One Week

They feed him turkey,
and ribs,
and cheese,
even when I ask them not to.
They refuse to bathe,
or walk,
or look in the refrigerator for roast beef
and bread.
They would rather call
and complain
and tell me there is nothing to eat in the house.
Lentils and rice are no good.
Nor is kale,
or anything of the sea.
Only animals
with warm blood
seem to be on the menu.
My father is convinced protein
can only come from one source.
So dinner is a fight,
and lunch is a fight,
and breakfast is a fight.
I cannot be the good daughter.
I cannot cook for them,
and clean up after them,
and bring them two dollar bar-b-que sandwiches on Sunday.
I need them to live somewhere else,
like Tucson, or Mexico.
Somewhere warm where I can walk on the beach with them,
cut up papaya for them,
bring them flowers,
and then gripe about the job some other poor sap is doing with them.
I am tired of being told “how awful I am.”
I am tired of being compared to my sister.
I am tired
and they have only been here
one week.

A Reprieve

I am looking for a reprieve,
a respite,
Somewhere to escape the chaos
of them.
My life is trips to the JCC,
poker days,
senior fitness morning,
and aqua for arthritis.
I am trying to be the good daughter,
trying to cook their meals,
and do their laundry,
but they are an uphill battle
impossible to climb.
My father gripes when I ask him to help
with any cleaning at all.
My mother walks down the hall
barking at her own shadow
convinced she hasn’t taken her pills
when she has.
My mind is a maze of “what if’s?”
What if they could live independently with a maid
and someone coming by to give them medicines?
Would that be cheaper than assisted living?
Or is it completely out of reach?
And in another year?
My father is worsening,
unable to find my house when it is only three blocks away.
They are a terrifying proposition.
Everything I do is met with gripery.
So now I am at a coffee house
just trying to breathe,
just trying to feel
whatever it is I used to feel
before they arrived.

Without Within

There is so much less
to fight against when they are here.
My mind
is free of the treadmill
of worry and love.
Night after night
there is only
the two of them.
How much easier
it is
to have insanity with you
than inside you.

Into The Lion's Den

They are coming tomorrow,
coming like the tornado that hit North Carolina.
The only difference is those people had no warning.
I, on the other hand,
have had over a week’s notice,
but I still have no where to hide.
Tonight, I am so nervous
trying to prepare for the unexpected and the inevitable.
The griping of my father as he opens the refrigerator looking for meat.
The fussing over showers and changing shirts.
My mother
falling into tubs
and down hallways
wandering off in search of magic dragons.
Her incessant questions of my marital status.
Her lack of boundaries
in conversation
if I should take her out in public.
It feels like a crazy circus has come to town.
But there is no trapeze
and no Fat Lady,
just the tight rope
I must walk across
day after day
as I try not to fall
into the lion’s den
below.

The Incubus

comes on Tuesday
to dine with me on brie and bread.
Not even a letter from my ex-wife
could free me from my engagement.
I can feel doom
sailboating down upon me
when the doorbell rings.
The incubus reads to me from the New Yorker
while I sit at the piano
playing Brahms.
It is always the same discussion.
My bellybutton propagandized
like a clock that never stops.
I weigh in on
the library,
the cathedrals,
CBGB’s,
the poem the chicken couldn’t use.
We are most decent
sometimes
he and I,
locked in our green room
waiting
to begin.

What I Want

Is the rush of caffeine
in my bones
The sweet dark smoky flavor
down my throat.
The clear headed alertness that comes
when I give in
to the cup.
What I want,
is his cock
inside me.
The deep thrusting
of flesh into flesh.
The smell of sex
on my skin.
The wet
marks of passion on my bed.
The screams of orgasm.
The muted whispers that follow.
What I want
is to know
that I am more than my sadness,
more than my poems,
more than my pathetic childhood.
What I want
is to taste all of me,
to know all of me,
to revel in my me,
to let myself
free
to explore.
Everything.

The Sun Dog

The sun never came,
like I promised the dog,
and we both sat
in the house
waiting.
The long walk postponed
like so many before.
Hopes dashed
on leashes and biscuits.
Now
the light fades so early.
He is on his bed
stretched long
staring at me
with guilt inducing brown eyes.
Winter is here
and once more
I am left waiting
a liar.

Going To Berkeley

Was like going to the Disneyland of the Yuppies.
Blocks of restaurants
with Chinese, Thai, Indian and
Burmese food.
Children wearing a cacophony of colors,
mismatched so perfectly
by their mothers as to be hip.
Intellectuals dining on coconut rice
and discussing world peace with prophetic clarity.
The chai drinking caffeine addict
wearing corduroy and carrying a hemp tote
for his Macintosh.
Sandals and jeans.
Braids and mochas.
Women carrying yoga mats
and nibbling seaweed jerky.
The parade of Spanish nannies
walking up and down the streets
pushing little blonde haired tots in strollers.
Not a pro ‘W’ sign could be found.
Anywhere.
It almost made me miss Nashville.
It almost made me feel sorry for George W.
Almost.

Haunted Theatre

I am glad she is still alive.
She hadn’t written in days
and I had begun to imagine the worst.
Looking at the photo of them,
I imagined he had killed her,
stuffed her in to a box,
and driven off to Utah
or some other remote state.
I imagined her lifeless body,
her heavy lifeless body,
shoved into a trunk,
wrapped in burlap
and tossed into the Harpeth River
where it would float downstream
until a jet skier found her.
It is like that with me.
I always imagine the worse.
My brain is a constant stream of terrifying scenarios.
Last night,
when my boyfriend didn’t call
twenty minutes after yoga class ended,
I was sure he had been in a car wreck.
I was sure the next call would be from the police
telling me to come identify the body.
I imagined how he would look on the table,
his body bruised, one eye missing,
mouth frozen like a dead sea bass
trying to suck in one last breath of air.
I imagined what I would have to say to his mother.
That didn’t turn out so good either.
All these thoughts make me wonder if I am the illegitimate daughter of Stephen King.
But then I remember
my mother.
She was always sitting on that turquoise ottoman
in the den
reading headlines out loud to us.
This one was murdered.
That one was stabbed.
Another was poisoned.
A man was beheaded and found in his apartment four days later
after his cat’s constant meows alerted the neighbors.
It never stopped.
Night after night.
Looking back at it,
I think she enjoyed scaring me,
like she were some kind of weird female Vincent Price
and we were prisoners in her 5,000 square foot Haunted Theatre.
I wish she had read me the weather instead.

Halloween Promise

The jack-o-lanterns glow.
The children scream.
Costumes
of witches
and poodles
and pirates.
Fathers dressed like mothers.
Mothers snapping photos.
All
in the neighborhood where every body goes.
There were thousands of us.
Hundreds of bags of candy handed out.
As I stood there,
eating my Kit-Kat and a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup,
I decided
I will trick or treat
till I am ninety.

Happiness Is

Today I touched bottom,
or what I perceived as bottom.
Perhaps it’s not bottom at all.
Perhaps it’s only my imagination
telling me it’s bottom.
I tell myself I am unhappy.
But am I?
Perhaps I’m just telling myself that.
Maybe I’m incredibly happy
but don’t realize I’m happy.
Maybe I don’t know what happy is.
No,
that can’t be true.
Can it?
I know when I’m happy.
Don’t I?
Let’s see,
I’m happy when I’m writing.
I’m happy when I’m watching leaves fall in the backyard.
I’m happy when the hot water hits my back in the shower.
I’m happy walking through the park with my dog
and watching him chase squirrels.
I’m happy eating a giant brownie
(although I feel sick afterwards).
I’m happy going for drives in the country.
I’m happy singing my songs and eating pasta in Italy.
Yes,
I know when I’m happy.
And I’m unhappy.
Definitely.

Plank By Plank

They come
when you’re invisible,
pennies by the thousands,
the backseat rat,
the blinking eye,
listening.
The man is you,
my boy.
It’s all the same.
The cold darkness
that says
you are not from my country.
I want to go back
plank by plank
and discover the truth.
I want to go back to Lublin
and taste the strudel my father ate.
Another Jew
passing through.

Lost Life

I wonder what happened in their bedroom
that led to it.
Did he not touch her enough?
Did he touch her too much?
Did he fall asleep with the t.v. on
and snore until she thought she would have to get a shovel
and beat him silent?
Did she listen to one too many insults from him
about her mother?
Did he come into the kitchen
and criticize her for not heating up the pan
before she poured the oil in?
Did he leave the toilet seat up in the dark
for her to fall into?
Or was it his pile of clothes
ever growing in the corner,
that finally caused her to snap?
Was it that she wanted children
and he didn’t?
Or was it the way he belched without regard for her presence?
Maybe it was something much simpler than that.
Maybe she just stopped loving him,
just stopped wanting to see him come up the driveway,
just stopped thinking about him during the day
while she stood in the kitchen drinking her coffee.
The spark had dimmed.
Vanished.
Smoldered to nothing.
And years go by
bleeding.
One day
it’s not even a fish anymore.

The Fallen

Wait.
Did you see it?
It has fallen.
It is on the ground
waiting
for you to pick it up.
Don’t pretend you don’t see it
when you know you do.
It is there,
under the boots and shoes,
under the dirt and rain.
Waiting.
Holding on to its form
like a vase
holding flowers.
If you pick it up now,
you can still keep it,
still use it,
still pretend it never fell at all.

Thought of The Day

There are so many people
I don’t want
to have sex with
in this world.

Just Like That

This time I got him out.
Not because I was kind or pleading
or wanted to help him.
This time I went out there like I was going to kill
the little Mother Fucker
and he knew it.
He had been there all day and all night,
hopping on the window ledge
and on my books and on the rug in the garage.
Hopping and pooping.
Chirping and pooping.
Pooping and pooping.
When I went out there to catch him and set him free,
he fluttered and hopped out of my reach.
I worried about him.
What would he do for food?
For water?
I thought he might die in there
if he didn’t get out soon.
He was such a moron.
It’s no wonder they came up with the term “bird brain”.
This morning he was facing the right direction to get out,
but still wouldn’t go.
Now I was mad.
What more did he need?
All that chirping and pooping.
I screamed at him “Go”
but he wouldn’t.
It was as if he didn’t want to go.
Well, I had had enough.
I was not going to spend another day worrying
about him.
So I stormed out the back door and into the garage
like I was going to catch him and cook him for lunch.
And he left.
Just like that.

Dentyne Smile

There is something wrong with me.
I admit it.
I am not meant for this world.
Nothing about this world and me
seem to work together.
For example,
right now I am sitting on the couch
bleaching my teeth with Crest Whitestrips.
I have never used them before
and I doubt I will ever use them again.
The first two strips I ruined when I threw them into the trash and kept the plastic backing instead.
I tried to fit the plastic into my mouth
before I realized it wasn’t working.
Then I opened two more packets and put the two thin strips into my mouth.
They don’t press on easily
like they say they do on t.v.
They slide around in your mouth
creating a messy barrier of saliva and hydrogen peroxide foam.
They feel like they are going to fall off at any minute.
I can’t imagine putting them on like they say in the instructions and then
“Hopping into the shower”,
or “commuting to work”.
I can’t even open my mouth without drool running down my chin
much less use a turn signal.
Another thing I don’t like is that they don’t go all the way around.
Now the back half of my teeth will be yellower than the front half.
And I swear they are giving me a headache.
Probably all the saccharin I am swallowing.
Oh well, what' s a little cancer in order to have white teeth?
It’s weird,
I remember when people chewed Dentyne
and thought they were doing something to whiten their teeth.
Now everything is so much more intense.
I never even used to worry about how white my teeth were.
Then I started noticing everyone on t.v. and in magazines
had super white teeth.
Not just naturally white,
but glowingly bright white.
According to my dental hygienist,
your teeth are supposed to match the whites of your eyes.
Something no one had ever told me before
until teeth bleaching came into the dentist’s office
and became part of our lingo,
just like internet,
video dating,
fast food,
cell phones,
and Utube.
I don’t know about any one else,
but I liked it better before
when we chewed Dentyne and ate tic-tacs
and thought that was enough.

Annie's Song

I want to stop and say
tomorrow,
tomorrow,
as if tomorrow will be different.
But I have lost too many todays
waiting for tomorrow
and now I have run out.
Now I must say
today.
Today.
Today.

A House Is Not A Museum

It is too clean and quiet in the house now,
as if we had lost a child.
There is an emptiness.
A sadness.
A loneliness
stretching down the hall and into the bedrooms.
Everything is so in its place
it feels as if no one actually lives here.
I walk through the house like I am walking through a museum.
On the wall in the den hangs the “Otterson”,
a picture of a dark haired woman
looking too much like me to be a coincidence.
In the dining room the Cezanne pen and ink
looks back at me accusingly as I straighten the frame.
The drum set,
silent as ever,
waits in the living room,
sticks perfectly placed.
The bathroom tile sparkles
and the toilets look more like 1950’s art deco pieces
than functioning fixtures.
The white towels, newly washed and folded,
smell of lavender,
and look so perfect that I am scared
to ever use them again.
Outside,
in the garden,
freshly planted pansies stand a little too erect to be natural,
making one wonder if they might melt in the sun.
It is all so perfect I keep waiting for some middle-aged curator
to come and throw me out,
and tell me that the house is closed
and to come back tomorrow
after nine.

Let Them Come

Now is not the time to lie down and die,
to cling to the pillow of doubt
and rest my head upon its cover.
No,
now is the time to stand strong,
to stand up to those
who would
leave me to wander through the forest of fear
on my own.
Well, I say
let them come with their accusations.
Let them come with their demands.
Let them breathe their fiery lies upon my neck.
I will not back down.
I will not cower
and cover myself in the dark.
They who think they have me,
have me not!
I am stronger than I pretend.
My meekness is but a shield to protect the warrior’s heart
that beats beneath my skin.
I will never give up the fight.
So let them come.
Let them come.
And when morning’s first light arrives and the dust has settled,
the battlefield will be littered with the bodies of their men
while I will remain unscathed.
I will stand victoriously on the hill,
verdict in my hand,
shouting,
“Be gone
liars and thieves,
for you have met your match.
You have met the truth
and the truth can never be stopped
no matter how soft the voice who utters it. “