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.