America

Today,

we came and sat and listened

to the words of our leaders and statesmen.

We let our hearts rise

like the tiny pink balloons

that they are,

and gave hope that they might reach

the sky

unfettered.

We craned our heads back and

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

The mothers and fathers,

sisters and brothers,

each with a story of their own to tell.

We breathed deeply

inhaling the suits and ties,

the green of the lawn,

the metallic glint of limo after limo.

And we shed tears.

Tears for emotions we did not even know

we had. 

We stopped

and we listened to the beating of our own hearts.

And for a moment,

we forgave the past.

We let ourselves dream the dream we were

taught in classrooms as children-

that in this country

anything can happen.

Everywhere Sex

Sleep,

the ancient rain

comes again.

Pounding on my windows

as if to say,

“wake up.”

I roll to my side

and pull the blankets over my head,

and dream of New Orleans

and beignets.

Coffee

black with chicory

and milk.

The hot sun

and the buzz of insects

at every block.

Oysters sliding down my throat

tangy with horseradish and cocktail sauce,

filling me up with sex.

Everywhere.

Sex.

We rode the trolley

and ran in the park

wearing our sandals and shorts,

And never once worried about time.

Now,

greens and reds run from us,

as galleries shut their doors with the dusk.

We sit on the bench

eating carrots,

a couple of weird rabbits.

Silent. 

January 4th

It's all going down.
Numbers falling.
Fortunes lost.
The sweet taste of fruit disappearing on my tongue.
My impenetrable company
turning tide
and running scared from the masses.
This morning I was sure it would make its comeback, 
pick up steam and head for the gate like a horse
who could smell the barn.
Run me hard
till I could barely hold on. 
But one hour in, my predictions have faded.
What's right is wrong.
What's up is down.
I put my head in my hand and close my eyes
and wait for the spinning to stop.
My father always says, "don't fall in love with it."
And I say in response,  "I'm not. "
But the truth is, I am.
I am in love.
I have watched it rise and dance upon the clouds
taking me with it.
A warm wet Samba of notes,
holding me close, 

like a foreign lover I never quite understood

when they spoke.
I thought it would last forever,
like sand on the beach,
or the shine of the moon.

But I was wrong.

Lovers leave. 

Friends aren't always friends.

And that sparkly Christmas tree

at the YMCA,

the one with all the ribbons and lights,

is nothing more than ugly green plastic 

they shove in a long cardboard box

on the fourth of January. 

Frozen

It is like that now.

Everything hurts.

My low back.

My inner thighs clamped against each other.

The smell of Ben-Gay in my office

leading me

to places I haven’t touched in years.

How easily broken I am.

And have always been.

The porcelain doll

with the frozen green eyes,

dressed in lace.

My red lips

cursing,

the day.

When did it get so hard?

I want to run,

Mother.

Into the yard

and swing from the trapeze,

the way I did when I was little.

When I could still hang upside down

without throwing up.

When I thought the sun was a jewel

I could keep in my music box.

Legs wide.

Feet tight.

That metal chain seemed to reach the sky

and never let me

fall,

once.

You watched from the side

while you backwashed the pool

or picked up the occasional stick or pinecone,

or yelled at the yardman for not showing up when he was supposed to.

The neighbors’ dogs on the other side of the wooden fence,

barking,

always barking,

while the ants crawl up my dress.

Happy New Year

It is that dark night,

when we must say goodbye

to all that has been

and hope for what will come,

tomorrow.

At midnight,

we will begin again.

Baptized like a newborn baby,

the wine dripped upon our heads,

redeeming us

as the sky fills up with confetti.

Our weary eyes

searching back through the year

hoping

hoping,

we will find something we can point to

where we can say,

“See, I did this. I existed. I mattered.”

The sound of steel being hammered into submission.

The blade of grass cut and left to die.

Our endless stupidity,
like those who have come before us

kneeling at the altar and crying.

Our bottles and tables perfectly arranged,

candles lit,

appetites filled.

Glasses held high toasting the

unforeseen.

Our prayer.

To be different. 

Waiting For The Mail

All morning I waited for the mail.

It usually comes by 10:00 a.m.

So around 10:30, I started checking the mailbox.

Nothing.

Fifteen minutes later, I checked again,

positive, that somehow, I missed hearing the mailman.

Still nothing.

I went in to the kitchen and started cooking and thought,

“O.k. it’s 11o’clock, it’s got to be there by now.”

So, I opened the door, lifted the black metal lid, and still,

nothing.

I shut the door, 

embarrassed that the neighbors had seen me look for the mail three times now, 

like some OCD lunatic.

The weird part was,

I don’t even know what I was checking for.

I just wanted the mail.

(And some part of me was sure there was going to be something really fantastic in it.)

After all, Christmas was only three days ago.

What if there were some late Christmas card 

from someone who couldn’t get it together,

or even a present?

I felt like Charlie Brown.

It was possible.

Wasn’t it?

Around 12:30, after making lunch and eating it

in about four minutes,

I opened the door once more and saw the black metal lid half-open.

The mail had arrived!

I pulled it out and began rifling through it.

Three donation envelopes, two cheesy catalogues, and one redplum.com reader later,

I had gone through the mail.

All of it.

No presents.

No cards.

No green envelopes from the WGA.

It all went straight into the trash.

“All that anticipation for nothing”, I thought.

I do that a lot – think that what’s coming is going to be fantastic, 

only to find out that it really isn’t.

Like that new pair of slippers that I think I must have

will probably end up hurting my feet.

And that new set of sheets that I saw in the magazine

will probably be returned because they’ll itch my skin.

And that shirt I got for Christmas, the clingy one that reveals everything, 

will probably end up stuffed in a drawer never to be worn.

For me, it’s always the things that I never see coming that end up being the best –

The stranger who stops and hands me the glove that I dropped.

Or the tangerine I peeled that’s sweeter than any I’ve ever had, 

even though the previous two sucked.

Or the substitute ballet teacher who compliments 

my turnout even when my regular ballet teacher never has.

And even though I know all of this,

or say I know all of this,

the truth is,

every morning,

I’ll still be

waiting 

for the mail. 

Christmas on 4th

I am sitting in the black cashmere cape.

The one your aunt left behind when she died.

The one I never would have purchased on my own,

but now find myself wearing all the time,

like some dark poetess.

I am swollen,

a stuffed turkey

on Christmas morning.

The gifts I wanted to put under the tree

never materialized,

we were too sick to go out and buy them.

Instead, we stayed home 

and made kale and white bean soup,

and red cabbage with apples and beer,

and cranberry with pear,

and we ate and we ate,

and we marveled at how much we have 

without a single present to unwrap. 

Rum Punch

It isn’t the severed head on the block

that frightens me,

or the way corn is two for a dollar

in December,

or how faces smile without meaning

as they pass in red Fords.

Yes,

my stockings are hung.

Red and green with moose heads and bear.

Labels still attached for a return I’ll never make.

And what of it?

It’s nothing,

I promise.

It’s just,

sometimes a girl

wants to be a girl,

and wear short skirts and heels

and dance to the Talking Heads

while nobody is watching.

Boots clicking on wooden floors,

hips swaying in search of rum punch

and love.

Look,

over in the corner,

the mistletoe is hung.

Christmas is coming.
See.

There’s no way of stopping it.

It will be here in a week

with ribbons and bows

and packages some will never unwrap.

And I will return to my tree,

the tabletop one with the needles dropping,

and I will kiss the ornaments,

each and everyone,

and pray they survive

another year. 

Lunacy

There must be some way

to drink down

lunacy.

To enjoy it in long sips

like a fine black tea

or a glass of wine.

Most of my life,

I have tried to hide from it,

keeping my head down,

scared turtle-like

hoping it would pass over me,

like some weird cumulus cloud

on its way to somewhere else.

But that has never worked.

When I feel lunacy coming near me

my body stiffens,

as if someone had poured green slime

down my back.

I feel the cold on my neck and the sick feeling

settling into my stomach.

I walk around the house unable to turn my head,

unable to get out of the way of future assaults. 

When someone asks me about it,

I want to say, “It isn’t me.   I’m not the one.

These aren’t my people.”

But that’s a lie.

I come from lunacy.

It is as much a part of me

as the mole on my right hand,

or my jagged fingernails,

the ones I have bitten down to the quick,
just like my mother. 

Gluten Free

Somehow,

in all of this,

I must learn to forgive myself,

for not being,

the perfect daughter,

the mother

I could have been,

or the woman I should have been.

I am standing at this fork,

looking at the roads I could have gone down,

but for endless reasons chose not to.

Last night I dreamed

my pregnant friend was at a party standing over the grave of someone

freshly buried.

“I don’t want to go, “ I said.

“I can’t eat the cookies.”

“I’m gluten free.”

“They’ll have nothing there for me to eat. So there’s no point in my going.” I told my sister.

But that was a lie.

I didn’t want to go.

I was too scared.

Too scared.

Today,

my stomach hurts.

It burns and belches

and refuses to quiet down.

It feels as if it is eating me alive,

while just around the corner the maple leaves
have turned to red.   

Cut On The Bias

Outside my window three more have gone up,
father.
Brick and steel and wood.
Gravel everywhere.
The sound of hammers and generators.
Hardhats on hard men.
Hands clutching blankets in search of progress.
New structures taking the place of an empty lot
where an old grocery store used to be.
And still it beats.
People used to hang out and sell drugs
and do their laundry, and buy pork rinds and beer.
Now they will sell for 400k
and my view of the street will be blocked,
shortened,
reduced to nothing more
than a blinking green light.
Tell me more, father.
Tell me of oxygen and blue skies
and the way people used to sing the blues
sitting on concrete
while men who held scalpels cut on the bias.
Tell me of the strudel makers.
The ones who could roll out a pie crust flaky as a fall leaf,
whose hands were so strong they could wrench chickens’ necks
in one snap,
 whose teeth were full of gold when they smiled.
Where are they in these new town homes with the stainless appliances
and the granite countertops?
Do they even care about whose tears they are blotting?
Tomorrow the men in trucks will come again
and my world will become even smaller.

Route 66

My life has turned into a wait and wonder, and worry, ‘why’.
A do nothing bus ride full of screaming people
piled on thick as meringue
unable to fight their way out.
A wheel-chaired Korean Veteran
puffing himself up against the world
fighting with some woman
three rows back.
A shit-filled diaper
help-less to be changed,
no matter how loud the cries.
More and more they come.
The feet.
The hands.
The eyes.
The mouths.
All cussing the same driver.
And still, I haven’t arrived.
I watch the street signs.
The lip-stained billboards.
The high-heeled leopard strutting her way
across Michigan Avenue.
The bagged and bag less.
The hungry and well fed.
All begging to get off
the damn bus.

Before The Phone Rang

There is nothing I can do.
Now that he is in a hospital bed with tubes and needles sticking in him.
He is pale and sweaty and vomited.
They are trying to force fluids into him, trying to bring him back. 
I am hundreds of miles away
thirty-two floors up,
watching the waves lap at the shore,
and worrying.
This afternoon,
I lay on the table with needles in me,
trying to relax. Everything bothered me.
The wind blowing in through the open window.
The music in the distance.
The needle in my leg kept aching while the ones in my ears kept itching.
I felt pinned down, panicked,
the opposite
of what was supposed to be happening.
When it was over,
I didn’t get the “relaxed-high” I usually get.
I sat on the dark wooden bench
outside my room and put on my tennis shoes.
A few moments later,
my cell phone rang.
A nurse from my father’s assisted living facility
was calling to tell me the paramedics had just arrived
and were taking him to the hospital.
I don’t know if that’s why I couldn’t relax,
or not, but I think
some part of me
knew something was wrong
even before the phone rang.

The Drake

I’m sitting on the red sofa.
Back curved,
legs crossed
like a twisted pretzel
listening
to the white noise of Lake Shore Drive.
This morning I passed an old black man
on a bike.
His face was etched with years,
carved like a fine wooden bowl.
Each groove a testament
to his every breath.

Letting The Earthworms Starve

I think about death,
like lips curled round a plum
taking in all its flavors.
When I was nine and my grandmother died
I kissed her forehead as she lay in her coffin.
I hadn’t expected her to be
so cold and hard,
so unforgiving.
After I touched her, I cried,
and didn’t want to ever
die.
I didn’t ever want to feel
like that.
I wanted a way out, of this body,
without dying,
but how could I get out without
dying?
There was no way out but through death,
and yet,
I couldn’t stand the thought of dying.
I was mad at my parents for ever having had me.
Didn’t they know they had sentenced me to death?
I couldn’t make sense of it.
The circles in my brain
went round and round.
For months it was all
I could think about,
crying in the kitchen,
and in my bed at night,
and at school on the playground.
While other children played,
I thought about death.
Being buried beneath the ground with the earthworms
eating my flesh.
Screaming with no one to hear me.
Feeling suffocated
in the dark,
locked
in my tiny box
alone.
I thought about death so much,
I made myself sick.
I vomited.
Then one day, I stopped thinking about it.
I put it out of my mind.
Recently, I have found myself thinking about death again.
Not in the same terrified way I did as a child,
but as a woman
seeing my life pass quicker than I had ever imagined.
I know, now, I am moving towards death
like a swimmer caught in a riptide
being pulled out to sea.
I cannot fight against it.
I cannot swim harder than its pull.
Death will win.
But I also know I cannot just float
and let myself be taken.
I cannot sit idly by and wait for the inevitable.
I must fight.
I must forget what awaits me
and throw myself into every second of this life.
I must let the earthworms starve.

Yes 1

Yes,
go.
I am certain there will be pancakes.
You know the kind,
Big,
white,
fluffy
ones.
That hang on your lips and
Soak
up the syrup.
Because toothpicks
and almonds
are made for each other.
No,
That’s wrong.
The dog is in the park.
Trouble.
Running black.
As if still
here.
I dreamt about him last night.
He came to my bed
and curled up beside me.
Pressed himself so hard
against me,
I woke up warm.
My boy.
My soft boy.
I was a mother once.

Ode to L.A.

I do not miss you.
You with your smoggy, painfully, sunny skies.
You with your line of traffic
that crawls hour after hour, mocking me
and everyone else stupid enough to be stuck in it.
You with your tanned perfectly
toned bodies,
who worship your superficiality,
as if it were an alternative religion,
to sell their souls to.
You with your collection of cheap blondes,
over-processed sunflowers destined to remain exactly as they are
till they are placed in the ground at Forest Hills Cemetery.
I do not miss your monotonous weeks and months,
that look the same,
everyday
no matter what the season.
Nor do I miss the phony frenzy,
where everyone is judged solely on their next “big” project,
or who they just had lunch with,
or how many zeros are on their check.
I do not miss you.
You with your swank affairs and Beverly Hills mansions.
You with your Rolexes and lapdogs wearing diamond collars.
I do not miss you and your winding roads
up Topanga,
barfing to get to an art class that would leave me
emotionally defeated.
I do not miss your sun.
Or the teeth bleached whiter than the clouds.
Or the ever-present feeling that at any moment
I could be the next “hot” thing or just another footnote
in your Hollywood hills.
I do not miss your
sushi bars, (well, I guess I miss those a little).
Or your Farmer’s Market with the twelve-dollar corned beef sandwiches.
Or the receptionists trained in the art of exclusion,
except when they’ve deemed you worthy by some higher up.
I do not miss you and your parking spaces,
the fights over them,
the four letter words,
the pointed middle fingers.
I do not miss waiting hours to go to a movie,
or standing in lines at grocery stores no matter what time of night.
I do not miss your earthquakes
that left me naked in a doorway,
stumbling over broken glass and 20 inch t.v.’s thrown to the ground,
as if they were styrofoam props from a movie set.
I do not miss casting agents
and stars who would attempt rape in dressing rooms
and then laugh about it.
I do not miss you and your eighty-degree Christmases
that never felt like Christmas at all.
I do not miss you.
I do not miss you.

Suffering in Beauty

Yesterday,
walking back
I passed
the muttering,
freaks
in the city.
A man covered in filth
kicking a can across the street
screaming profanities.
The can flying
endlessly,
like the kicking.
A woman on her cell phone,
holding a baby,
yelling at someone
who wasn’t paying her support.
I wondered if she even cared about what she was doing
to the eardrums of the child in her arms.
They were both so loud,
so miserable,
so completely insane,
it occurred to me
that it is not enough to have the sun,
or the flowers,
or the sea to gaze upon.
It is not enough to have plums,
and figs, and lemons at your fingertips.
Or to walk in the hills and smell honeysuckle
and eucalyptus at every turn.
Suffering exists,
even in beauty.

Forty Minutes

Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane
to fly to California.
Unfortunately, it’s not a non-stop.
It makes a stop in Denver,
which is weird because my parents live
in Denver and
I’m not stopping to see them.
I’ll only be in Denver for about fifty minutes.
In the old days my parents might have gotten
in their car,
driven to the airport
and met me at the gate.
We would have talked for forty minutes
before I would have gotten on the next plane
to go wherever it was I was going.
But now, everything’s different.
They can’t drive anymore.
And even if they could,
they couldn’t get through security anymore,
without a ticket.
There’s no more surprise visits to airports.
Nor is there any more hummus
or yogurt in carry-on bags.
It’s all so serious now.
It’s too bad.
I would have enjoyed seeing them
for forty minutes.

Why The Dead Sing

I know why the dead
sing,
underground,
in the dark,
bound in boxes.
They have no one
to tell them
they can’t.
They have no one watching them
to see
what they’ll do.
If they flail their arms about
like wet mop heads,
who will care?
If their faces contort
all sunken
like the ripest of cantaloupes,
and their tongues
flop from their mouths
pale and white,
and helpless,
who will judge them?
Who would dare criticize the dead?
To unearth
them.
To disturb their sonorous slumber?
A choir of corpses,
shrouded in linen and lace.
Man and woman and child
locked arm and arm
unfettered by worry
or fear
marching on.
Marching.
Marching.
Marching.
But to what beat?
There is no heartbeat to listen to.
No pulse.
No rhythm,
to guide them in their song.
Nothing to feel when their pale hands are placed upon their vacant chests.
And yet,
they sing.
They sing.