Hathaway

Each day the hurdles come.

The phone calls.

The sleepless nights.

The pull of faces and lives

I have no business knowing anything about.

I sit in the chair.

A twisted wreck of arms

and legs

each one determined to find its way

out

in the opposite direction of the other.

Here at my desk

I listen to the robins’ call

and watch the grass grow taller.

Words I once thought had meaning,

stare back at me

like lost children

desperate

to find their way

home.

It used to be so simple,

sitting and writing,

like picking figs from my grandmother’s

backyard.

Cramming

the sweet purple flesh

into my mouth

and dropping the skins on the lawn

for others to eat.

The Texas sun,

hot on my little girl legs.

My Sunday-school sandals

white leather new,

with the shiny silver buckles

running from fig to fig

as if I were gathering secrets.

My collarbone long healed

from the fall

I took in the 

Bob's Big Boy restaurant. 

Big Black Bird and Little Brown Bird

Big black bird

kills

little brown bird

right before my eyes.

Grabs him,

and snatches him,

and carries him

to the rooftop across the street.

Plucks him

like a worker

in a chicken factory.

Feathers 

fall 

on to the ground below.

One minute alive.

The next dead.

Not the day he expected

to have,  

I imagine. 

Furious

Once again the fuckers won.

You know who they are –

The liars.

The phonies.

The ones who know how to shake a hand and smile.

The self-effacing ones with the secret egos.

The spineless.

The ball-less.

The ones capable of standing before a group

and presenting their argument with calm pathology.

The ones in big cars,

who care more about their children’s Red Wagons

than they do about mine.

The ones who will do anything,

say anything,

to get their way.

I am furious.

Boiling.

Ready to make war.

Ready to roll up my sleeves and let my veins bulge.

Ready to see blood.

Red and black and green.

Colors swirl before my eyes creating a most hideous effect.

Ugly.

Deep.

And dark.

Yes. 

Sweet Margaret

When the silence comes

across me,

it is like a flood,

deep and blue,

taking me under

for hours.

The cup of tea,

the one on my desk,

sits beside me,

hot and foamy,

a constant friend

to ease my journey.

It will be there

when I come up for air,

cold and hard,

all the sweet honey

settled to the bottom,

stuck in one place,

like my grandmother

in her coffin.

What Comes

What comes

isn’t what I want to come.

His hand.

My leg.

His mouth.

My tongue.

The grass rising higher outside my window.

Untouched for two weeks now,

a stranger to me.

The tall thin blades

reaching for the sun,

as he presses against me,

burning

his body

into mine. 

A Life Underground

The little black hair under my skin,

the one that comes from being waxed,

lies curled up tight in a ball,

like a snail in its shell,

protected

by a thin layer of skin.

I cannot get it out.

No matter how hard I squeeze,

dig,

or poke

at it.

It is content to burrow further

into my body,

to make its way to parts

of myself

I will never reach.

Determined

to live

a life

underground. 

The Pill

I can not take these pills,

shove them into me

and wait for them to

take affect.

These little pink pills,

harmless looking candy dots

that can make a woman

change.

Make a woman stop doing

what a woman

does.

The doctors tell me it is, “for the best.”

But they do not care about the acne,

nausea, migraines,

or endless thoughts

raging out of control.

They do not spend their nights with me.

Or watch

my legs ache

during the night as if being remotely controlled

by some dimpled toddler.

They do not sit across the breakfast table from me

witnessing

moods that change

with the rise and fall of the tide,

or with the spill of a glass of juice.

No,

they are back in their offices,
back in their homes,

out on their decks,

eating shellfish,

with Chardonnay,

while I am here,

alone.

Is this their only solution?

Of course not.

They have other

“alternatives”.

Like ripping out a part of me,

and leaving me forever altered,

like some defaced statue in a public square

someone scrawled graffiti over in the dark. 

Drowning in Puddles

My brain is

waiting for Sunday.

Trying to touch bottom,

unsure of

where bottom is.

Down into the deep,

the blood and the cold

sink further,

always hoping,

there will be sand.

It’s like that now.

I float without end,

lost in a birdbath

that barely contains an inch of water.

Drowning in puddles.

How absurd,

that I,

a grown woman,

capable of opening doors and

windows,

can not make sense out of loss

or cold.

I sip nettle tea,

shovel meat down my throat

and pray

to reach bottom.

But further I fall.

The helicopters come

spinning their blades at me,

shattering my silence.

My blue sky.

Still I fall.

As if I could change a thing.

The last robin bathed

for the night.
The ceramic base waits empty

full of water.

Tomorrow,

they will be back again, 

just like my blood. 

The Instigator And The Agitator

The trouble is

I miss those days.

Driving through the canyon

with the smog in my hair.

Having lunch with a friend

on the beach and wearing short cotton dresses

all year long.

It was easier then,

when all I had to worry about was the page.

I spent hours walking along the sand

trying to come up with the perfect line.

Lost in dialogue and banter.

A mirrored goose.

Arms freckling in the sun.

The never-ending sun.

Laughing.

His father holding court

while we egged each other on

just outside of Beverly Hills.

The instigator and the agitator.

I never could remember

who was who.

We were both some of each,

I guess.

His buttery hands

always warm to greet me.

The smell of brisket and Kugel,

in the oven,

while he sat at the kitchen table,

ready with a quick one-liner.

It is all too quiet 

now.

Weed Child

She

is blood ribbons

and lace.

A sticky

weed child

yanking at my skirt.

Night after night

she

comes

into my room,

plum-faced,

barking anxiety

in spoons.

The silent womb,

I occupied,

violated

in flannel

and paper.

The decay of spring

one

robin

at a time.

She

hangs up the phone

on her way to

eat. 

A hostile

oeuvre

never to be replicated

in ferocity of word

or deed.

The backseat of Texas

burning

my thighs

red.

She

places her head

upon my shoulder

and sucks at my breast,

one gulp

at a time,

until all that is left

is my hanging skin. 

 

What There Is To Learn

What there is to learn

comes in between the sobs,

the dark glasses,

the furious emails trying to explain and explain.

It comes after the sleepless nights

and endless hours of stomach flips.

It comes in dreams,

anxiety ridden dreams of fathers

wearing wigs and suits,

they have never worn before,

hiding in closets,

molesting their daughters.

It comes in foreign languages,

where words have two meanings

and you can’t understand either.

It comes in backrooms of libraries,

books on the floor,

phones silenced like electric heartbeats.

It comes by saying, “no” when you want to say, “yes”,

and ,“yes” when you want to say, “no.”

It comes in chasing when you want to walk away.

It comes when abandonment takes the steering wheel

and drives like a lunatic across town

to feed an ex-boyfriend’s dog a burger.

It comes when you finally get quiet enough to listen,

to hear that part of your self that knows why it aches

so badly,

and why it can’t get present inside its own body,

no matter how hard it tries.

It comes with the knowledge that learning never comes

easily or without painful stimuli,

unless you’re fucking blessed.

It comes when you realize that

“they” aren’t the ones,

“their” actions,

“their” words,

don’t matter.

What matters is the wounds.

Only the wounds.

It comes when you finally understand

that the reason you are acting so crazy today

started years ago. 

Just A Girl

There is a knife

I like to push

into my chest

over and over,

over and over,

A bloody rose

to keep me

feeling.

Without it

I would be, 

just a girl. 

Forever Yours

Were my lips yours,

I would kiss them

all summer long

against the rain

and the sun

like a dance with no end

and no beginning.

Were my eyes yours,

I would open them,

and see

Heaven

out my back door.

The roses in bloom,

perfectly alive,

like newborn babies

unblemished and pure,

forever soft to the touch.

Were my ears yours,

I would hear the sweetest of notes.

The lark drunk with sound,

making his way to sorrow

to nurse his forgotten wounds.

The boulevard of plums

bursting and ripe,

waiting to fall.

It is not madness to believe such things.

To feel so close

to another,

your heart beats as theirs,

your arms,

your hands,

your legs.

Thoughts kicking in twilight

against the backdrop of your face,

a soft wing beating

in my hand.

Forever yours, 

I am.

Oh Sylvia (for Sylvia Plath)

Oh Sylvia, Sylvia,

dead in the oven.

What became of a girl

such as you?

Hair twisted and curled

like a cinnamon roll

glistening sweet with collegiate innocence.

Oh Sylvia, Sylvia,

where did you go?

Was the air too much to breathe?

Too heavy a weight for your

pretty pink lungs,

the morning dew unfolding

round you,

taking your smile,

with the sun.

Oh Sylvia, Sylvia,

a sensitive girl,

taking no pleasure on earth,

The bearing of children,

the bedding of men,

left you alone

with nowhere

to turn,

when turning is where you began.

A student, a scholar,

a daughter to envy,

carrying words in your satchel.

A smile couldn’t hide

your dark

bloody mind.

Or keep the New England cold

from your skin. 

Your Crippled Past

There will be a time when

you will leave it all behind –

your crippled past.

And you will limp into the present.

Your life

here and now,

on the floor,

legs bent,

arms overhead,

sucking in your stomach

like a dying starfish.

And you will forget the tears.

The nights on the toilet

sobbing,

over past lovers,

who have hurt you,

done you wrong,

with their lies,

and their lips.

And you will remember

only what is –

The carpet beneath you.

The fluorescent lights.

The smell of the ocean

pressing in to you.

You will realize,

you are different.

You are someone

you never thought you

would be.

And you stop eating grapes.

Seventy Two and Sunny

I am trying to let myself be free.

Trying to give myself permission

to get in the car and drive seven hours to Florida.

It’s supposed to be in the seventies there this weekend.

So, it seems like a nice time to go.

Before the crowds come

and before spring break.

But, I’m hesitating.

It’s absurd, really.

There is not one good reason for me not to go.

There is nothing keeping me here.

No job.

No kids.

No dog that has to be fed.

And yet, I can’t seem to make myself go.

So then, being the overly analytical person that I am,

I start asking myself questions -

What’s really going on?

Do I not deserve it?

Am I unworthy?

After fifteen minutes of doing this,

and a cup of green tea, 

I conclude that some part of me must think that I am.

Yes, that's it, 

I don’t deserve to have a good time.

But that’s crazy,

utterly crazy.

If it were someone else,

some friend who asked me if they should go,

I would tell them to go in a second.

Take a few days off.
Enjoy yourself.

Walk on the beach.
Feel the sand on your toes

and the sun on your back.

Relax.

But it's not me talking to some friend,

it's me talking to me.

And I am no friend of mine. 

Relax?

I haven't relaxed in years.

I don’t know how to relax

or enjoy myself.

While normal people start packing and looking for sun block

when they are about to go on a trip,

I start making a mental laundry list of

all the things that could go wrong:

I won’t like the bed.

I won’t like the food.

Someone will bother me.

There will be noisy neighbors.

It will be too cold.

It will be foggy.

I’ll step on a jellyfish.

I’ll get in a wreck.

I’ll get a speeding ticket.

I’ll get food poisoning.

I’ll trip on a conch shell.

I’ll get eaten by a shark.

I’ll feel like I made a mistake.

And then it hits me.

"Feel like I've made a mistake."

I know that one. 

I always feel like I made a mistake.

I might as well feel that way

sitting on the beach where it's 

seventy two and sunny. 

Ready To Begin

I am the spiral staircase.

Ham on rye.

The bottom of the bowl

licked clean

by my teachers.
So many hands on my body

I can no longer tell

which ones are mine.

The girl in the back of the room.
The shy one,

who knew all the answers,

but was too afraid to answer.

Yes, that one.

I waited in corners,

shadows of my own making,

and hoped someone would

come.

Now, you are here.

Pushing me out with your broom.

Telling me I can be more

than I have been.

Wrenching the strength from my arms

with your measured brown eyes.

Refusing to accept my protests,

or believe my little-girl tears.

I would curse you if I could,

but it wouldn’t change a thing.

Tomorrow, 

I will be at your door

again, 

ready to begin. 

Falling Apples

I’d like to go back to bed this morning.

Curl up under the layers of down

and cotton and rest my head

on my aging pillow,

the one that’s got nothing left inside,

the one that I still reach for anyway.

But there are songs to write,

and scripts to begin,

and a poetry book I have been threatening

to compile for years now.

Still, the white-sheeted bed calls to me,

if only for a minute.

But I can’t get in it,

because if I did get in it,

I would be like my mother.

My mother’s in bed right now,

sleeping her life away.

And I don’t want to be like my mother.

Even though I seem to be becoming more like her

every day.

My hands are starting to wrinkle like hers.

And my skin is becoming thin like hers.

It cracks in winter, like hers.

But it’s not just my exterior taking on her attributes,

there are things on the inside too,

things that I swear

do not belong to me -

The occasional racial slur,

or judgmental barb,

the kind that I would have barked at her for saying years ago

are now, suddenly, coming out of my mouth.

Besides her dermatological and verbal issues,

I seem to have inherited her depression,

her stomach’s inability to seemingly digest anything,

and her need for reading glasses after reaching a certain advanced age.

But most terrifying of all,

I seem to have developed her penchant for falling.

I’d been in bed for the day sick with a weird stomach flu,

asleep for several hours in the afternoon,

and woke up just in time to catch the evening news.

I stumbled out of bed, disoriented and hungry.

At the last second,

I chose the bathroom over the kitchen,

and stepped on a plastic door stop left on the floor.

My ankle turned beneath me, snapping like a piece of celery, 

and sent the rest of me twisting forward.

Hands out, wrists bruised,

left knee smacking the ground.

In a second,

it was over.

I sat up in complete darkness,

unsure what had just happened.

All I could think about was how much I felt like my mother in that moment.

How much I was turning in to her.

I was having the kind of day she would be having,

and it didn’t matter how much exercise and good eating I have been doing,

or how many vitamins I have swallowed,

or how much meditation I have sat for,

or how many yoga classes I have attended.

I was turning into her.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

Later that night,

as I lay in bed icing my ankle,

I called my mother.

She too, had been in bed with a stomach flu all day.

But she hadn’t fallen,  

at least,  not yet. 

Vision Loss

The “awesome” freaks of the world are killing me.

You know the kind, “Everything is awesome.”

“That was so awesome man”.

“Did you see his jump? It was awesome.”

“Totally awesome.”

“That show was awesome.”

Everything is “awesome”.

The word is so overused.

Like, “like”.

And, “so”.

“Awesome” has no meaning now.

You might as well say something was

so “paper.”

Or “Bookshelf.”

Or “Envelope.”

“That was so envelope.”

“Yeah, totally bookshelf.”

Nothing has meaning anymore when everything is

“awesome.”

Brilliant and average walk hand in hand

along the same street of mediocrity

with neither being singled out. 

But there is a difference.

I wonder about the “awesome” people

of this world.

Have they lost all perspective?

Or are they simply so superficial

they are incapable of really feeling anything?

Can they no longer discern

when they are experiencing an event that is worthy of a deep response 

versus something fleeting and insignificant?

“Did you see that pigeon poop?” “It was –“

Yes.

Totally.

I wonder what kind of world we will have

when our society is incapable of recognizing

what truly is 

"awesome."

America

Today,

we came and sat and listened

to the words of our leaders and statesmen.

We let our hearts rise

like the tiny pink balloons

that they are,

and gave hope that they might reach

the sky

unfettered.

We craned our heads back and

took in the years of those who have come before us.

The mothers and fathers,

sisters and brothers,

each with a story of their own to tell.

We breathed deeply

inhaling the suits and ties,

the green of the lawn,

the metallic glint of limo after limo.

And we shed tears.

Tears for emotions we did not even know

we had. 

We stopped

and we listened to the beating of our own hearts.

And for a moment,

we forgave the past.

We let ourselves dream the dream we were

taught in classrooms as children-

that in this country

anything can happen.