Fly

We are dragging our feet through the snow,
across the ice
and black
parking lot
of winter.
The dog,
you and me,
the bread we ate
still warm in our bellies,
curled up in a ball on the purple rug
waiting for winter to pass
like a tummy ache.
Tomorrow we will wear sweaters and sit outside in the sun
and wonder how we were ever felt cold at all.
It is like that.
Our days
pass before us like seagulls on their way to the beach.
One moment we are in love,
the next alone.
In summer
we long for cool.
In winter, the reverse.
We are always wanting.
I do not think the birds think about such things.
They simply fly.

Finding Max

Finding a home for Max
while the blood still flows.
Last night
stained sheets
heart shaped
blood.
Cramping and bleeding
and dreams of what might have been.
I dreamed of new parents for Max
and how empty my den would be without him.
I told my therapist I didn’t want to keep him,
but I don’t think that’s true.
I told her I wanted to write
and be alone
but I don’t think that’s true.
For too long I have thought that the only way to have my life
was to be alone,
to keep everything away.
Love.
Children.
Even a wandering dog.
I told myself that I cannot have
if I want to be.
Great artists live in isolation
with commitments to no one
right?
They observe the world but don’t take part in it.
They are forever on the sidelines watching
with saucer-like eyes.
Everything is fodder for their next story.
The waiting room of girls,
stupid and uneducated.
The Southern kitchen of pies.
The pale walls of rest homes.
The neglected animals waiting to die.
The neighborhood scandal.
The missing dentures left on the elevator floor.
The yellow rose put out in the foyer to honor the dead.
Everything is something.
I think about Trouble
up on the hill,
the grass growing thicker over him day after day.
I think about how many months it has been
and how much it still hurts.
I think about my life,
all that I want for it,
all that it is not.
The new puppy before me.
The man I love.
My heart,
ready to burst with all that I see,
all that I have kept inside.
Perhaps I will keep him after all.

Courage

It is a lonely life,
a sad life,
a life where all our choices add up to all that we are
and all that we are not.
The choice to have a child or not
leads to a life alone
or a life of future generations.
I never thought much about it,
but now that I am running out of time,
I realize I’ve made my choice.
This is the end of the line.
There will be no more of whatever I am,
and that’s o.k.
It’s sad,
but it’s o.k.
I don’t want to repeat the past.
I don’t want to make a child a victim of my neurosis.
I look at my parents and think,
as I’ve always thought,
that they never should have had children.
What right did they have to bring my sister and myself
into their insanity?
I was fine where I was.
I was happy before I came.
Did they have so little care for me
that they couldn’t stop what they were doing for even a few moments
to worry whether or not they were hurting me?
The fighting and screaming?
The hitting and slamming of doors?
The leaving and returning over and over again?
Now, I am frightened.
I live on the edge,
always waiting for the next shoe to drop.
I didn’t deserve to grow up in a house like that
and I don’t deserve to feel that way now.
I don’t want to pass on my pain,
like passing on green eyes and brown hair,
or long legs and big teeth.
It is my job to protect the unborn,
to save them from the same misery I had,
to save myself from those that hurt me now.
If I can stop the cycle of abuse
then maybe,
I’ve done more than give life,
I’ve saved life,
and that’s just as courageous.

Noise

It is hard not to react to it all.
His screaming.
His depression.
Her dementia.
Her thievery.
Being bit.
Being late.
Being worried all the time about life.
Today I walked on the hill with the dog I haven’t named
and tried to forget all that is.
I focused on the short brown grass and the green struggling to bloom beneath it.
I looked at the green buds rising through the mud.
I felt the branches of my bare maple
and dreamed of soft leaves coming.
I forgot about the noises in my head
and listened to the wind.
It has been too long since I just walked in the woods to walk.
Too long since I sat by myself by the river and listened to no one and nothing
but its babble.
Life is beautiful.
It is here waiting for me to stop and look at it.
The rest is just
noise.

Leap of Faith

It is a leap of faith
to become a parent.
It is a leap I lack,
an inability to jump.
A fear of the unknown and what God holds in his candy box for me.
I envision a child capable of the most heinous crimes,
a child who would regard me with horror,
a child who would make my every moment a nightmare.
In short,
I envision the Bad Seed.
I think about what this child would do to my relationship with my partner.
I think about how many sleepless nights we would have.
No more sitting next to each other to cuddle,
but rather the thing always between us,
pressing his or her way against us,
watching us to see what we do.
A test.
One night after another.
Every day a new adventure.
I think about the hitting and biting and screaming and crying.
Then I think about the three of us lying together in the tall grass looking up at the stars
and counting them all.
I think about birthday parties and Christmases
and mile markers
like first steps
and first dates.
I think about my patience
and wonder if I would have enough.
I think about my fear
and pray I would not pass it on.
I think about my childhood
and wonder why my parents ever had me.

Coming Down

It’s pouring.
Big sheets of rain are coming down.
Today, he is in his cage
and I am across from him in my chair.
He is trying to get food out of his Kong.
I am trying to get words out of my head.
He is bored.
I have a headache and wish that I could tell the future.
He is in the moment,
stretched out on his back,
legs spread,
body open to the world
with no thought of tomorrow.
I am one giant thought
oiled and brooding,
watching
the sky get darker.

The Forgiven

If this keeps up
I won’t be poor for long.
If this keeps up
he’ll have to eat his words
and stop telling me
I don’t know what a put is.
He sits in that blue velvet recliner,
the one I bought him for twenty bucks,
telling me how stupid I am,
telling me I don’t know anything,
telling me I’m not a doctor.
Maybe so,
but I’m not the one who gambled away everything.
I’m not the one who tosses down valium like popcorn.
I’m not the one who is too stupid to know I’m being eaten away
by a disease day after day.
I’m not the one who doesn’t know what day it is
or repeats the same question twenty seven times in an hour.
I used to be his favorite.
Now, I’m his favorite target.
I try to hold it in.
I try not to argue back.
I try to just visit him,
cook for him,
give him his pills and leave.
But the truth is,
I’d like to smash his face in.
I’d like to take that rusty metal fry pan that sits on the stove
and whack him across the head
just to make him to shut up.
But I know I can’t do that.
So I tell myself it is the disease.
I tell myself he is not who he used to be.
I tell myself
to forgive him.

Your Neighborhood 'Y'

What falls on my head isn’t the soft rapping
of problems unsolved
but the hard thwacking of
the trip not taken.
The pill not swallowed.
The broken bottle left in the kitchen sink to cut me later.
The promise of showers and vegetables.
The midnight phone calls of heart attacks and pneumonia.
The Social Security check lost or forgotten.
The gripe of constipation.
The flood of diarrhea.
It isn’t glamorous,
or sexy,
or collagen producing.
To say the least,
it is beyond trying.
All this worry,
this desire to fight the flood of impossibility.
I wait for phone calls form attorneys and doctors,
and bus drivers,
and organizations.
I sit on edge for phone call after fucking phone call
and do my best to keep my head.
Yesterday,
my new plan for them,
the one I was positive would work,
was shot to Hell.
Seems my father is too political,
too atheistic,
too radical,
for the seniors at the ‘Y’.
According to the program director,
he’s offended some people there.
Like I give a damn.
Those Martha White Bread women need to loosen up
and get a sense of humor.
They say they know God,
but all they know is their tiny little world.
Better not shake it up,
better not let someone come and break bread at their table who has different ideas,
like atheism.
Things must be gentile.
Southern.
Proper.
But underneath, the belly writhes with pettiness and gossip.
Underneath, any one who is not like one of them is shunned.
“We’re not set-up for someone with his needs.”
“What needs are those, I asked.”
“Well, someone with Alzheimer’s.”
“It’s not like he defecated on the floor,” I said.
“What exactly did he do?” I pressed.
“He spoke against God.”
Spoke against God.
Wow.
That surely must be grounds for removal.
I thought this country was founded on free speech.
I guess not.
The ‘Y’ promotes itself as being for “everyone,”
but they don’t mean “everyone.”
Only those that watch the Fox news channel
and wave a flag and support the moron we have in office are ‘Y’ worthy.
Only those that eat mayonnaise on their turkey sandwiches are acceptable.
Saying there isn’t a God is tantamount to burning the flag,
or denouncing apple pie,
or believing in Communism.
My father told me he didn’t want to go to the ‘Y’.
He said he wasn’t comfortable around Christians.
Turns out he was right.
Just when I had gotten him to finally let go of his prejudices,
he got slapped in the face with theirs.

Confessions

I am trying to get back to basics.
Meditation.
Yoga.
Eating the way I tell everyone I eat.
Up by 7 a.m.
At my computer by 9 a.m.
No more checking the internet or email
or what the market is doing.
Just sitting down to write,
like I did when I lived in Santa Monica.
There,
every day was the same.
At my computer by 10 a.m.
after an hour and a half walk on the beach.
Writing for two hours,
a break for lunch,
and back at my desk till 5 p.m.
I liked my little schedule.
The consistency of it.
The formality of it.
It was always the same
day after day,
like the sun in L.A.
I rarely veered from it
or got bored by the tediousness of it,
or wished for a different life.
I was content being a writer.
I didn’t want to spend the day in Malibu,
star gazing.
Or wish for weeks at the beach in Cabo San Lucas.
I didn’t want a job where I had to deal with other people
or make small talk.
I didn’t want to be a doctor,
like my mother wanted.
Or a lawyer,
like everyone said I should be.
Or any other JOB.
Writing wasn’t a job,
it was part of who I was,
like breathing.
Without it,
I was dead.

Made From Scratch

Today it is gray and cold
and the snow that was promised never came.
I left the lights on last night
hoping to see it fall,
but when morning arrived,
the grass was still green
and there was nothing but disappointment in the air.
It is like that now.
One promise after another
left unfulfilled.
I arrived at their apartment
to find them both dressed.
She in her grey pants and green sweater.
He in his khakis,
both looking more alive than usual,
both excited to see the new puppy.
I cooked them broccoli and ravioli
and mashed potatoes made from scratch.
I helped her with her pills and her shot
and made them scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast.
I watched her lie on the bed while the puppy licked her face
over and over
nipping at her ears.
She laughed and screamed like a child.
He told me adopting the dog
was one of the only good things I ever did in my life.
We sat with them for two hours talking and watching the cooking channel
and promising them trips we would never take with them.
At noon,
my father opened up a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup,
stuck it in the microwave,
nuked it,
and ate it.
He didn’t even bother to add the required can of water to it.

Colors

Finding a home has never been easier,
than pulling back the covers of my mind
and letting myself swim into the blue of morning.
The black sock by my bed,
the green knitted hat of winter,
the one I swore I would never wear
rests on my table
stretched from use.
I once told myself how things would and wouldn’t be,
what I would and wouldn’t do.
But those vows were easily forgotten
like my high school journal
and sweaty backseats.
Now there are cords to untangle
and envelopes scattered like raisins.
The pull of t-shirts and jeans
follows me from room to room
like a ghost I can not escape.
My innocence,
once pure and inviting
has been marred
by the lies of others.
Now when I walk,
I leave no trail of white
to find my way back.

Jump For The Moon

We are on a new adventure,
you and I.
There will be hills to climb
and rivers to cross
and car trips and backpacks and socks.
We will sneak into hotel rooms
and restaurants
and wheel down grocery stores aisles
when no one is looking.
We will explore parks and beaches
and castles.
I will show you snakes and toads and turtles
and butterflies
and you will unearth creatures I never knew existed.
We will be best friends,
you and I,
fighting over balls and toys and sticks.
I will teach you right from wrong
and you will teach me patience.
You will teach me how to jump for the moon
and I will learn to catch it.

Max and June

This morning they stayed home.
I didn’t make them go to the Y
for spaghetti and meatballs
or attend a senior yoga class.
Instead,
I let them stay in their room and watch “Some Like It Hot.”
Neither of them wanted to go out in to the cold.
They were both happy with their bag of air popped popcorn, their corn beef sandwiches,
and a bowl of soup.
I didn’t worry that they needed stimulation
or that they would get charged for a lunch they didn’t
show up to eat.
I just let them stay home.
After all,
it’s their lives.
There comes a point when I have to stop trying to get them
to be and do what I would like them to be
and just accept them for who they are:
A man with Alzheimer’s
and a woman with dementia.

Nameless in Nashville

He is asleep.
Curled up in a ball,
nose pressed against the metal gate.
He is content to sleep
and play and eat and poop.
I am sleepy just looking at him.
Last night he kept us up all night,
crying
and peeing and needing us with him,
acting like he would die
without constant touching.
Now, when it is too late for us to go back to sleep,
he is content to rest by himself.
The baby fat folds of skin he has yet to grow into
hang over his crate.
Every so often he yawns and reaches his head toward the sky.
Then, exhausted by the effort that small movement took,
he returns to slumber.
He is adorable.
We have yet to name him.
Oscar,
Oliver,
Archie,
Charlie,
Bentley,
and Yudel,
are just a few of the names we have been batting around,
but none of them seem quite right.
My father wants us to name him Max,
after him,
but I’m not sure how I’d feel about having my father with us
twenty-four hours a day.
I know the name will come to me eventually,
just like potty training.
Hopefully, the sooner
the better.

Scarface

If it were up to me,
I don’t think I would have ever gotten a dog.
The only reason I had one in my life at all
was because he came to me
and I felt like I had no other choice but to keep him.
Left to my own devices,
I never would have taken the plunge.
I would have wanted to,
but I would have stopped and thought about the reality
of
feedings,
vet appointments,
obedience,
and
poop,
and I would have walked away.
Saying yes to things,
anything,
is getting harder and harder for me to do.
I tend to over think things.
I always have.
I’ve talked myself out of motherhood and marriage,
trips to Mexico and the Dominica Republic,
Japan, going out to dinner on New Years Eve,
and the Midnight Jamboree.
I don’t know if I’m being smart or stupid.
But the net result is I am making my world smaller and smaller
and my experiences fewer and fewer.
It is as if the picture book of my life has stopped adding pages.
Most people don’t contemplate the broken ankles and possible torn Achilles
of ski trips and marathons,
they just go do them
and deal with the doctor bills later.
They send out Christmas photos of their children
and marvel at how fast they are growing
while I keep a pregnancy test on my bathroom counter
and live in terror of what I would do if I ever saw a plus in the little window.
They plan dinners and parties and vacations
and work forty hours a week while they raise two children
while I eat at home alone
and barely keep my head afloat with no one but myself
to care for.
As for dinner parties,
I’ve never had one
nor would I know how.
Other people seem to open up their arms and embrace life.
Their lives are about having experiences,
good and bad ones.
My life is about escaping
with as few scars as possible.

Jesus Without God

I can imagine Jesus
without God
sitting at a restaurant
ordering steak and eggs
trying to remember what on earth
he is doing here.
No direction.
No blessed father telling him his mission.
Just Jesus sitting at a counter in his long white robe
eating bite after greasy bite.
Would he turn to crime?
Penniless and lost.
Or would his innate goodness prevail
and lead him to his divine work?
Would Jesus have a clue what he should be doing with his life
without God to guide him?
Or would he catch a bus to Mexico
and spend day after day lying in the sun
drinking tequila?
Without God
I fear Jesus would be a lost soul
haunted by dreams of crucifixes and Hebrews.
Men and women would be instinctively drawn to him
but he would be lost as to why.
He would spend days in front of the mirror staring at himself,
trying to understand what it is people see in him.
He would stretch out his hands and gaze at his long fingers,
rub his wrists,
and his neck and his forehead
and worry.
He would spend days wasting away in meaningless jobs:
a postman,
a plumber,
a carpenter,
a bus driver,
always knowing there was something more he was supposed to be doing
but unable to find out what.

Waiting For The Pot

They have found another polyp inside my uterus,
an ugly pronged creature clinging to me like a
deformed suckling babe.
Three years ago they removed two
while I lay sleeping in white.
I woke in a haze
to the sounds of nurses and monitors beeping at me.
I thought that was it forever
and I was through with surgeons.
Now they are talking of more
and I am unwilling.
Wasn’t once enough
to be scraped and cut
like a side of meat?
I am not some rabbit on a hook
waiting for the pot.
They said it happens.
Polyps can return
like unwelcome guests
and long lost relatives.
I just didn't expect them back so soon.
Tonight I am pulling up my welcome mat
and locking the front door.

Still Here

Could you throw me the ball?
That one in the corner.
The one with the red stripe and the yellow dots.
The one no one has played with
for years.
The dull one.
I know you were looking for something else.
Something shiny and new.
Something no one has touched
like a golden haired virgin.
Go ahead.
Pick it up.
It won’t hurt you.
You can touch it.
It’s round and beautiful
and resilient.
See?
What does it matter how long it has sat
unnoticed?
It still has bounce left in it.
It’s still worthy.
Maybe it’s better than all the others.
It’s still here.

Satisfied

What are we doing in this so called life?
Pursuing the dollar
without remorse?
Are our energies fixed on finding love
and keeping it close like a caged bird?
Is it shiny objects that make us move?
Like a cat having a mirror dangled before its eyes?
Or is it fame and the adoration of others
that fuels us?
Are we nothing more than selfish beings of desire
wanting only the biggest and best and grandest and richest
for ourselves regardless of the suffering of others?
Are our biggest worries about what car we should drive
and if we should get it with leather?
Or whether or not our kitchen needs a makeover?
Have we gotten so caught up in the drama of our own lives
that we have forgotten those around us who have far less?
I am guilty of the questions I ask.
I have worried over dollars
and watched my portfolio bloom
like some sort of Scrooge
counting my pennies
and smiling over each new copper accumulated,
only to be devastated by every loss.
Now I can see
what a waste of time.
What a fruitless waste.
I say that I am a humanitarian
because I don’t eat meat,
but what have I done for my fellow man
or animal?
Have I taken some poor refugee into my home?
Have I taken a few hours out of my day to visit an animal in a shelter
who has no one or nothing and has no promise of another day?
Have I done anything about the women in the Congo who are being raped?
Have I given my time to a child whose parents are addicts and unable to tell them
they love them?
No,
and for that I am ashamed.
I have let myself focus on the wrong things,
mundane things.
This is not what God wanted for me
or for any of us.
I pray to focus on what matters,
to keep myself always reaching for the higher good,
to remember I am here to serve others
especially the voiceless.
If I can do that,
I will be satisfied.

Strange

Once in August,
the city was silent and attentive.
It came to me
like a butterfly
and landed upon my hand.
Oh,
but I digress.
Did you see that fat woman in the Indian restaurant?
The one with the green cap on her head and the
pink stockings.
Strange.
It is getting harder for me to eat out.
Each bite is a nightmare
into a world unfamiliar.
Now the sky is turning grey
and the snow will begin to fall.
I wish I could be like that snow,
landing wherever I wanted,
tied to no one or nothing,
just falling,
falling,
falling.
Last summer I planted tomatoes in my yard.
They grew red and ripe and round.
I ate them before the insects came
and before the sun baked them into sauce.

Him

Images of him still come to me:
Him
in the backseat of my car barking at every cow and horse
we passed on our way to Chicago.
Him
running through the creeks at Warner Park
after some poor ground squirrel that was minding his own business
and didn’t see him coming.
Him
lying on his bed and staring at me for hours
hoping I would get up from my writing
and play with him or take him for a walk.
Him
coming in to my room in the morning
and yelling at me to get up,
as if he somehow knew how little time we had left together.
Him
barking at his meal before he ate it.
Him
humping his bed afterwards.
Him
sighing.
Him
struggling to howl out that pathetic howl of his
whenever a fire engine went by.
Him
jumping into my bed (till he couldn’t jump that high anymore)
and then taking up the entire bed once he was in.
Him
getting me out of my sadness.
Him
greeting me at the door with his tail always wagging.
Him
always ready for an adventure.
Him.

Dead Moon

It is time I found
the dead moon.
The part of me that beats
red
and says:
This is the rainy season.
It is time for buttered toast and jam
and the white eyes of a doll’s head.
It is time for cramming sugar into hallways
and squeezing milk out of flowers
and tasting colors and cocoa with cream.
I want to see the black of black
and know how far the sky.
It is time for the daisies
to suck down the ants
and have no remorse.

Yoga

In yoga
I follow my breath
down into my fingers and toes
out my nose,
and into my buttocks.
My body aches more now
than it used to.
I don’t know if that’s age or
the three car wrecks I have been in,
but whatever it is,
I hurt.
I look around and see others in ‘pigeon pose’
and wonder if they are in as much pain as I am in.
They all look so serene
draped over their legs like submissive swans.
It is all I can do to keep from screaming.
I think of the pain of so many years locked up inside me,
finding its way into the very fabric of my muscles
and I worry:
Can yoga erase years of abandonment?
Can it teach me to lighten up and flow?
Can it make the mental chatter in my head vanish
so I can sleep at night
without thought?
Can it teach me to live in the present
and not be concerned with what happened fifteen minutes earlier
or what’s coming an hour later when I leave this room?
Can it….?
Shut up, Diana.

I'm Sorry

I am really really really fucking angry.
I want my life back.
I want to be able to sit down and write and have no one,
I mean no one,
bother me.
I am sick of trips to the ER
and doctor’s appointments and going to St. Thomas
over and over again.
I am tired of answering the same questions my father asks day after day
while Alzheimer’s rots his brain.
I am sick of looking up at the hill and wishing my dog were still alive.
I am sick of waking up exhausted
even though I’m going to bed at 8 o’clock.
I am sick of having a sister I can’t trust.
I am sick of speeding tickets and cops
and people who have nothing better to do in this life
than make other people’s lives miserable.
I am sick of politics and pundits,
and the media,
and all the bullshit,
and the lack of truth,
there is so little truth left in this world.
I feel like I am coming apart at the seams.
I showed up in court today for a speeding ticket and the judge was late,
sick with some flu or something.
The damn police officer said she was sorry.
Sorry.
Great.
I guess I could just say I’m sorry too and that would be the end of it,
right?
Yeah,
right.
So now we’re all supposed to just sit there
and wait for some sick,
probably very pissed off judge to show up
and decide our fate,
as if there is any doubt as to what our fate will be.
Some world.
Some great fucking world.

Soldiers of Joy

In the den,
the Christmas decorations are back in their boxes
waiting to go up to the attic
so they can sit in the cold
and dark
for another year.
They do not mind the dust,
or the spiders that crawl past them,
or the rare mouse that scampers across
on his way to who knows where.
They do not mind being cooped up
in cramped quarters
only to be given a few short weeks to shine
downstairs.
They are soldiers of joy,
here to help me remember
there still is magic left
in this world.

Lemon In Water

If I sleep
I will wake up foggy,
unable to bring myself back
from the Mexican haze
rice and beans and guacamole have left me in.
There must have been MSG in the food
for I am mole faced now,
eyes closing back in my head,
mouth hung open
and dry like some plant left out in the sun
for too many days.
Normal Mexican food doesn’t do this to me
but this was Americanized Mexican food
staffed by waiters who call you “Amigo”.
They never speak mock Mexican in real Mexican restaurants,
nor do they have tables of bubble-headed teenagers
exchanging gifts and talking about endless hours of crap.
There are no bumper stickers on the backs of trucks that say “torture a terrorist”
or ones that support our current administration.
There are no fat white people jostling about trying to look at the Sunday football line-up
while they chug down a couple of margaritas.
Nor are there women in Christmas sweaters totting Oprah’s recommended read.
In real Mexican restaurants they don’t bring chips and salsa.
The fish arrives to the table whole,
eyes still in tact.
The waitresses wear tight jeans and bring tall glasses of Horchata.
They give you blank stares when you try to speak your high school Spanish to them.
In real Mexican restaurants they serve Caldo de Res,
and pozole and tripe,
things most Americans would never eat.
In real Mexican restaurants there is no Speedy Gonzalez plate
and no one ever gets lemon in their water.

Happy New Year

It’s a new year
and I’m hungry
for more than just rice and beans.
I want to walk outside in the cold
and feel awake.
I want the cold on my cheeks
and the crisp grasp of winter in my hair.
I want to take off my clothes and get warm
under the covers,
snuggle down into the down
and drink in the peace of flannel.
I want to savor a cup of hot tea
with a freshly baked muffin
and just be.
It’s like that now.
I am waking up to all that is
and could be,
like putting jalapenos in my cornbread.
For the first time.
I am realizing
I don’t have to wake up scared,
I can just
wake up.

Hide

When the curtain rises
hide.
Hide under tables and chairs
and in boxes and bags.
Hide
in the closet under long dresses and coats.
Hide
under beds and inside kitchen cabinets.
Stop and listen to the feet
looking for you.
Listen to their shuffle.
Giggle silently.
Remember
the part of yourself
that hid just for fun.
Hide
in
plain
sight.

The Last Christmas

Christmas came and went,
and with it
my hopes for having the kind of Christmas I’ve always wanted.
I picked my father up on Christmas Eve
from the Jewish Community Center.
His weekly poker game didn’t happen
so he had been sitting in the lobby for three hours.
I guess some of the men must have gentiles for wives
or else they like a good cup of eggnog
as much as the next WASP.
When he got in the car,
he acted like some kind of geriatric Scrooge,
telling me about his headache
and asking me where I had been
and why hadn’t I gotten him the second he called.
I had been dealing with a whole different crisis.
Seems he was overdrawn at the bank because the check my sister sent bounced
because he had been using his ATM card and we didn’t know he was using it.
So now, he’s yelling at me,
and I’m running around to closed banks
trying to get home before my mother sets the Christmas tree on fire
or decides to jump off the roof like the Flying Nun.
By the time we walk in the door he is in full
screaming mode
telling me he wants to go back to his apartment and
“to Hell with Christmas.”
Great.
I’ve been planning this thing for days,
running around to stores to buy Russian chocolates
and flowers and fresh pasta with Bolognese sauce
just so he won’t gripe there’s no meat at the table.
Meanwhile, my mother is trying to calm him down
stuttering out a few words about Christmas
and peace and my dead dog.
I shove a pizza in the oven hoping the smell
will bribe him in to staying.
I manage to get him to sit down and eat.
He gripes that the pizza is too spicy and
that I am a terrible person and an awful daughter.
Then my mother and I try to sing Christmas Carols
while my boyfriend plays the piano.
We make it halfway through Silent Night
before my father starts yelling in the background that we are giving him a headache
and he wants to go home.
Twenty minutes later
we are in the car taking both of them back to their apartment.
Christmas Eve lasted all of two hours.
I hadn’t even unwrapped the firewood to start a fire.
The stores had barely closed
and there were still cars in the parking lot.
On the way home
I thought about all the other Christmas’ he had ruined for me.
Maybe it’s because he’s Jewish/atheist
or because he believes religion is the root of all evil.
I don’t know and I don’t care.
For one night I wish he’d just shut up.
I mean it’s not like I’m hanging crosses on the wall
or have a manger scene set-up in my living room.
All we’re doing is drinking eggnog and eating cookies
and singing.
All we’re trying to do is make memories.
New memories.
The next day I made Christmas dinner,
and brought my mother over to eat with us.
I brought my dad a To Go Plate.

Grasping At Breakfast

What comes out isn’t pretty.
It’s all hands and
fingers and toes
grasping at breakfast
and love.
I wish I had a laugh for this condition.
But I don’t.
Left to my own lips I am violent
and thirsty.
I imagine figs ablaze
and the deep red of morning
coming to take me away.
A beautiful woman once,
with teeth like a pearl
smiling
at strangers and spoons,
I never worried when bills came
or my seeds washed away with the rain.
I only smiled and smiled
like some idiot
sitting on a float in the Macy’s Day Parade.
Now I am all nubs.
Fingernails chewed down to the stubs.
Hair flat as a postcard.
Eyes filled with worry.
I am losing my battle with life.
There is too much I can’t control.
My soul is dying
like a starfish left out in the sun
unable to reach the tide.
I am screaming.
Can’t you hear?
That sorrowful November,
and December,
and July,
the days ran from my veins
like hot cocoa.
The dog inside me
whining for food.
And yet
I know not what
I hunger for.

Sugar

Sugar is the Anti-Christ.
I am positive.
It is over the counter heroine.
The drug that needs no prescription
or FDA approval.
It is the enemy lurking on tables and shelves,
in cookies and cakes,
in pies and in tins.
It is the white gown begging for one last dance.
The jailed doughnut destined to break out.
The chocolate soufflé that never sinks.
It is the hunger that keeps growing
no matter how much you feed it.
Sugar is lollipops and taffy,
the frosting that can never be licked clean
from the stainless steel mixing bowl.
It is the birthday cake you never threw out.
It is an uncomplicated hymn
you can never sing just once.

Nellie

I did not come for you,
though I wanted to.
I saw your little face
begging and sorrowful,
head cocked to one side
wondering why you were in a cage,
so young.
I did not come for you
through the rain and the cars
and the shoppers.
I was too tired,
too old,
too worn down
from my life in a cage.
Now,
breakfast and love
and the desert sun
are all bones in my closet.
You’ll move off
to some grass chair
planting words
and rhymes
in New York City,
while I will stay
in the study
ripe as a peach
rotting in the windowpane.

Throwing Mud Balls

Look at that pot
that hole,
the one you have fallen into
year after year.
Can you not see it?
It is the same one
in the exact same spot,
and yet
you keep falling in
again and again.
Have you not eyes?
You say you can see
but there you are again
in the mud and the muck.
You say you have arms
but you do not use them to pull yourself out.
You say you have legs
but you do not move them.
You only stand there,
waist deep,
with that look upon your face,
the same one you had when you were five
and Emily Schuttee threw a mud ball
that hit you in the mouth.
Forty years later
the world is throwing mud balls at you
and you stand there with your mouth open wide
catching each and every one of them.

Last Night

Last night,
slamming the door,
I told you what lovers say.
December would come in a dream
sleeping till dawn
and the crows
would have their cocktails
alone.
You had no reply,
but sipped your ice
like blood
and waited for my tears.

Happy

In winter
I send myself
to the end of the week,
to the milkweed morning of mistletoe
where everything is new
as a dream.
There,
kneeling with my grandmother,
I ring the bell
and sing into the basin of silver
all my questions:
Will I marry?
How old will I be when I die?
Will I ever love?
She smiles at my naiveté
whispering
secrets she has never spoken
in my ear.
I will be happy she says.
Happy?
For too long now,
when asked if I could see the stars in the sky,
all I could utter was,
“I see black and mud.”
Happy?
Perhaps she has the wrong girl.
I am the bruised daisy
crawling toward God.
The cracked bread in the corner
crying misshapen tears.
The wingless rabbit cowering each night
by a bowl of soured milk.
I am second thoughts and doubts
and powdered sorrow left on the bathroom floor.
I look into her eyes
and again she says, “you will be happy.”
And for a moment,
I believe her
as if the sun were a bone I could bite into and hold.

Once A Keyhole

Once
a keyhole
came
and crawled through my mind.
I spoke daytimes
and put traces of dreams in my bed.
It is like that in families.
The jewel learns the nipple
like a body of bones.
You come to me
almost a prison,
and wear truth like silk,
a castle of lies and fingers
and say everything
I want to boat is no more.
My dog,
my cut,
my tulips.
Nothing will stop my mouth
but an architect rushing like a blood clot
to my brain.
Today my body is useless,
a delicate box of Kleenex
waiting to be torn and ripped.
This is my history,
my dance,
my fire.
I am the square bulb rising.
The fat metaphor.
The actress in the corner
eating my eight lovers
two by two.
Where could I go
where I would not be
forced
to swim
naked as a fish
in my own pool of circumstance?

White Curtains

The curtains here
are white
and hang like dead birds.
I have thought of mornings without them,
the naked glass reflecting blue and purple
into my eyes.
The scene inside left open to my neighbors,
disorderly conduct,
threads unkempt,
and the smell of rotten apples
on water stained windowsills.
My life is a picture book of perfect,
each night
a sweet pudding of lovemaking,
the rip of flesh and the floating bed.
You on your knees,
my body open,
ripe as a plum
ready to receive you.
I think perhaps we are selfish,
leaving so many
with nothing but muslin to look upon.

My Love

My love is not a guest
from the Five and Dive
that twinkles like a flashy star.
But a sweet summer,
a half moon
sprouting rare rows of lovely ribbons
for you to come upon.
I bleed blue
and dance across the ice
all eggs and jam.
My love is in London,
and Paris,
and Madison.
My love is the poem I couldn’t write.
The book left unread.
Eleven years of seasons.
It is sleeping till dawn,
and the bird’s shadow,
the creamy white paper of dawn.
My love is whispered like money,
a forest of skin for you to taste,
and hold,
and mark
till we both lie down
and die.

Naked

In the dream
I want to stay
Naked,
a subway for you to ride on.
My long brown hair
the rope
you climb
to my lips.
In the dream
you are my winter,
the pure white bed of sleep
hungry
for my virtue.
In the dream
the milkman’s shoes
would regard the animal within us
with envy.

Furry Boots

All week it rained.
I wanted to go shopping
and buy myself a pair of furry boots
but the rain kept me in.
Who wants to shop in the rain?
Not me.
I wanted to buy some warm tights
that I could wear with short dresses
but I didn’t buy anything.
Instead,
I sat inside and watched the leaves fall off the trees.
I sat inside
and looked at my old clothes and old shoes
and wondered when the rain would end.
I thought about going out
but it seemed like too much trouble.
Who wants to get wet when you can stay inside and have hot tea?
Shopping always leaves me depressed anyway.
Either the shoes don’t fit,
or I think I’m too fat,
or I refuse to buy something because it’s Made in China.
It’s getting harder and harder to buy anything that isn’t Made in China.
So I didn’t buy anything.
I had tea,
and read poems,
and walked around the house in my socks
and dreamed of furry boots.

Oh C.C.

I miss my dog.
I miss the way I was when I was with him.
I miss saying, “Oh, C.C.”
when I saw a squirrel in the backyard
in a voice that I knew
would make him come screaming down the hall
frantic to get out the back door.
I miss being silly with him
and chasing him around corners
and throwing tennis balls down the hall for him until we were both exhausted.
I miss taking time to play.
I don’t know how to play without him.
All I know how to do is work
and berate myself for not writing.
I have no one to play with now.
I want to go on long walks but he isn’t there to walk with me
and I have forgotten how to walk alone.
I want to come home and hug him and tell him about the asshole in the parking lot
but he isn’t there when I walk in.
I want to curl up with him on his bed and listen to him breathe while he sucks his bed
but the floor is bare.
I want to cut up radishes and watch him stand right under me
hoping that I will drop one.
Now when I drop a radish it lays on the floor until I pick it up and throw it in the trash.
I want to pop a big bowl of popcorn and toss him kernels and marvel at how he catches each one.
I haven’t made popcorn since he died.

When You Are Young

When you are young
you think you have all the time in the world.
There is always tomorrow,
one more t.v. show to watch,
one more errand,
one more dream,
one more dip in the pool.
There is time
to let parents and teachers and boyfriends upset you.
There is time for tears
and anger
and hopes fading.
It doesn’t matter if tonight is spent in front of the t.v.
mulling over why he didn’t call.
There is still plenty of time.
And if a song doesn’t come today,
it will come tomorrow
so you stop trying as hard as you would have if you thought
there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.
When you are young
minutes move like hours
and you have time to stop and smell the daisies
and marvel at your breasts as they make their first appearance like
shy debutantes.
When you are young your heart is as open as a butterfly’s wings
and you do not know the sting of betrayal.
But when you get older something happens.
You start to see how you have spent your years
and you start to worry that the hours and days are moving too fast.
You see your life projected on the wall like a strange mosaic tile,
cracked and fragmented and uneventful
and you wonder how you can stop doing what it is you’ve been doing
and start doing something different.
You grow tired of grilled cheese sandwiches and the same Christmas songs
and running to the mall to buy something that really won’t make you happy
for more than a few weeks.
Oreos and ice cream make you sick and you realize sugar is
a poison you’ve swallowed all you life.
You start looking at babies and old people
and realizing you are neither
but somewhere in the middle.
You start wondering what we are all doing
here
on this planet
always moving,
moving.
You start seeing the illusion of the world you are living in
as if it were a cardboard cut-out,
a good wind could blow over.
And you realize how empty it all is -
The pursuit of money, cars
and homes.
And you start asking yourself
how this whole lie began
and how you can get out of it
and find what you are supposed to be doing and thinking
and wanting
before it is too late
and you are too old
to care.

Good Company

There is nothing to do
but sit and write.
No one needs me today.
There is no crisis that I must run to.
No medical emergency that needs my attention.
No fight that has escalated to hitting and screams.
No phone ringing with accusations.
There is only silence.
It is a silence I am unaccustomed to.
It is a silence that leaves me wanting to run
and find a crisis
to fix.
I find myself reaching for phones and dishes
and trips out in to the cold that don’t really need to be made.
I find myself wanting to interject myself into the fray,
to pick up another’s worry,
to stir something up,
when all I need to do is sit
quietly
and watch the leaves fall.
I have been given the gifts of time and quiet and peace.
I pray I use them well.

A Writer's Dilemma

I didn’t take the flight with you.
I didn’t sit beside you and eat our leftover Thanksgiving dinner,
the one with the macro yams and bok choy and wild rice
that never really turned wild.
I didn’t sit beside you and laugh about the man in front of us
with the pointy head,
or at the one across the aisle that couldn’t keep from jiggling his leg for more than a few seconds
at a time.
I didn’t ride with you down Michigan Avenue and marvel at the snow as it came falling
on the empty streets
ready for the Day after Thanksgiving shoppers.
I didn’t hold your hand in our red Cobalt rental car and feel yours in mine
and smile at how many years I have loved you.
I didn’t take the ride out to Deerfield
to eat the way we never eat now,
sugar, sugar and more sugar.
I didn’t come and see your family
and quietly kick you under the table over something someone said
that I found absolutely unbelievable.
I didn’t sit around and make small talk and wish that I were home at my desk writing.
I spent the day alone
in the grey
wishing that the deer in the backyard would come back again.
I spent the day watching others run around trying to get ready.
I spent the day in silence
trying to remember who I am.
I spent the day wishing
I could be
in two places
at once.

Let Down Your Eyes

What is this plant,
this deep seeded bumble bee that lies before me?
Surely it can not be the moon?
I have traced the moon with my finger
and wandered in the light
only to lick the icing off the spoon
again and again.
You say you want wonder –
look out your window.
There are a million lights just waiting for your eyes.
Over and over the drag of winter has left you down
bundled and huddled
like some old man waiting for his bus.
When spring comes you will miss the tulips.
It is like that with some.
They want fireworks
when there are shooting stars all around them.

Scared

I don’t know who to believe in this whole thing.
The investment banker,
the insurance salesman,
or the senior caretaker who has “never stolen in her life.”
It all feels too much for me,
like trying to remember how many pills my mother takes each morning
or that I have to carry valium in my purse at all times for my father,
or that I live every day now without seeing Trouble’s face.
Everyone I speak to has a different angle,
agenda,
desire,
and it all comes down to money.
I feel like a very small animal in a room full of wolves.
My sister would trust anyone,
and gladly give out any information,
but I am not like that.
I am suspicious when someone starts asking me about income
and address,
and wants to know how much money there is.
I am scared of the market
and the way things rise and fall without reason.
It is as if we are all being manipulated.
One minute our country is in a depression,
and the next minute our President is on t.v. speaking about our resilience
and how strong we are.
Nothing makes sense and I feel like there is no where to turn.
There is a hand waiting to grab me,
to feel me up,
to take me.
I am scared.

Uncle Horatio

The red snapper tasted like a tire last night.
It lay on the plate
hard and rubbery
and inedible.
No amount of olive oil or lemon or herb
could turn it into something it wasn’t
and had never been.
I took it back to the grocery store this morning.
I slid its body
across the counter
to the Spanish manager
with the wooden bracelets.
She looked at it
like it were a dead relative
she once knew.
An uncle,
named Horatio.
Poor Horatio,
never even made it out of Cuba
or out of my oven.
Now, he’s dead
and there’s no one to give him a decent burial.
“I tried my best, “ I told her.
She nodded and understood
then she threw Uncle Horatio in the trash.
I thought of him sitting there rotting
while I walked up and down the grocery aisles.
She threw coffee grinds on top of him to kill the smell
and dreamed of Cuba and all the other uncles
she would never know.

The White Rabbit

I have lost myself.
Like a rabbit in the woods,
my head has been snapped and turned by the sound
of others.
I have become lost and can’t find my way home.
It is easy to do,
when you follow another’s trail
and leave your own behind.
I went walking and laughing and found myself
alone.
You on your path,
me,
left behind
wondering
where I am now.
I followed the breath of you,
your kiss,
your touch,
your voice,
and when the words were not what I wanted to hear
I didn’t know I could listen to my own.
I thought you would lead me out
with your eyes.
So I shut mine
until I lost my own sight.
Now I am in the dark
wondering how it got to be so dark,
wondering how I got to be where I am.
I do not know what I think,
or how I feel,
or where the ground is beneath my feet.
I only know there is not a me.
I am scared to walk,
to move,
to breathe,
to find my way back,
to wherever back is.
For too long now,
whenever you were quiet,
I felt the need to sound,
to help,
to waken.
I thought there was something wrong with me
when you stopped telling me I was beautiful.
I believed your silence.
Now I know
I have been listening to the wrong voices
and searching for a way out
of the rabbit’s maze
by following the White Rabbit.

Falling Down

It’s all going down.
This country.
Our dollar.
Our position as being a country that actually stands for something.
The market is falling.
Oil is rising.
And gold is reaching all time new highs.
I wonder what will happen soon.
When will we finally wake up to the danger we are in?
It is as if we have lost all sense of ourselves.
All sense of what is right and wrong.
We have stopped feeling,
Stopped wondering,
Stopped remembering why we are here.
There is only the mad dash to take more and make more
and outdo and undo.
The elephants are dying,
cut down for their tusks
so the rich can wear them around their necks as trinkets.
They lie in fields rotting,
their stench deafening.
But we don’t look.
All we see is the lady eating
shark fin soup wearing the fine necklace.
I wonder when it will end?
How many more people will die
before we stop and look at each other
and asks ourselves what the Hell we are doing.

Rabbits From Nowhere

It is almost like a game,
calling Bob.
My father wants to put an ad out
in the paper with the hope he will call him back,
but he won’t call.
He doesn’t even remember who he is.
I want to tell him to let it go,
but he can’t.
His repertoire is getting smaller and smaller,
like an ailing magician down to his last few tricks.
Gone are the days of sawing assistants in half
and pulling rabbits out of hats.
Now,
there are only a few card tricks left and the occasional quarter
magically appearing from behind someone’s ear.
I want to shake him out of this space,
to show him the libraries
he has left behind.
I want to walk him to the new grocery
down the street
with the wood burning pizza oven and the freshly made sushi
and say, “Eat, eat. Look at what you’ve been missing.”
But I can’t even get him out of his bed
or into a clean shirt.
I want to get him to pick up a racquet
and hit tennis balls with me
but all he wants to do is watch t.v.
I want to tell him I love him
but he is too busy calling me a thief.
It is as if he has stepped behind the magic curtain
and disappeared forever.

Silent Language

It is quiet
or at least there seems to be
no sound
of the spider making his way
to my thigh.
The morning light spreads across the trees
and I am here in the woods
comforted by heat and fabric.
Listen,
can you hear the leaves speaking?
They shake and dance like epileptic hands,
but what do they say?
No one can understand them,
not even the birds.

Spider Dance

I do not know what to do
to stop the fall
of numbers.
It is like trying to keep the leaves on the trees.
I do not have enough hands.
I could glue,
and erase,
and blow,
and run,
but another would come.
In the garden, the spider walks past me
carrying a dead insect.
He does not worry about things he can’t control
in this world.
He is busy preparing
his dinner feast.
I watch him cross the red brick patio,
each step a delicate dance,
part warrior,
part Fred Astaire.
He is so busy,
he never even sees the shoe coming towards
his tiny head.

Warner Woods

I walked in the woods today without you
and saw your black shadow
everywhere I went.
I heard you run
after the squirrels
and felt you brush past my leg
as I rounded narrow corners.
I sat on your favorite bench,
the one you marked each time we came,
and I smiled at the other dogs who passed by with their owners.
I walked up the steep hill,
the one you led me up
when you were young,
the one you trailed behind me on
in later years,
and I wrapped my arms across my stomach
trying to hold you in.
It has been six months since you’ve been gone
and I miss you more each day.
The leaves are yellow now
just the way you liked them.

10mg

He is on the warpath again,
in his valium haze
demanding
money and pills
and quiet.
He is sitting in that blue recliner
with his hands on his chest
like he were a king
holding court,
fighting
and spewing
and expecting everyone to bow down before him.
I wish I could make him behave,
this man I call my father.
For years he forced his way
down my throat
expecting me to believe
and swallow his every word.
Now I look at him
and see a pathetic ruler,
an ineffectual child
trying to get his way
when he has no idea which way
he is going.

Fish And Ginger Tea

The wind chimes are blowing
and I am all alone.
I wish my mother were here
but I am alone
on my big white bed
with the window open
and the wind chimes blowing.
And I don’t know what to do.
I want to call her
but I can’t.
She isn’t there.
She is lost
in her world.
She is a child
drinking ginger tea
and making fish.
And I want to say,
“Mommy, mommy can you hear me?”
But I know she can’t.
Her smile is crooked as a broken bottle
and her eyes are flat and lifeless.
She is the small doll
I carried in my arms when I was little,
the one whose head bobbed from side to side.
She is barely here
and I am all alone.

My Life

This morning I woke up in a Zytrec haze,
hung over from a night of congestion
and tossing and turning.
It was dark out,
grey
and raining.
When I woke,
Mark was gone
and I stretched across the entire bed.
In the morning,
I forget who I am,
where I am.
It’s almost like each morning I have to re-remind myself,
yes,
I am Diana.
Yes,
my dog is dead.
Yes,
I wish things were better.
It is like that now.
Each morning,
waking in to the anxiety
of my life.

Breathing

is getting harder and harder
it seems.
Time
to sit and find
the space
between the lines
and worries.
Everyone around me is stressed out.
I can’t tell whose stress I am feeling.
I feel my own heart racing
with black tea
and thoughts.
I have juggled so many balls
I look like a professional.
Appointments scheduled.
Money transferred.
Vehicles repaired.
All with lightning speed.
I am like that octopus
In the commercial
with eight tentacles going in every direction
but in.
I miss going in.
I miss sitting with myself and hearing the birds
and watching the squirrels run.
Now there is only breathe in breathe out
and run.

The Zoo Keeper

The zoo keeper
with her mighty arms
and white teeth
swings down and scoops them up
like ripe bananas.
She is there to watch their step,
to steer them clear
of poop
and crumbs.
She brings them meals on trays
of vegetables and meat
and watches them devour her work.
She helps them wash
the years of skin down the drain.
She makes their bed,
the one that he lies in for hours at a time,
the one that she never sleeps in.
She gives them tea
and pills
and checks pulses and sugars.
She wears a red thong
and smells of the jungle.

A Prayer

Surely spring
will allow
a girl to stand by
and cook wrinkles in a pot.
Just once.

Daddy Sweet Daddy

I do not know when he became
the drug addict that he is,
lying in bed with his white tennis shoes still on,
breathing in smoke
and listening to the air conditioner hum.
He wanders down halls now
sometimes singing,
sometimes screaming.
His deep voice
always telling me
“I’m a thief and a control freak.”
I do not know who he is anymore
or what he is.
All I know
is he is not my father.
I wonder how different my life
would have been
If we had gotten him off the Valium
thirty years ago.
Would I be attracted to different men?
Would I be able to sleep at night
and turn off the tape recorder of fear.
He scares me.
He’s always scared me.
He is why I had nightmares
and felt my stomach flip every time
a man left me.
He is why I disappear
at the sight of a cock.
He hurt me.
He might as well have held my hand to the stove
and burned me
till there was nothing left.

An Uncomplicated Hymn

This morning,
when the sky turned grey
and the rain came,
I ran.
Pearl Harbor leaves scars
and those forced to eat mice
and corn
will not come
if I wash the dead.
My fingers
are an uncomplicated hymn
sung in quarter notes
and triplets.
Did I mention I knew you once?
We were young girls
with dreams
that rose like elevators
to the sky.
I did not know that in the end
I would outgrow my own shoes.

Here

They are all here.
The squirrels and the blue-jays,
the cardinals and the robins.
They are all here,
doing what they do this time of year.
I watch them run from tree to tree
so at peace.
You would have never allowed them
such freedom,
such security.
You kept them on their toes.
Let them know who was boss.
You made the backyard a
kill or be killed adventure
everyday.
Now there is only tranquility.
They are all here,
but you are gone.

Bottom Dwelling Buzzard

I am through with words
and talking and reasoning
and crying.
There is only time for action now.
The scalpel
to the throat.
The quick cut
and release
of metal on skin.
For too long now,
I have sat wringing my hands
while the brute,
the bull,
the bully
came and took what is not hers to take.
How dare she!
My sister,
the ogre,
the bottom dweller,
the scavenger,
the buzzard
circling,
picking the dead to the bone.
She, who has taken and taken,
wants more.
She who has never learned to stand on her own two feet
now kneels over my parents sucking them dry,
Sister?
You are not my sister?
My blood and yours could never be the same.

Black Shadow

It is not any easier now
than it was five months ago.
In fact, it’s harder now.
The permanency of it
is more real.
The forever absence of him.
Walking down my hall.
Sneaking into my bed.
Running after ball and squirrel and car.
His eyes
always so perfectly brown
staring me down
demanding a walk,
demanding a meal,
humping his bed
twice a day.
His face on my sheets
staring up at me
every morning by seven a.m.
insistent that I get up
and feel the sun.
His love of life.
the laughter he brought into mine.
The park
and the trees
and the street where I live
are full of him.
Everywhere I look
he is there
but there is nothing to hold on to.
My sadness deeper now
than ever before.
The loss of him
a black shadow that never leaves my side.

Negative Jeans

Negativity is inherited
like freckles and red hair.
Furrowed brows
and stretch marks,
smiles that never turn up
and the belief that life
is only shadow.
The voices in my head,
the ones that tell me it’s too late,
the ones that keep me
tied down
like the victim of some horrible rape,
where did they come from?
From my mother’s breast milk
or my father’s seman?
Was I destined to inherit their pessimism
like I inherited his wavy hair and her thin legs?
Now I am at the park
trying to listen to the birds and the small river
that runs beside the park benches,
but all I can hear is the fly trapped in my car
buzzing and buzzing.
I can’t get the fucker out,
no matter how hard I try.

World of Weasels

The world is full of weasels.
Weasels that tell you they are going to do something
but never will.
Like Ty,
the tennis guy at the Brentwood Y.
He said he’d post a note for tennis partners
for my dad,
but
then didn’t even write down the phone number I gave him.
I hate guys like that.
Arrogant,
pricks
who think they don’t have to give anything to anyone.
I’d like to take all the weasels and the liars of this world
put them in a giant garbage bag,
and throw them out to sea
for the sharks to eat.
Then,
when someone told you they were going to do something,
you wouldn't have to worry.

The Lions

They are here,
the two of them,
limping along into twilight
like wounded lions,
each one scared
to look the other in the eye
for fear of what they might see.

The Right Choice

He showed up this morning
looking like a crack addict.
Eyes wild.
Hair unkempt.
Unable to look at me
when he told his story
of the “family emergency”
that kept him from coming to work this weekend.
Now,
he arrives an hour and a half late
and wants me to give him three hundred dollars
before he even starts
so he can go buy tools from a pawn shop.
His were stolen from him this weekend.
I want to help the guy,
but I’m not stupid.
He says he can run get his computer and I can keep it as collateral.
The whole thing reminds me of the panhandlers I see on the street
in downtown Nashville.
They tell me stories of coming back from the war,
and broken down cars, and pregnant wives they need to get to the hospital.
I turn them down over thirty-five cents.
I don’t think I’m going to be handing out three hundred dollars
to someone I don’t know
who hasn’t shown up on time once.
I tell him I don’t think it’s going to work out.
He leaves.
I think I made the right choice.

Dragon's Breath


Do yourself a favor
and stop listening to all the voices
that tell you no.
What the hell do they know?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
You are here
and with just your breath
you can blow the dragons down.
Breathe in,
blow out
and be
all that you
are meant to be.

Ping Pong Player

The mailman is here.
The moment I see him pull up
to my mailbox
I get out of my chair
and run down the hill to see what he left me.
It doesn’t matter if I am in the middle of a song, poem,
thought, etc.
I am ready to leave it all behind and go flying
like some crazed poodle that heard the doorbell ring
and is compelled to respond.
I don’t even think to ask myself if I want to go get the mail right now,
or if it is convenient for me to get the mail,
I just go get the mail.
It’s like that with me.
Something happens,
I react.
The phone rings,
I answer it.
I rarely screen calls.
A bill arrives,
I pay it that second.
My mother calls,
I spend hours in a pea soup of her own making.
I never let things pile up,
like laundry,
or dishes,
or feelings.
I am constantly trying to undo what’s been done.
Action.
Reaction.
Action.
Reaction.
No wonder I’m such a good ping-pong player.
I’ve been playing ping-pong all my life.
Now,
I must learn to sit
while balls are coming at me
and do nothing.

Empty Buckets

This morning I jumped back in to the frenzy
of numbers.
I cast my line into the sea
and waited for the big one to bite.
There I sat
with my little fishing pole
hoping my prized tuna would see my sparkling decoy.
Hour after hour
I waited and watched
tossed about on the deck
till I was green as the water below.
Nothing came of it
except nausea
and the empty feeling that I was chasing
something that should never be caught.
I prefer to fish
just for the art of fishing,
to walk away with the heat of the sun on my back
and the sound of the deck creaking below me.
I prefer not to bring anything home except
the memory
of salt air.

The Good Fight

There is not time to fight the good fight
for anyone else’s life
but your own.
In a moment
it can all pass
like a lightning bolt shooting across
the sky.
And then,
it is done.
Harmon
suffered a massive stroke this morning
and is being taken off life support.
On Sunday night
he was so alive
sitting at the dinner table
discussing life and death with the grace
he always possessed.
He didn’t know that two days later
he would be lying in a hospital bed
breathing his last breaths.
Each day I must begin asking myself
if I am spending my minutes on what matters.
Watching the market fall and rise
or my lover
run through mazes
are distractions.
It is far better to sit in the grass and watch the butterfly
drink from the daylilies
than worry.
All of this other stuff,
these other things,
are nothing to hold onto.
They are as pale and thin as dragonfly wings
blowing in the breeze.

The Apartment

It is a small room,
with two windows facing downtown.
A motel-like unit will keep them cool in the summer
and warm in the winter
and they will have meals in the cafeteria
sometimes twice a day.
Meat and three with cornbread
and a slice of chocolate pie.
It is a bit depressing,
considering they came from swimming pools
and country clubs,
but it will be their home for the next few months,
all four hundred and fifty feet of it.
I can already hear the fights over the t.v.
and the bathroom,
and the kitchen.
It will be a miracle if they survive
a week
without killing each other.

Mental Warfare

You start wondering
if you were in denial
all the time
about the Alzheimer’s,
and the gambling,
and the fighting.
Were you too busy
at college
studying zen,
biology,
your professors,
to even notice
the decline,
fall,
lapse
into the other world?
Now he calls
six, seven, eight times
a day
repeating
the same stories,
the same numbers,
the same resentments.
They were the same stories,
numbers and resentments
you grew up listening to
when you were three,
ten, twelve, twenty-two
thirty-six,
but now they come faster and harder
over and over
like gunfire in a war.
Over and over
dodging bullets
getting hit in the back, legs and arms,
cowering down
under the covers
pulled up
over your head
and you start to wonder
when did it happen?
How were you blind to it for so long?
And are you next?
But mainly you wonder
has it all been a lie?
Has it all been a lie
you didn’t see through
until now?
Who he was?
Who you were?
What you thought you had?
And now,
where do you go to escape
when there is no escape?
Or not even a now?

Poisoned Dogs

In Tai Chi
my feet aren’t supposed
to turn out rabbit
like an old aunt
banging into tangerines.
No,
my instructor tells me to keep them pointed straight
like a cobweb
collapsing and blooming.
Pale arms
candle my walk
as my head stays motionless.
It is easy for him to say.
He didn’t study ballet for years
where out is the royal jelly of the princess.
He tells me I have bad form
from point after point.
He tells me of famous dancers who stopped
twirling by forty
when their knees collapsed liked poisoned dogs.
He tells me I have weak ankles.
I leave the room
sullen as a pancake
left out on the counter overnight.
I thought I was taking Tai Chi
to relax,
not to lift the veil of my past
with a Chinaman’s knife.

Lullabye Nation

In the race for mayor,
our level of stupidity
has sunk to a new low.
A newspaper just put out an article
entitled, “get to know your Mayoral Candidates,”
and then proceeded to ask them point blank questions
such as “Where they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner?”
and who their favorite musical artist is.
The answers for eateries ranged from Noshville (a deli in Nashville)
to McDonald’s,
and for artists the answers were
Ryan Adams and Aerosmith.
There wasn’t a single question about
party affiliation,
personal finances,
positions in regard to pollution, transportation, crime
and education,
nor were there any questions about their plans for the city,
just, “where do you eat?”
Who cares!
I don’t understand what’s happening to us as a people
or as a country.
We are picking our leaders based on whether or not
they eat at McDonalds or dye their hair.
It feels like elections for class president in Junior High.
How cute is he or she?
What kind of clothes do they were?
How much money does their father make?
Do they have zits or not?
Are they on the football team?
We are quickly becoming a nation of pacified morons
who care more about game shows and “reality” t.v.
than we do about what is happening to our country.
The worst part is our press and our current leaders
are happy to keep lulling us to sleep.

Moving The Dead

Good things are coming.
The dead tree that has stood by my front door
is finally being cut down
after many many phone battles with the electric company.
Jupiter,
my adopted dog,
got a home with a family and another dog for a playmate
and, I’d like to believe, a much better life than the one I could give him now.
I’m selling my house to a couple I like,
who doesn’t have a realtor.
My parents are getting an apartment in town
and I’m getting donations no one thought I could get
for Nashville Humane and Metro Animal Control.
I feel a shift.
I wasn’t expecting the tree to come down.
Last I was told,
they said they weren’t going to do it.
Then these two men showed up this morning
with their chipper and chainsaws and started taking it down.
I take it as a sign
that anything is possible.
Just when you’ve given up all hope,
you can open your front door
and everything dead
can be taken away.

No Rain

No rain.
No rain.
The cicadas are screaming in the trees.
No rain.
The Skip Laurels and Holly bushes are praying for relief.
No rain.
The grass is browning from exhaustion.
No rain.
For weeks
there has been
no rain.
What once was green and lush and deep
is now wilting.
Even the weeds have barely managed to raise their heads
above the grass.
It is as if God moved us to Tucson
without telling us.

All Shook Up

It isn’t the tie rods,
or the ball joints,
or the alignment,
or the struts.
It isn’t the set of tires,
or the glove box,
or the windshield.
I’ve changed and eliminated just about everything it could possibly be
and it still shakes.
It rattles around like Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang
without the fun of the flying machine.
I keep getting sent from mechanic to mechanic
and no one can solve it.
I feel like the patient with the mystery pain
in her back,
the one that doesn’t show up on x-ray or MRI.
It’s like my car has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
No one can solve what’s wrong.
Meanwhile I keep driving
back and forth
over road and hill
juggling all the way.
I keep thinking if I try just this one last thing
it will solve it.
But it never does.
Last night,
I watched a Texas minister on t.v.
telling me to “wait expectantly;.”
God has heard my desires.
I bet he never drove a twenty-year old Volvo.
He’s driving around in some brand new Mercedes convertible
with his blonde wife next to him
laughing as the sun bounces off her diamond ring
right into her eyes.

Mother Of The Insane

You with your two eyes
what do you see?
Do you see the apple honey branches
waiting for you to climb?
Do you see the green clowns
that slaughtered the goat on their way to the circus?
Cinderella and the Prince
lived happily ever after
but what about you?
Do you fit into the envelope?
Are you the recipient of the ball?
Or are you the mother of the insane?

Less Than Human

I can’t stop thinking about them.
Their warm eyes
that ask for so little
and give so much.
I can’t stop wanting homes for all of them.
Leroy,
Ebony,
Zoey,
Ava
and
Licorice.
It seems so unfair that we should be free
in this world
while they are in cages.
What have they done to be locked up?
They have not polluted the world
with their foolishness.
Nor have they started wars,
or insulted their neighbors,
or insisted their political and religious views
were the only ones.
They have not asked for the diamond ring,
or the gas guzzling Mercedes,
or the second home in the country
and then fretted like a spoiled child when they couldn’t get it.
They only ask to love and be loved.
They only ask for food and water and a safe place to rest,
not accessories.
Why should that be so hard to give them?
In the shelter
they are pressed against the bars of their cages,
curled in to little balls,
forlorn.
Some have given up their dream.
Others bark frenetically
begging to be noticed,
begging to be given a chance,
begging for their life.
It’s so unfair.
We’re the ones who should be begging for their love
and companionship.
We’re the ones who should be asking for their forgiveness
for all the times
we were
less than human.

To The Moon

You are off somewhere new,
to your new home,
and your new life.
You, who were once alone and had no one,
now have the American dream:
Two kids, a wife, a husband,
a dog,
a fenced yard and a three thousand square foot house.
You, who once wondered where your next meal
was coming from, will now get “all natural” food.
You, who had no one to love you,
now will be loved by all.
You will learn new games,
go fishing,
have your tail pulled,
go to bar-b-q’s where you’ll probably listen to too much right-winged politics,
watch over the young,
and sleep in your own bed at night
under the stars.
You will have the life
(except for the politics)
that I always dreamed of for you.
You will know peace and security.
And me,
I will be o.k.
without you.
I will think of you
and wonder where you are and what you are doing
and I will remember the sweetness you gave me.

The Hen

I can not keep coming
to you in the cage
and not bringing you home.
I can not keep saying,
“Be patient, be patient.”
and think that that will keep you from crying.
What can I do?
My hands are tied
and I can not wring them again.
Each day
I watch
you slip further
and further away
like some red floating ribbon
drifting from sight
curling and twisting in pain.
You,
who have always been my friend,
are still waiting for me
to be yours.
But when I ask what you need
you only cry.
My ears are heavy as tombstones,
numb to the years
and still I have no answers.
I want to be your friend.
I want to take you out of your cage
and give you the home you deserve.
I want to make the memories
of so much neglect
disappear
forever.
I want to be the hen,
pecking and scratching
the dirt
till it is soft and warm for you
to lie in.

Cooking With Chocolate

Sometimes
the sadness is too great
and I have no choice but to put my guitar down
on the bed
and rest.
I don’t know what to do with it.
I have tried
crying it out,
But it returns.
I have tried pretending
it is not there
and busying myself with causes
and distractions,
But it returns.
I have tried minimizing it
and telling myself
how much better off I am
than ninety six percent of the population,
But it returns.
I have tried long walks in the woods
and sitting on picnic benches alone.
I have tried living alone
and living with someone else.
I have tried not talking to my parents
and sleeping with stuffed animals.
I have tried pills,
and Vodka,
and puffs of grass,
and keeping a journal,
But it returns.
I have tried orgasms,
and mopping floors,
and cooking with chocolate,
But it returns.
I have tried therapy
and read way too many self-help books
But it returns.
I fear I shall never be free of it.
I have cried so much
I don’t even know what I am crying for
anymore.

The Egoed Saint

It breaks my heart seeing him
behind bars
or at least I tell myself it does.
Two weeks ago,
I would have been grateful for that sight
knowing that he hadn’t been put down
for some oddball reason
like crooked toenails or something.
I would have been grateful that he was alive
and I hadn’t helped send him to his death.
But now,
now that he has made it this far,
I want more for him.
I want the 100 acre farm with sheep
and cows
and a kindly Mrs.
who will ring the dinner bell
and he’ll come running to the back porch
for a steaming plate of steak.
I imagine his black legs flying,
hips slinging from side to side
like jello in a washtub.
His brown eyes
alive and happy,
herding one four-legged creature
after another into place.
I want all of that for him,
because I love him
and because
I want to feel good about myself.
I want to be the good angel,
the hero of the play,
the one that can point to herself and say,
“see, I did something. I saved an animal from the needle
and found him a little piece of Heaven.”
“Look what I did. Aren’t I wonderful?”
But the truth is
I don’t want to feel bad
about giving him up.
I don’t want to admit
that I’m not ready to love another animal that hard and deep again
and then break so badly when he dies.
I want to love at a distance now
keeping my head cocked to one side
and my heart zipped tight.

Solitary Sun

It doesn’t have to be so hard,
the baby unborn,
the dog not kept,
the marriage never entered in to.
It can be as simple as saying, “no”,
and walking away,
as simple as closing your eyes and letting go.
This morning the sun is out,
the birds are chirping
and I am alone.
People,
animals,
and things do not fill me up.
I am here
no matter who goes away,
and the sun will shine for me
just as much as it does for you.

Cage Free

We are all in cages,
big cages.
Cages we create with our minds
and with our hands.
Cages built by hate and greed
and jealousy and fear.
Cages that keep us from being
all that we can be.
Some cages are built of wood.
Some of brick.
Some of metal.
Some cage cats and dogs,
others cage people.
My cage is a 1957 ranch house
with wood paneling
and pink ceramic tile in the bathroom.
A silent,
lifeless,
airless
cage.
A cage bought for me as a present.
A cage I have been unable to let myself out of.
For years I have tried to escape
the long birthing canal of a hall
that stretches from den to back bedroom
with its flat champagne walls.
But each attempt
has only produced miscarriages.
I keep getting stuck,
mid hall
and die on the wood floor in a bloody puddle.
I think of firing myself down
the hall
as if I were a canon ball.
Surely the momentum would get me out the door
and I would be free of this cage
once and for all.
But I have no canon,
only my two hands
to unlock the door.
And so I turn and turn and turn
as if my hands were covered in grease
and the house were on fire.
It is a frantic turning
that leaves me crying
the way a child would cry
who has been left in his room for too long.
Exhausted.
Asleep in tears.
And when it gets to be too much,
I sit and look at what I’ve created
and then I know
I must stop fighting
and just
be.
The only way out,
is
in.

Jupiter Rising

I keep thinking about the impermanence of things.
People.
Animals.
Relationships.
He is gone
and now I am alone again.
I thought that’s what I wanted,
but I am lonely
and now he is lonely too
there
in his little cage
with the others barking beside him.
I think about all the people that have come into my life.
The ones I have passed on the street,
the ones who have passed by me.
The ones I will never know,
the ones I know too well.
The ones I have held on to,
the ones I have let slip away.
It is easy to let things slip away,
to wake up and realize fifteen years have gone by
and you are nowhere.
I gave him away so easily,
just signed the paper and he was gone.
It was as if he never existed.
Trouble is in the ground
as if he never existed
to anyone except me.
All this disappearing and reappearing
feels like the worst magic trick in the world.
Poof,
a cloud of smoke,
and what once was
is gone.
It is that easy.

I am what I am

I am giving him away.
I am telling myself that it is what’s best for him,
but truly,
it is what’s best for me.
Yes,
he needs a playmate,
some short-haired four legged friend
he can run and jump and swim
and wrestle with.
He needs a buddy,
a friend,
an instigator.
That is what he needs.
But what I need is freedom.
The freedom to pick up my hat
and run out the door
and not worry about who or what I am leaving behind.
Yes,
it is lonely
without him.
But I do not feel it is right
to make him fill my loneliness.
That is not a reason for keeping someone.
I am trying to be brave,
I am trying to learn that short term pain
is better than long term martyrdom.
I am trying to be selfish
and honor myself.
I want to lie in the grass and roll on my back like he does.
I want to feel free
and not have to feel guilty
that I want what I want.

Stepping in Poop at the Dog Park

Nothing but bad news today.
Bad news in the market.
Bad news under the house.
Bad news from the doctor.
Bad news from my back.
I am trying not to let all this bad news get me down.
Tomorrow is my birthday
and I am trying to tell myself
that things are o.k.
I go through the list of everything I should be grateful for:
I’ve got a roof over my head,
a car to drive,
I’m not working in white slavery,
and I’ve got food to eat.
But I’m still really really depressed.
It just feels like for too long now
there has been one thing after another.
It’s like stepping in poop at the dog park.
The thick warm goo wedges in between the ridges of my shoes
and no matter how hard I try,
I just can’t seem to get it out.
I’m starting to feel like a trapped animal,
one that has banged himself against the cage so many times
trying to get free he’s now curled up in a ball
lying silent against the rails.
Defeated.
Every day I ask God
what he wants for me,
but I hear nothing.
I hear nothing.
I am paddling my boat alone
crashing in to rock after rock,
turning in circles
when I know that somewhere out there
there has to be a clear path.
I just can’t find it.

Yoga Body Yoga Mind

This morning
I tried to lift a cup
to my lips
to take my vitamins.
My arm trembled
as if I were lifting
four hundred pounds,
not three little pills.
My yoga arm biceps
bulged
like swollen eyes
on a prize fighter.
And I felt muscles
I never knew I had.
This is what it feels like
to get in shape,
to change a body
from soft to steel.
My mind
is calmer too,
a still pond
flies can light upon and leave
without resistance.

My Body

has become
the other.
The one I thought
I would never
have.

Ginger and Germs

Now we are dating.
He driving the car around to the front
to meet me.
Me standing on the black driveway
in my short denim skirt
hoping in the car
like I did when I was seventeen
anxious to go make out with some boy.
We do this weird escape ritual
to keep the dog from knowing we both have left the house.
It is hide and seek,
fun and games,
a life of pretend
just so we can try and not upset
the dog.
So far the dog hasn’t caught on.
It’s kind of fun too
like outwitting some dear deaf elderly parent
or having an affair.
We dine on sushi
and look into each other’s eyes,
and debate our happiness
or lack thereof
and how we both got to be so fucked up.
We look at the waitress,
who barely speaks to us
and wonder if she hates us.
We think everybody hates us
because we share meals,
order as little as possible,
and complain about everything.
But today
we dip our vegetable rolls into the same
saucer,
sharing ginger and germs
and hold hands.
I have known him for almost eleven years
but in the car
I look at him and kiss him
as if I were kissing him for the first time.

Push Pull

He is fighting for a spot in my heart,
in between the scar tissue
of loss and betrayal.
He is hoping I will open up
like a rose
and allow him
to stay where the others
once did.
I feel the struggle inside myself.
The pull to close off,
shut down,
and heal.
The desire to be free,
to walk off with nothing or no one,
to have only myself
to come home to
in the dark.

Finding My Voice

It is so hard to do the right thing.
It is so hard to get quiet enough
to hear which voice is speaking.
For me,
I can not tell them apart anymore.
Fear’s voice is so strong
and urgent
that it is hard for me to refuse it.
But I must refuse it.
It has led me astray.
Fear tells me to hold on,
to cling,
to grasp,
to try to control what is happening.
It is the terrified child in the corner
certain it will die
if it lets go of the pole.
It is the face of tears
and redness,
and curly hair askew.
It is the voice that keeps others away from me.
And the voice I use to judge with and hide with
and protect myself with.
It is the voice that keeps me closed off and shut down.
And yet,
it is all I know.
I am trying to learn to find the other voice in me.
The one that says,
“slow down,”
“it’s o.k.”
“you’re still here.”
That voice remembers there is still time
to breathe.
That voice remembers
that every choice is not a mistake,
that I am loveable
and good and kind
and worthy.
That is the voice I am hoping to find
sitting here
alone
in the den
staring out the window.

The Responsible One

I can not run fast enough
from it all,
the floor and the bathroom
and the rotting wood,
the cracks spreading across the mortar
like rumors.
It was all here when I moved in,
a problem passed down to me
that nobody saw
or that nobody wanted to see.
Silent
and terminal
like cancer
passed down from one generation to the next.
Everybody turned their heads and walked away.
Everybody shut their eyes
and pretended nothing was there.
But now
I am
waiting for it all to fall down
like Humpty Dumpty
sitting on my rotten wall.
I am mad
for being lied to.
I am mad for not following my instincts.
I am mad for being pushed
and refusing to say “wait”.
I am mad for smiling
when what I really wanted to do was get out my knife
and cut out the liars’ tongues.
I am mad that I
am once again,
the responsible one.

Sniffing Ghosts

He is outside sniffing
where Trouble was
trying to make sense
of a ghost he can not see.
Yesterday, he pulled out one of Trouble’s old toys,
“doughnut,”
and without thinking,
I picked it up and threw it to him across the grass.
I haven’t touched it since Trouble died.
It, like “Jewish toy”, his beds,
his collar and all his other things
have become almost shrine-like.
They are “hot objects”,
objects that I haven’t been able to look at or touch
since April,
objects that only made me cry
when I looked at them.
But now,
throwing the toy across the hill
it took on a new life,
it had a different meaning,
less meaning.
Suddenly,
it was just a toy,
and someone else
other than the dead
was enjoying it.
And I thought,
yes,
this is how it should be,
life should be passed on
to another.

Definitely Trouble

When I am away
he acts like a nut,
terrorizing the garage
and the gate.
He is determined to get out
or get back,
or find his old owners.
I don’t know what it is,
maybe he’s looking for me.
Yesterday,
he followed me into the bathroom
and lay at my feet
and I asked him,
“Where have you been all your life?”
A question
I could easily have asked myself.
Now he is here
and while he definitely
takes my mind off of Trouble,
the problems are starting to add up.
We can’t fix the fence often enough
and his new tactic of terrorizing unguarded rooms
is starting to be problematic.
He is smart and sweet and gentle.
And when I am here
he is the perfect writing dog,
content to lie at my feet and sleep
beneath the fan.
But when I am gone,
something happens.
He has this split personality thing.
I have visions of him in my head
gnawing the metal fence
like a fugitive
with a makeshift saw.
He pulls everything off the shelves in the garage
he can get his paws on.
I found a white t-shirt in the yard,
a baseball cap,
one of Trouble’s yellow play toys,
a pair of gardening shears,
and a mop pail.
I only wish I had the whole thing on film.
He is either bored or scared or insane
or all three,
and I have nothing to offer him
in the way of sheep
or four-legged friends
to keep him busy.
I feel like a failed mother,
although I know that is ridiculous.
Whatever problems he has he had long before
I found him.
But still,
I feel bad.
I didn’t get him just to give him away.
Now it looks like he’s headed somewhere else.
I think he’s been down this road before.