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.