Happy New Year

It is that dark night,

when we must say goodbye

to all that has been

and hope for what will come,

tomorrow.

At midnight,

we will begin again.

Baptized like a newborn baby,

the wine dripped upon our heads,

redeeming us

as the sky fills up with confetti.

Our weary eyes

searching back through the year

hoping

hoping,

we will find something we can point to

where we can say,

“See, I did this. I existed. I mattered.”

The sound of steel being hammered into submission.

The blade of grass cut and left to die.

Our endless stupidity,
like those who have come before us

kneeling at the altar and crying.

Our bottles and tables perfectly arranged,

candles lit,

appetites filled.

Glasses held high toasting the

unforeseen.

Our prayer.

To be different. 

Waiting For The Mail

All morning I waited for the mail.

It usually comes by 10:00 a.m.

So around 10:30, I started checking the mailbox.

Nothing.

Fifteen minutes later, I checked again,

positive, that somehow, I missed hearing the mailman.

Still nothing.

I went in to the kitchen and started cooking and thought,

“O.k. it’s 11o’clock, it’s got to be there by now.”

So, I opened the door, lifted the black metal lid, and still,

nothing.

I shut the door, 

embarrassed that the neighbors had seen me look for the mail three times now, 

like some OCD lunatic.

The weird part was,

I don’t even know what I was checking for.

I just wanted the mail.

(And some part of me was sure there was going to be something really fantastic in it.)

After all, Christmas was only three days ago.

What if there were some late Christmas card 

from someone who couldn’t get it together,

or even a present?

I felt like Charlie Brown.

It was possible.

Wasn’t it?

Around 12:30, after making lunch and eating it

in about four minutes,

I opened the door once more and saw the black metal lid half-open.

The mail had arrived!

I pulled it out and began rifling through it.

Three donation envelopes, two cheesy catalogues, and one redplum.com reader later,

I had gone through the mail.

All of it.

No presents.

No cards.

No green envelopes from the WGA.

It all went straight into the trash.

“All that anticipation for nothing”, I thought.

I do that a lot – think that what’s coming is going to be fantastic, 

only to find out that it really isn’t.

Like that new pair of slippers that I think I must have

will probably end up hurting my feet.

And that new set of sheets that I saw in the magazine

will probably be returned because they’ll itch my skin.

And that shirt I got for Christmas, the clingy one that reveals everything, 

will probably end up stuffed in a drawer never to be worn.

For me, it’s always the things that I never see coming that end up being the best –

The stranger who stops and hands me the glove that I dropped.

Or the tangerine I peeled that’s sweeter than any I’ve ever had, 

even though the previous two sucked.

Or the substitute ballet teacher who compliments 

my turnout even when my regular ballet teacher never has.

And even though I know all of this,

or say I know all of this,

the truth is,

every morning,

I’ll still be

waiting 

for the mail. 

Christmas on 4th

I am sitting in the black cashmere cape.

The one your aunt left behind when she died.

The one I never would have purchased on my own,

but now find myself wearing all the time,

like some dark poetess.

I am swollen,

a stuffed turkey

on Christmas morning.

The gifts I wanted to put under the tree

never materialized,

we were too sick to go out and buy them.

Instead, we stayed home 

and made kale and white bean soup,

and red cabbage with apples and beer,

and cranberry with pear,

and we ate and we ate,

and we marveled at how much we have 

without a single present to unwrap. 

Rum Punch

It isn’t the severed head on the block

that frightens me,

or the way corn is two for a dollar

in December,

or how faces smile without meaning

as they pass in red Fords.

Yes,

my stockings are hung.

Red and green with moose heads and bear.

Labels still attached for a return I’ll never make.

And what of it?

It’s nothing,

I promise.

It’s just,

sometimes a girl

wants to be a girl,

and wear short skirts and heels

and dance to the Talking Heads

while nobody is watching.

Boots clicking on wooden floors,

hips swaying in search of rum punch

and love.

Look,

over in the corner,

the mistletoe is hung.

Christmas is coming.
See.

There’s no way of stopping it.

It will be here in a week

with ribbons and bows

and packages some will never unwrap.

And I will return to my tree,

the tabletop one with the needles dropping,

and I will kiss the ornaments,

each and everyone,

and pray they survive

another year. 

Lunacy

There must be some way

to drink down

lunacy.

To enjoy it in long sips

like a fine black tea

or a glass of wine.

Most of my life,

I have tried to hide from it,

keeping my head down,

scared turtle-like

hoping it would pass over me,

like some weird cumulus cloud

on its way to somewhere else.

But that has never worked.

When I feel lunacy coming near me

my body stiffens,

as if someone had poured green slime

down my back.

I feel the cold on my neck and the sick feeling

settling into my stomach.

I walk around the house unable to turn my head,

unable to get out of the way of future assaults. 

When someone asks me about it,

I want to say, “It isn’t me.   I’m not the one.

These aren’t my people.”

But that’s a lie.

I come from lunacy.

It is as much a part of me

as the mole on my right hand,

or my jagged fingernails,

the ones I have bitten down to the quick,
just like my mother. 

Gluten Free

Somehow,

in all of this,

I must learn to forgive myself,

for not being,

the perfect daughter,

the mother

I could have been,

or the woman I should have been.

I am standing at this fork,

looking at the roads I could have gone down,

but for endless reasons chose not to.

Last night I dreamed

my pregnant friend was at a party standing over the grave of someone

freshly buried.

“I don’t want to go, “ I said.

“I can’t eat the cookies.”

“I’m gluten free.”

“They’ll have nothing there for me to eat. So there’s no point in my going.” I told my sister.

But that was a lie.

I didn’t want to go.

I was too scared.

Too scared.

Today,

my stomach hurts.

It burns and belches

and refuses to quiet down.

It feels as if it is eating me alive,

while just around the corner the maple leaves
have turned to red.   

Cut On The Bias

Outside my window three more have gone up,
father.
Brick and steel and wood.
Gravel everywhere.
The sound of hammers and generators.
Hardhats on hard men.
Hands clutching blankets in search of progress.
New structures taking the place of an empty lot
where an old grocery store used to be.
And still it beats.
People used to hang out and sell drugs
and do their laundry, and buy pork rinds and beer.
Now they will sell for 400k
and my view of the street will be blocked,
shortened,
reduced to nothing more
than a blinking green light.
Tell me more, father.
Tell me of oxygen and blue skies
and the way people used to sing the blues
sitting on concrete
while men who held scalpels cut on the bias.
Tell me of the strudel makers.
The ones who could roll out a pie crust flaky as a fall leaf,
whose hands were so strong they could wrench chickens’ necks
in one snap,
 whose teeth were full of gold when they smiled.
Where are they in these new town homes with the stainless appliances
and the granite countertops?
Do they even care about whose tears they are blotting?
Tomorrow the men in trucks will come again
and my world will become even smaller.

Route 66

My life has turned into a wait and wonder, and worry, ‘why’.
A do nothing bus ride full of screaming people
piled on thick as meringue
unable to fight their way out.
A wheel-chaired Korean Veteran
puffing himself up against the world
fighting with some woman
three rows back.
A shit-filled diaper
help-less to be changed,
no matter how loud the cries.
More and more they come.
The feet.
The hands.
The eyes.
The mouths.
All cussing the same driver.
And still, I haven’t arrived.
I watch the street signs.
The lip-stained billboards.
The high-heeled leopard strutting her way
across Michigan Avenue.
The bagged and bag less.
The hungry and well fed.
All begging to get off
the damn bus.

Before The Phone Rang

There is nothing I can do.
Now that he is in a hospital bed with tubes and needles sticking in him.
He is pale and sweaty and vomited.
They are trying to force fluids into him, trying to bring him back. 
I am hundreds of miles away
thirty-two floors up,
watching the waves lap at the shore,
and worrying.
This afternoon,
I lay on the table with needles in me,
trying to relax. Everything bothered me.
The wind blowing in through the open window.
The music in the distance.
The needle in my leg kept aching while the ones in my ears kept itching.
I felt pinned down, panicked,
the opposite
of what was supposed to be happening.
When it was over,
I didn’t get the “relaxed-high” I usually get.
I sat on the dark wooden bench
outside my room and put on my tennis shoes.
A few moments later,
my cell phone rang.
A nurse from my father’s assisted living facility
was calling to tell me the paramedics had just arrived
and were taking him to the hospital.
I don’t know if that’s why I couldn’t relax,
or not, but I think
some part of me
knew something was wrong
even before the phone rang.

The Drake

I’m sitting on the red sofa.
Back curved,
legs crossed
like a twisted pretzel
listening
to the white noise of Lake Shore Drive.
This morning I passed an old black man
on a bike.
His face was etched with years,
carved like a fine wooden bowl.
Each groove a testament
to his every breath.

Letting The Earthworms Starve

I think about death,
like lips curled round a plum
taking in all its flavors.
When I was nine and my grandmother died
I kissed her forehead as she lay in her coffin.
I hadn’t expected her to be
so cold and hard,
so unforgiving.
After I touched her, I cried,
and didn’t want to ever
die.
I didn’t ever want to feel
like that.
I wanted a way out, of this body,
without dying,
but how could I get out without
dying?
There was no way out but through death,
and yet,
I couldn’t stand the thought of dying.
I was mad at my parents for ever having had me.
Didn’t they know they had sentenced me to death?
I couldn’t make sense of it.
The circles in my brain
went round and round.
For months it was all
I could think about,
crying in the kitchen,
and in my bed at night,
and at school on the playground.
While other children played,
I thought about death.
Being buried beneath the ground with the earthworms
eating my flesh.
Screaming with no one to hear me.
Feeling suffocated
in the dark,
locked
in my tiny box
alone.
I thought about death so much,
I made myself sick.
I vomited.
Then one day, I stopped thinking about it.
I put it out of my mind.
Recently, I have found myself thinking about death again.
Not in the same terrified way I did as a child,
but as a woman
seeing my life pass quicker than I had ever imagined.
I know, now, I am moving towards death
like a swimmer caught in a riptide
being pulled out to sea.
I cannot fight against it.
I cannot swim harder than its pull.
Death will win.
But I also know I cannot just float
and let myself be taken.
I cannot sit idly by and wait for the inevitable.
I must fight.
I must forget what awaits me
and throw myself into every second of this life.
I must let the earthworms starve.

Yes 1

Yes,
go.
I am certain there will be pancakes.
You know the kind,
Big,
white,
fluffy
ones.
That hang on your lips and
Soak
up the syrup.
Because toothpicks
and almonds
are made for each other.
No,
That’s wrong.
The dog is in the park.
Trouble.
Running black.
As if still
here.
I dreamt about him last night.
He came to my bed
and curled up beside me.
Pressed himself so hard
against me,
I woke up warm.
My boy.
My soft boy.
I was a mother once.

Ode to L.A.

I do not miss you.
You with your smoggy, painfully, sunny skies.
You with your line of traffic
that crawls hour after hour, mocking me
and everyone else stupid enough to be stuck in it.
You with your tanned perfectly
toned bodies,
who worship your superficiality,
as if it were an alternative religion,
to sell their souls to.
You with your collection of cheap blondes,
over-processed sunflowers destined to remain exactly as they are
till they are placed in the ground at Forest Hills Cemetery.
I do not miss your monotonous weeks and months,
that look the same,
everyday
no matter what the season.
Nor do I miss the phony frenzy,
where everyone is judged solely on their next “big” project,
or who they just had lunch with,
or how many zeros are on their check.
I do not miss you.
You with your swank affairs and Beverly Hills mansions.
You with your Rolexes and lapdogs wearing diamond collars.
I do not miss you and your winding roads
up Topanga,
barfing to get to an art class that would leave me
emotionally defeated.
I do not miss your sun.
Or the teeth bleached whiter than the clouds.
Or the ever-present feeling that at any moment
I could be the next “hot” thing or just another footnote
in your Hollywood hills.
I do not miss your
sushi bars, (well, I guess I miss those a little).
Or your Farmer’s Market with the twelve-dollar corned beef sandwiches.
Or the receptionists trained in the art of exclusion,
except when they’ve deemed you worthy by some higher up.
I do not miss you and your parking spaces,
the fights over them,
the four letter words,
the pointed middle fingers.
I do not miss waiting hours to go to a movie,
or standing in lines at grocery stores no matter what time of night.
I do not miss your earthquakes
that left me naked in a doorway,
stumbling over broken glass and 20 inch t.v.’s thrown to the ground,
as if they were styrofoam props from a movie set.
I do not miss casting agents
and stars who would attempt rape in dressing rooms
and then laugh about it.
I do not miss you and your eighty-degree Christmases
that never felt like Christmas at all.
I do not miss you.
I do not miss you.

Suffering in Beauty

Yesterday,
walking back
I passed
the muttering,
freaks
in the city.
A man covered in filth
kicking a can across the street
screaming profanities.
The can flying
endlessly,
like the kicking.
A woman on her cell phone,
holding a baby,
yelling at someone
who wasn’t paying her support.
I wondered if she even cared about what she was doing
to the eardrums of the child in her arms.
They were both so loud,
so miserable,
so completely insane,
it occurred to me
that it is not enough to have the sun,
or the flowers,
or the sea to gaze upon.
It is not enough to have plums,
and figs, and lemons at your fingertips.
Or to walk in the hills and smell honeysuckle
and eucalyptus at every turn.
Suffering exists,
even in beauty.

Forty Minutes

Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane
to fly to California.
Unfortunately, it’s not a non-stop.
It makes a stop in Denver,
which is weird because my parents live
in Denver and
I’m not stopping to see them.
I’ll only be in Denver for about fifty minutes.
In the old days my parents might have gotten
in their car,
driven to the airport
and met me at the gate.
We would have talked for forty minutes
before I would have gotten on the next plane
to go wherever it was I was going.
But now, everything’s different.
They can’t drive anymore.
And even if they could,
they couldn’t get through security anymore,
without a ticket.
There’s no more surprise visits to airports.
Nor is there any more hummus
or yogurt in carry-on bags.
It’s all so serious now.
It’s too bad.
I would have enjoyed seeing them
for forty minutes.

Why The Dead Sing

I know why the dead
sing,
underground,
in the dark,
bound in boxes.
They have no one
to tell them
they can’t.
They have no one watching them
to see
what they’ll do.
If they flail their arms about
like wet mop heads,
who will care?
If their faces contort
all sunken
like the ripest of cantaloupes,
and their tongues
flop from their mouths
pale and white,
and helpless,
who will judge them?
Who would dare criticize the dead?
To unearth
them.
To disturb their sonorous slumber?
A choir of corpses,
shrouded in linen and lace.
Man and woman and child
locked arm and arm
unfettered by worry
or fear
marching on.
Marching.
Marching.
Marching.
But to what beat?
There is no heartbeat to listen to.
No pulse.
No rhythm,
to guide them in their song.
Nothing to feel when their pale hands are placed upon their vacant chests.
And yet,
they sing.
They sing.

Expectations

If I had to use one word to sum up my first trip in support of l V it would be, ‘expectations.’
What I ‘expected’ would happen, vs. what I didn’t.

Mark and I left at 6:00am on Tuesday to begin the five hundred mile,
eight hour and twenty minute drive to Raleigh, North Carolina.
We expected rain, because I had checked weather.com
pretty much incessantly over the past few days,
but we didn’t expect a rain so fierce it would leave us straining to see
out of the windshield and force us and everyone else around us
to put on their emergency lights just to avoid being hit.
Luckily, that was only the first hour, and the rest of the trip was just cloudy
with a few sprinkles.

The night before we left, we booked a hotel on Priceline,
choosing a 3.5 star hotel because the little arrow said, “best deal.”
So, we placed a $50 bid, and when it was accepted, we were thrilled.
It was apparently a 64% savings, meaning it must be pretty nice.

When we finally got off the highway, and pulled up to the hotel
our visions of downy-duvet cushiness vanished.
This couldn’t be it. Could it?
Was this hotel even in business?
There was no one there, except for a team of workers frantically putting on a new roof.
Blue plastic tarp covered the section that had yet to be redone.
How could this be a 3.5 star hotel?
Just half a star short of 4?
Priceline screwed us!

We got out of the car and walked into the lobby hoping things would improve.
They did, some.
It was an old style lobby, with marble floors
and a small store where you could buy shaving cream, band-aids and Coke.
There was also an outdated gigantic dining room…with no one eating in it.

We were handed our keys and then walked to our room.
The hallways were covered in a flowery beige wallpaper
and the carpets were a swirl of red and green.
None of it seemed to go together.
When I opened the door to our room,
the crazy décor continued, with added mustiness.
When I got into the room I headed straight for the beds.
If they were bad, I would attempt to get out of this Priceline “deal,” a feat I’m not sure has ever been done.
I quickly pressed on them, and surprisingly, they were good.
They were Sleep Number beds.
I could adjust them to whatever firmness I wanted.
I think I finally settled on 40.
And the room had something else going for it - it was quiet.

Agreeing to stay, I decided to take a hot shower.
The shower, however, was old,
and went from scalding hot to freezing cold and back again,
even when the rusty knob remained set in exactly the same position.
After a few minutes of jumping around in the shower trying to avoid third degree burns,
I gave up, got out, and tried to focus on why I was there – for my interview with Frank Stasio on WUNC
and for my in-store at All Day Records.

I hadn’t seen Frank in over nine years, (since he interviewed me for Fantasia Ball)
and I was really looking forward to seeing him again.
Over the years we had exchanged emails.
I always enjoyed hearing Frank’s musings about the world, which were deeply insightful.
I was looking forward to sitting down with him after the show (he mentioned a possible lunch in one email)
or having dinner and catching up on each other’s lives.
Instead, the next morning, I got an email from him telling me
that he wasn’t going to be able to have lunch after all….
Show tapings etc.
“That’s ok,” I thought.
I’m sure we’ll still have some time to talk after the taping.
Again, ‘expectations.’

What I hadn’t ‘expected’ was Frank and his staffs’ decision
to bring up my past, when I was briefly a Television Writer for “Full House,”
with a “this is your life, Diana Darby” kind of moment, complete with clip from the show.
It wasn’t the arc I was hoping for,
or the mood I wanted to set,
but I went with it.
Seventeen minutes later, the taping was over,
and Frank, who was incredibly busy, was helping us to the door.
We didn’t get to sit down and talk as I had hoped
and I was back in my car
before I knew
what had happened.

I left the studio feeling like I had driven 500 miles for nothing.
The seventeen-minute segment felt like three seconds
and I felt like some wind-up monkey in a box,
playing one song after another with very little time to talk about anything
that mattered.

I returned to my 3.5 star hotel and soothed my sorrow
on the treadmill in the workout room,
muttering to myself about what I “expected”
would have happened on the show vs. what actually did happen.

At 5 o’clock we decided to go check out Happy Hour at the hotel bar.
It turns out they don’t actually have Happy Hour in North Carolina.
MADD banned “Happy Hour” according to the bartender.
Now they have “food with drinks”.
It looks like Happy Hour, but you can’t call it that and you have to buy a drink
in order to have any of the food.
Anyway, we had been given two free Breakfast Buffets and two free drink coupons
to make up for some crackers left under our bed,
the faulty shower,
and the a/c unit that seemed to have a mind of its own.
I left my drink coupon in the room and didn’t want to go back and get it,
so Mark and I shared a Chivas.
I ate a few of his chips when the bartender wasn’t looking.
A man at the end of the bar, who was sitting with another man,
heard us talking and offered to buy me a drink.
When I refused, he offered to buy Mark one.
Neither of us quite knew what to think.

Then the man walked up to us and said he was the marketing director
at the hotel and he had been hired to completely remodel the hotel.
Then he proceeded to tell us about his life,
about the theatre company he founded in Miami,
and about his artist son,
how he had lost him for a while,
but now they were really close,
and about how miserable he had been following the path of a businessman.
I had had no expectations what so ever about this man,
or the Happy Hour, but somehow the intimacy I was hoping for earlier
was now being given to me by a total stranger
over a bowl of guacamole and chips.
I marveled at his honesty.
Did he realize some people go through their entire lives
and never reveal as much as he had in twenty-five minutes?
I wanted to kiss him, or hug him, or something.
But I had to go and get ready for the in-store at All Day Records.
So, I thanked him for the conversation.
He said he’d leave us two drinks for later.
I said I’d take him up on it after the show.

We got in the car and drove to the record store.
By now I was wishing I were on my way home to Nashville.
I was tired and I had very little hope of this show being anything.
When I walked into the store there was virtually nobody there,
except for the two guys who ran the record store and two other customers.
It was eight o’clock.
I was supposed to go on at eight o’clock.
A million thoughts went through my head.
All of them bad.
One of the guys got a chair and put it on a raised platform
at the front of the store.
Then he got out two very large speakers and the rest of a sound system.
He put one of the speakers outside the door to attract people.
My ‘expectations’ were low, beyond low.
NO one was there.
And it was raining.

I sat on my chair and started playing.
There was one guy at the counter buying records,
and another man thumbing through vinyl.
They listened politely, and applauded with each song.
But after about two songs, something changed.
Something kicked in.
Maybe it was the unearthly sound they had gotten me on that tiny sound system,
or the rainy sky,
or the fact that there was a small crowd gathering,
who were sitting and listening,
really listening.
But all of a sudden, something took over.
And before I knew it I was deep into my songs.
“Heaven” was nothing short of an exorcism,
which left me and the audience absolutely stunned.
In fact, I was so moved/confused by it, I couldn’t figure out what to play next.
I didn’t write out a set list because I figured I didn’t need one.
I’ve played enough shows to be able to pull out 10-15 songs at random.
But there I was, unable to play anything.
I reached for “Kierkegaard” and continued my descent.
Then, “Elena”, which left my voice breaking.
My hair was in my eyes and face, and my body was swaying.
I could feel the audience with me and yet I was completely alone in my very weird world.
Song after song came – “Crazy”, a song I usually leave the stage with,
and then “Snow.”

When I finished, the applause was huge.
I had given probably one of the best performances of my life,
in that tiny record store.
I felt drained and exhausted and HUNGRY
to return to the stage.
The show I had had no expectations for turned out to be
the best part of the trip.
Just like meeting the stranger at the hotel
who had been so open and vulnerable with me.

We thanked Ethan and Charlie at All Day Records
for having me and got in the car.
As we started driving the radio was set to WUNC.
I saw Frank Stasio’s name and “The State Of Things” lit-up on the display
and turned up the volume.
It was me!
They were airing a re-broadcast
of my performance from earlier that day.
I couldn’t believe it.
The timing was really incredible.
I missed maybe thirty seconds of a seventeen-minute segment.
I sat there listening,
waiting to cringe as I had that morning when we taped,
but I didn’t.
It was better than I had expected.

The next morning,
I sat in the enormous dining room of our hotel
and enjoyed my free breakfast buffet and marveled at the employees
who had been with the hotel for the last thirty years.
I liked this place,
weird wallpaper and all.
It was better than any new, 4 star hotel with perfect décor.
This place had soul.
And soul is a heck of a lot harder to come by
than new carpet.

Riding The 'L' Again

That same black man was on the train again today
asking for money.
Only this time
he needed a thirty-day pass.
This time
when he finished his speech,
no one gave him anything.
And this time,
I didn’t feel guilty.

Red Velvet

Come and see
the pink flesh.
You know the one
I speak of.
Curved and soft.
The forbidden.
Run your finger
over it.
There.
Yes.
Go slow.
Slow.
Or you will miss too much.
Do not be afraid
to touch,
inside.
To learn what makes it move.
To hear its secrets,
all of them.
You say it can not speak.
I say, you are not listening.
Come closer.
Closer.
There.
Now can you hear?
I thought so.

Acts of Culpability

So, this is how it is.
All my efforts
falling
on
not just deaf,
but severely deaf ears.
The family,
hard at work
casting votes
for their favorite child.
How sweet it is
to be
the one
incapable
of responsibility
for acts of culpability.
Spending run amok.
A closet full of dresses,
sandals,
and handbags,
all with the tags still attached.
Room after room of purchases.
A candy store
sickly sweet
with the smell of new.
A kitchen pantry
stuffed
with exotic teas and oils
from around the world.
A refrigerator imploding
with watermelons,
spinach, goat cheese, lettuce,
lemons, pineapple, and quail,
all growing mold
and rotting
while new deliveries arrive
to take their place.
Can they not see?
The pleas
keep coming,
to offer dollars,
help,
funds,
in her direction.
“She has no one.”
“Don’t be so hard.”
“Do you want her to starve?”
How many times have I heard their arsenal
used against me?
How many times have I been made to be
the hard-hearted one?
Yes,
I admit,
I am the responsible child,
living off rice and beans,
wearing old t-shirts and socks
with holes in them,
saving when I could spend.
But I do not begrudge my thrift.
I savor it.
I thank God
I do not have
her desire,
her disease.
I am satisfied to read
a book
on a couch
with a cup of tea.
Listen to the water lap
at the shore.
Watch minnows in search of sustenance.
Yes,
I am content in my plainness.
But I do not understand why I should be punished
for my mindfulness.
Am I not entitled to enjoy my half of the pie
at my own leisure?
Savor texture and flakiness and fruit ripe with sweetness?
She has wolfed down her half
and now has her eyes set on mine.
And what if I gave in?
In the morning she’d be hungry for more.
And all I would have would be a clean plate.

Riding the 'L'

The black man on the train
entered our car and in a very loud voice
asked for money.
Twenty-three dollars for a seven-day bus pass
so he could have transportation to go look for work.
He said he didn’t drink or do drugs and didn’t want to stand
on the corner begging for money.
He said he wanted to be a social worker
and he had resumes with him too.
When he was through with his speech,
everyone on the train sat with their heads down,
glancing at one another uncomfortably.
Nobody did anything.
Then, some touristy-looking white guy in the back handed him a dollar.
When he passed by me,
I didn’t give him anything.
I was pissed off.
I hated that he made his speech.
I didn’t want to hear it.
I didn’t ask to hear it.
I didn’t get on the train so I’d have to listen to his story.
I just wanted to make it back to my apartment
with my tofu noodle soup before it all leaked out.
Now, besides trying to get home,
I had to feel guilty.
I know he goes from car to car giving the exact same speech.
And I know someone on each car is giving him something.
Otherwise, he’d quit asking.
But what makes me so mad,
is that I don’t know what to believe.
Maybe he really is who he claims he is.
But maybe he isn’t.
Everyday, I pass by the same homeless people on the streets of Chicago.
Each one seems as bad off as the next.
And I want to help them all,
but I don’t know if the money I give would be going to drugs or cigarettes,
or if they own a house in some nice suburb
and they do this on the side rather than work some crappy job.
And that’s what makes me feel so bad -
I can’t trust them.
I want to do the right thing.
But I’m not sure what the right thing is.
I wish I had asked the man on the train to show me the inside of his pockets.
What if he already had twenty-three dollars in his pockets?
What if he had two hundred?
Then what?
Then he’d be a liar.
And I wouldn’t have to feel bad.
But I didn’t ask him anything.
Neither did anyone else.
Seems to me, if someone is going to make an announcement and claim all these things,
we should have the right to ask some questions.
But instead, we all just sat there with our heads down,
feeling guilty and annoyed and mainly guilty.
When the train stopped the black man made his way
through the emergency door
to the next car
and began his speech again.
Three gay looking guys sitting near me
laughed and snickered about him
and about how hard life was
and about the manicures
they were going to go get.
They were so mean-spirited about everyone and everything
that they annoyed me
much more than the poor black man.
At least he was sincere.
I stared at them, wishing
they would get off the train.
They did.
Three more stops to go.
I felt my soup slosh in its plastic container.
Next time, I’m taking the express bus.

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Crossing Delaware

To be honest,
there isn’t much I can
say
about ballet shoes
pointed
in first,
or the way some dancers
comb
their hair
into
big
round
buns.
Mine never holds.
It flops from side to side
like a geriatric breast,
until it finally breaks loose
sending the hair down my back,
in long embarrassing curls.
It’s easy to say
you understand
why note follows note,
or why silence comes
without warning.
But when the Nigerian cab driver turns left without looking,
and you are standing in the crosswalk,
none of it
will matter
anymore.

River Man

My man moves like the river.
Arching.
Bending.
Twisting
into space.
Arms and legs curving,
wrapping around me,
finding
the tiniest crevice
to slip inside.
My man isn’t shaken by adversity.
He keeps flowing
knowing there is nothing
that can keep him
from going
where he wants to go.
He will grow silent,
and still
for a time,
Sullen.
A brooding mass
pooled up,
and infinitely deep.
A green
I cannot see into
no matter how hard I try.
His power is more fierce
than any warrior’s.
His presence
can be felt
from miles away.
I know he is there
without having to look.
And when he is near,
I long to touch,
his body.
My man moves like the river.
An endless river.

The Taking Care of Hummingbirds

I have printed the forms
for each of us to sign,
so we will know
who gets what
when the time comes.
There is his stack and mine.
It is all there
in black and white.
The names of the people we love
or at least tolerate.
Our guilt money.
The taking care of hummingbirds.
I never worried about such things before.
But Sunday is gone.
Neither of us understands
how words on paper became so final.
Hands
painting
yellow and blue.
Innocent colors of streaks
running
down the page
settling
into carpet.
Everything seems so important now.
As if the wrong move
could mean my death.

Wildflowers

Their world is so small now.
Two queen beds.
One in the bedroom,
the other in their living room.
Two brown leather chairs with an ottoman
they rarely sit in.
A refrigerator full of diet soda
and peanut butter.
Half-eaten Ritz crackers and candy bars.
A bed strewn with watercolor pencils
and Chagal stencils.
Caretakers and pills.
Endless amounts of pills,
swallowed with applesauce and yogurt.
The long walk down the hall.
Three times a day
to a table for meals.
Photographs of families line their walk.
Each generation
smiling more stupidly than the one
before.
The pale pink walls.
The green patterned carpet,
lulling them to sleep.
The roses out their window.
Day after day,
it is always the same.
On good days,
they walk to the garden.
She pulls the head off a dead rose.
The white petals fall to the ground
and blow away.
On bad days,
they stay in their rooms
with the t.v. on
gathering dust.
And the mint keeps growing,
taking over
her little plot
of wildflowers.

From Above

As if the noise could end.
The hammering could
Stop
And I could
breathe
for a minute.
This back and forth
sawing,
lion growling,
nail-biting-torture
never ceases till
four-thirty on the dot.
Oh, and on the weekends.
But I’m never here on the weekends.
Everyday it comes.
From where,
I do not know.
It is as if the walls and the ceiling are possessed.
Just when I’m sure it’s coming from above,
it’s coming from next door.
And when I think it’s coming from next door,
it’s coming from above.
What the Hell are these people doing?
I mean, just how much can you do to a fifteen hundred square foot apartment?
Evidently, plenty.
If it were up to me, I’d live in it “as is.”
Just wheel in a really good bed,
a desk,
a couple of chairs,
and a sofa,
and start working.
Quietly.
Very quietly.
But these people here,
are more about style
than substance.
They’re more about “what’s in”
than what’s inside.
I see them in the elevators.
Dripping in diamonds and pearls.
Hair dyed bright red.
Lips dyed even redder.
Teeth whiter than humanly possible.
Perfume so strong it should come with a warning label
or at least a clothes pin.
Faces Botoxed and nipped and tucked and pulled
so many times
they could be wrapped in wax paper
and sold
as taffy.

A House Is Not A Home

Tonight I want to go home.
I want to be in my bed
with my sheets and my pillow.
I want to wake up to where I know.
I want grass and trees and white paint
on doors and windows.
I want the sound of crickets
and the taste of pressure-cooked brown rice.
I want my hot water bottle across my belly
and stillness.
I want someone to call me ‘baby’ or ‘honey’
and threaten to serve me a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.
I want to drive across town in five minutes
and never worry if I’ll be hit by a cab, or a bus,
or a train.
I want to open my own mail
and throw out all the ads.
I want to be there when the phone rings
and listen for all the times it doesn’t.
I want to know who wants me.
And who doesn't.
I want to stare out behind the curtains
and watch the neighbors fight,
and then wait for the police to come.
I want to go home.
The only problem is
I don’t know where home is.
Home isn’t Nashville.
It never has been
and it never will be.
And home isn’t L.A.
with it’s endless palm trees and oppressive sunshine.
The only home I’ve ever known was in Houston,
but that house was torn down over five years ago.
And that house was never a home.
The truth is,
I’ve never had a home.
I’ve had roofs over my head.
And places where I’ve kept my stuff,
but I’ve never had a home.
I do not know the feeling of walking in the door and saying to myself, “it’s good to be home.”
Instead,
when I turn on the lights,
I walk in to silence
and the fear in my stomach
that keeps me running.
I walk in to the same empty hole
I’ve felt all my life.
I walk in to wishing
and longing,
and the feeling that wherever I am,
I am never home.

Feeding the needy

Our hands open to teeth.
Sandals and shorts,
sores ooze Coke and biscuits.
I watch them bake skin in the sun
and smoke picnic endlessly.
Where will they go when the rain comes?
In churches and under tables?
Their minds chatter tomatoes and beer cans and then they laugh.
And laugh.
Crazy laughs.
As if God came and sat beside them and whispered
in their ear “the dog broke the dishes”.
I am not one of them
in my perfect blue Victorian house
with the irises blooming
out front.
But I feel their hunger.
I know what it’s like to want gravy,
but settle for empty bowls
and lick the air for crumbs.
I understand the urgency that comes with time.
The press and flow of promises unrealized.
The stench of almost and the lure of not quite.
The brokenness of dreams.
Yes, I understand.

Holding Hands With The Blind

It is like that now,
holding hands with the blind,
trying to maneuver through the dark tunnels
of fire,
as they stumble
and fall.
I can not
save
them.
The sugar pulses in their veins
like pancakes,
their bright eyes
fading
with disease.

Slipping On Algae

It’s all moving too fast.
This single bleed.
The beans on the pot.
The cops across the street with pens in their hands
and guns tucked away.
There are too many questions
I can not answer.
Clouds
and pictures
and worries.
I sit
frozen
scared to move to the right
or to the left.
Slipping on algae with each step.
Feeling the pull
as it takes me
somewhere
I do not want to go.
When did life become like this?
Clots and pictures.
Pictures of dead people and animals.
smiling at me
wearing linen and pearls.
Hair dyed and lips reddened.
Tongues dipping into birdbaths
Longing to quench a thirst
No water can ever satisfy.
I want to plug my ears.
To run through the fields screaming
in search of silence.
To sit on a rock
and breathe
long and hard and deep
and still
where no one can listen.
To know
I am safe.

A Beginner

The doctor was a beginner,
turned around by a dying king
with a rope round his neck
and a cat in his lap.
A glint of a man,
once outnumbered by
courtesans and queens.
A simple man with a dream,
as all simple men are.
A working class fellow,
happy to pass his days with a beer
or a walk in the woods.
He didn’t know spit,
or blood for that matter,
but he was quick with a knife
and thread.
And when he saw a man in trouble
he would dive in,
head first,
with great aplomb.
And so this man,
this gentle man,
took hold of the city,
like crabgrass,
planting his roots
deep into the affections of others,
never questioning
the malformed foal
or the Cesarean section required.
Never charging more than was absolutely required.
Taking in trades
from the poor:
the occasional pig,
a one-legged rooster,
jars of jelly and home-made jam,
shoes cobbled by arthritic hands,
and sweaters knitted by fair-haired maids.
It was a good life.
A fair life.
That is,
until the king with the rope and the cat
came into his life.
He was summoned to the castle,
where he found the king slumped
in his chair.
Eyes bulging.
Rope taught.
Hands rigid and cold.
Heartbroken over the loss of the Queen’s affection.
And though he tried to save him,
He could not.
He worked for hours,
pumping and blowing,
and praying,
and swearing,
and rubbing hands and feet.
But nothing changed.
The king was dead.
So was his cat.
The doctor went home to his cottage,
locked his door
and turned off the lights.
Days passed.
But there were no calls for him to come.
No jars of jam,
or crippled birds left at his door.
No sweaters knitted by fair hands.
Nothing.
When he did make his way to town,
he was never greeted with a familiar smile,
or pleasant word,
or any word for that matter,
just snorts of disdain.
It was as if he wasn’t himself anymore.
And he wasn’t.
So he loaded up his cart and left,
and tried to become
a beginner
once more.