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.

What's the Point?

There’s nothing to do anymore.
Really, there isn’t.
I woke up this morning, bored.
I thought to myself,
“Go to a movie.”
What’s the point of doing that?
It’s just sitting.
It’s not really doing anything.
Besides, I usually hate every movie I see
and then I wish I could have my two hours back,
and my nine fifty.
O.k. then, why don’t you clean?
Cleaning’s always good,
and it’s so productive.
That’s stupid, I thought.
I have to clean tomorrow before I leave.
If I clean today, I’ll still end up cleaning tomorrow too.
O.k. then, why don’t you write?
Write what? I thought.
And for whom?
There’s no one to write for.
I’ve written everything I want to write about.
So, go workout.
Burn some calories.
I already did that.
Well, then, there’s always the mall.
I hate the mall.
I wander around like a dying fish
looking for water.
I stare at everything and wonder why I don’t want any of it.
Just how much pleasure is a leather bag and a pair of boots supposed to give me,
and for how long?
Go to the library and get a good book.
Great idea,
except the book I want is checked out,
and the last time I went to the library it took me fifteen minutes to get out of the parking garage
all because there was only one guard on duty working the gate.
“It’s lunch time,” the disgruntled guard said.
“Why can’t they get someone to fill in when the other person goes to lunch,” I asked?
“Why don’t I just stop eating lunch all together?” he quipped.
Yeah, there’s no way I’m going there today.
I hate every choice I come up with.
I get so desperate I even call my sister.
“So, what are you doing?”I asked casually.
“Getting ready for my date,” she said.
She’s trying to buy panties at Macy’s.
Not because she needs new panties,
she just doesn’t want to do her laundry.
I hang up.
She’s too much for me.
I tell myself to come up with something I’ve never done.
Challenge myself.
Well, I’ve never gone skydiving.
I guess I could go skydiving.
But why would I want to do that?
I hate things like that.
Either I die on the way down,
or I survive and vomit when I hit the ground.
That doesn’t sound appealing.
Wait a minute,
I know,
I could go to that new ice cream shop that sells twelve-dollar-a-pint ice creams.
That’s what I’ll do.
Oh, wait,
I can’t do that,
I’m lactose intolerant
and sugar makes me sick.

The Gerber Girl

Today as the Valium slips through my veins,
I am calmer.
I do not yell at the man in front of me, who,
rather than making a left
on a green light,
waits for the arrow.
Nor do I flip out when the girl at the grocery store
cuts in front of me with her basket of coconut water.
I smile at the woman next to me who is blaring some offending music
from her green I-pod.
And I forgive the child with the miniature cart who runs over my foot
without a thought.
After all, it’s the holidays.
We are all supposed to be nice to each other, right?
It’s bad Karma to do anything else.
At least that’s what my yoga teacher tells me.
Don’t be nice just to be nice,
do it for your Karma.
How very yoga!
So, as I make my way through my errands,
I am careful not to do anything that could potentially bring more strife to myself.
At Trader Joe’s, I watch a girl hugging some friend she hasn’t seen in months.
She is carrying pink Gerber daisies in one hand and a fruit cake in the other.
And though I don’t know her, I can tell
she is one of those perpetually smiley people.
Always happy and cheery.
I walk past her,
standing there in her burgundy coat with her little brown boots,
and I think to myself,
I want to be that girl.
No, really,
I want to be that girl.
The girl who brings sunshine.
The girl everyone is happy to see.
Little Miss Daisy.
I think about pulling her aside and asking her her secret.
Are you on something?
Herbal or prescription?
How do you do it?
Are you faking it?
Or are you really that happy?
But I can’t ask her.
She’d think I’m insane.
So I continue on.
I walk past cut vegetables,
hummus, and olive spread,
and eighty kinds of cheese
I’ll never eat.
And right past those little chocolate cakes I think about buying,
but never do,
even on my most pre-menstrual days.
And when I check out,
she is there again,
the Gerber girl,
smiling and sniffing her daisies.
And I am standing in line
behind her,
wishing.

Safety In Numbers

There’s a cop parked in the empty lot across the alley.
It’s been there the last two hours
and I’m glad it’s there.
Earlier this week there were three cop cars in front of the house
and another four down the street.
And yellow police tape across the steps of the triplex next to us.
Something’s going on.
When I asked the undercover detective in the car in front of the house about it,
he said they were removing the tape.
Seems there had been some evidence there.
“Evidence?” “What evidence?” I asked, in my most friendly, pleasant, suburban voice.
He wouldn’t say.
Which only makes me wonder more.
Was there a dead body?
A gun?
A baggie of pills?
What?
There weren’t seven cop cars on our street over a whiskey bottle left behind.
No,
something bad had gone down.
Something is still going down.
That’s why that cop is sitting in his car in the lot behind my house.
That’s why the street is so damn quiet today.
No Rap music blaring.
Everyone in hiding.
It’s cat and mouse time.
Who’s gonna move first?
I tell myself all of this police presence is a good thing.
That I’m safe.
But how safe can I really be
when half the cops in the city are patrolling my street?

Saturday Market

At the market
we line up
for kale.
Dark green leaves
and yellow flowers.
Coffee dripped blue
and cream in bottles.
Dogs on leashes and babies running loose.
The sun on our backs
and frost in our mouths.
My fingers numb with the morning.
Here, the Asian women watch you
to see how many samples of pear you’ve eaten,
then shake their heads when you do not buy.
Parking is difficult
and the maids are always out with pen in hand
ready to ticket.
On the corner a man plays a milk crate
and broken guitar
hoping for change.

Turning Wild

I am starting to turn wild.
The way yams grow from the ground,
curved and bent and careless.
The way blackberries race across the vines
in Summer.
The way lions roar
and dogs howl.
The way night rolls in against the fog
without apologizing.
I am starting to turn wild.
I do not care so much what I say or don’t say.
Who I help or don’t help.
Who I fix or leave broken.
Here,
in my cave,
with the rain coming down
and the tarp uncovered letting in light,
I am starting to turn wild.
I can feel it in my blood.
In my eyes.
In the curve of my fingers and in the flare of my nostrils.
In the heat of my breath,
and the point of my tongue.
In the folds of my lips
and in between my legs.
It is coming.
I have tasted it now.
Like raw honey.
Thick and sweet.
I am starting to turn wild.