.
A brick container
holding nothing but my bed,
my guitar
and my past.
Some days are better than others.
But the holidays…
I suppose they’re bad for anyone who has ever lost someone.
There are days when I have almost gotten used to life without him.
I am free to travel (though I haven’t).
and there is no one
disturbing me with the constant need to go in and out of the house
or bark at the squirrels outside.
There is no fur on the floor,
or muddy paw prints,
or dead rabbits at my back door.
but the minuses could never outweigh the pluses.
He was everything to me.
Everything.
He spoke my language
and I spoke his.
I thought I would have been out of this house
months ago.
I thought I would have found a way to Portland or New York
where I could start again
and finally bury the dead.
But I’m still here
and the dead is still very much alive.
It’s waiting on the hill
and running down the hall.
It’s everywhere I am when I come up the drive.
It’s all here
but completely out of reach.