Knowing that you are in pain
is far more excruciating than any discomfort of my own
I’m prickling sensitive, imminently tearful
My body on high alert, as if my activated response can somehow overpower
the slow sadness of your loss
as if I can conjure a force field of fierce protection
around your heart.
Here, take mine –
I’d rather it be the broken one
it’s pulled through before
and I want yours whole, and warm, and wild with bliss;
Let me
handle the storms.
6/23/26
Just a quick reminder
if you feel alone because
you’re waiting for your friends to reach out to you first,
you’re not being a good friend either.
I rise lightly as birds sing their morning song,
gleeful and grateful for their message.
I tiptoe to the coffee maker, careful not to wake the baby.
Pressure simmers beneath the surface boiling, boiling.
My heart aches.
The baby wakes, happy and sweet.
We wander to the garden to take a peek.
To my surprise, lemon balm flourishes.
My mood lifts as the pressure turns to smoke.
I delicately grab a few leaves.
It feels only right to make a cup of tea,
to soothe the cracked iceberg that is me.
We walk into the house.
Baby hits her head on the threshold, perched on my hip.
She cries and I do too.
The world tilts a cry, a thrum, a flood of warmth
that rises, shakes, spills, and then softens us both.
I sip the lemon balm tea slowly,
from my favorite cup blue as night,
moons and stars, a whispered promise follow your dreams.
The tea warms me,
and I taste joy in the ocean beneath the iceberg.
Gently, with green leaves, tiny hands,
and a cup that knows how to hold my heart,
a lemon balm Wednesday unfolds delicate and frail.
I go outside to my wife’s van
to get the charging cord for
my phone that I took on vacation.
I had forgotten it for a day
and my phone’s battery and I
had registered its absence.
Lunch hasn’t been made for tomorrow,
the dogs need feeding and we
had just cleaned out the van of
groceries that need to be put away.
A step outside the house, and
the air hits me, muggy with moisture,
heavy in my lungs. The clouds start
wisping away, showing first stars
in the growing twilight. A breath
of wind stirs the trees and lifts
leaves of the firecracker daylilies,
opening and wilting to spite my
abandonment the week before.
And just out of the corner of my eye
a lone firefly winks into existence,
it’s slow pattern telling me –
Slow down before summer’s gone.
Hiking into the mist as the trail rises to the peak
Damp leaves slip beneath our sneakers
Speech is rare and soft in this temple
Water rushes off to the left
A jay scolds unnecessarily above our heads
We know we are trespassing
The three of you are so
full of life in the photo,
smiling widely. Such good teeth.
“Are you taking care of your teeth? ” my
father, your granddad, might ask
out of nowhere, his hand paused
mid-bourbon on the way to his mouth.
“Absolutely,” I’d tell him. Here’s
more evidence of how good a dad I was.
“Look at those smiles.”
I know photos lie, especially
this kind, a
posed portrait,
but you all seem so happy.
Excited to show the world
how happy you are.
Photos can sometimes
tell the truth, too.
And you are smiling so widely.
Were you hiding?
At least one of
you were.
I know that now.
Did I know that then?
when she fasts
everything she does seems to involve water
touching water activates
aquaporins
real things
in the body
magical chemicals
that trigger the appetite to be around water
like sex triggers
chemical appetite
for more sex
she stays away
from water\tapes her mouth
Save The Saliva
but it hunts her down
finds a way
like grand canyon cutting rock
the flat wagon tire needs testing
…in a bathtub
she transplants weeds
to grow protected
in a bucket
…and waters them
because there’s no such thing as weeds
just poorly located stuffs
then her hands are dirty
because dirt
…and so they need rinsing
sitting with tv
means drinking water
or supplements
or sol
two flies up the nose
mean a rinse would be nice
and a bath
a bath
is always
always
nice
but not as nice as
feeling better
sucking out the body’s inflammation
feeling dull
ratracing with communicable disease
from the audacity of picking up
her mail
and shaking a hand
a day ago
that someone else initiated
that never happens
so nice when a beautiful human
inside and out
takes initiative
I already feel better
she thinks
sailing from human contact
forgetting to inhale
the germkiller gas
when she gets home
the body is fine
this fasting life
feels most natural to her
but the heart is restless
somehow sleep comes poorly
during a fast
lots of bioreasons
but the days get long
long and numb
as unpleasant a combo as
rich and stupid
another fly comes by
daring to enjoy an open window
she thinks
as she watches pictures of gardeners
now harvestng
okra purple corn melon tomatoes
when hers stay quiet
considering their options
only the sunchokes are all in
as they slurp up water from the air
and the flies
look for water
here in the fasting house
I’d have left clearer instructions when I went,
ensuring none could twist and misinterpret my words.
Love one another, by which I mean love and accept everyone
for who they are, by which I mean let them live their own
lives, without restricting them to follow your own beliefs.
And by everyone I mean literally everyone, not just those
who physically look like you or are geographically close.
I’ll be extra clear, don’t be racist, just treat everyone like you
would treat everyone else, which means you should treat
everyone kindly, by which…
On second thought, maybe I would get tired and quit,
giving the same vague direction—Love one another—
before going out to buy some cosmic cigarettes.
(Another poem from my ekphrastic serices on Artemesia Gentileschi. I wrote this as a strike out poem, but that doesn’t work on the LexPoMo website, so it’s an erasure poem instead.)
Gentileschi presents a portrait of women’s power, asserting the capacity to make her own decisions…
Gentileschi makes the servant woman participate in the killing. It adds a savage realism – it would take two women to kill this brute.
“Judith Beheading Holofernes”
TheArtStory.org
Artemesia Gentileschi Artworks
Italian Baroque Artist
