Posts for June 4, 2017 (page 3)

I remember being such a fool that I told a grieving mother
“I remember how you used to make me cheesy hotdogs.”
What I meant to say was
“Your son had to have known he was loved.
Your home was all laughter and adventure
and afternoon light
and those hotdogs that were so disgusting
but I loved them
so you made them anyway.
I was only your part-time child
until my mother came to get me.
But I knew I was loved.
He must have known.
He still knows.
You miss him,
I’m sorry,
but I remember your love.
He does, too.
We’re grateful.”

 A poem by my bride, Janelle McCurry, on my rest day, in response to “This Woman.” 

This man

This man sleeps next to me,

and I can’t remember the last time

I asked about his passions,

or thought of him as something
more than 

a friend with benefits, my husband

The extraordinary veiled in ordinary

I turn my thoughts

If I had it my way, I’d have lost my way.
Giving into things unworthy
Thank God I’m not in control

His heart would be torn to two,
devastated by a reckless woman

I turn my thoughts

Sleeping next to the son of the King 

I forget who This Man is 

My Man. His son 

Not That man, hers, or yours
And if you know the story
you’d understand the difference
between the one and the other-
a gift beautifully wrapped,
or a pearl not for me to discover 
This man sleeps next to me

And I wonder, what kind of woman
will I be 

when he wakes

I’m convinced
Evil exists
Despite my skepticism
I hear your voice and think,
“You need an exorcism.”
I know you’re not good with words
When you speak from the heart
You’ve never been good with words
‘Cause they tear people apart

it’s funny how drunken nights with you
always end up the same:
me wishing i had metaphors to write
you wishing for a new girl in bed

i have a bruised neck,
and you have a bruised ego.
but your girlfriend?
untouched porcelain skin

I am catching up to myself.
Yesterday exceeded expectations:
even when my grandson squalled at me,
I didn‘t worry. I have four others
who know me just a little, but still
we love each other. Such is the nature
of their open hearts. Forgiveness
is wealth, a chance for fortune.  

Best or better, being held. To think
you know what you need invites
disappointment. Finding what you have
rewards. Blue between the leaves,
the Cardinal’s hush, my neighbor’s screen door
slams, followed by his young voice
speaking to his mother. Too warm
for spring, not yet summer, this relief.  

It is a warning and a promise: things
will change. Dog digging into coolness
below the bamboo, your shade gives you
energy to kick soil out into the yard.
My slowness expands this day into
a season. Drunk on novelty, yesterday
we saw Jupiter swing past the moon.
So often, a half-moon marks disaster.  

This may be my slide from power.
I’m held longer than I ask to be.
I welcome that it helped me find
this breeze, the pace of wonder,
days unfolding into generations.
Ray Charles sang, with others,
“Well, it only takes a moment
to be loved your whole life long!”

I’ll never forget my blood hurting
as you threw me onto the bed
and pissing myself
you still kept on debating me
with the history of your hands.
 And I don’t know what happened to you
because you never told me,

but we both know what has happened to me
that it was damning, unfair
beatinest
I can still feel my blood whenever I am hurt by someone I love,
but I see you doing a much better job with your Grandchildren and 
so who really needs more than two stories.
I can go on without knowing yours.

I had a dream about a pretty girl
who had too much to drink.
She was with a boy she hated-
a boy known for taking advantage
of his white privilege
and beautiful drunken girls.

She was hunched over the toilet
when he came up behind her
and placed a hand on her back.
She recoiled at his touch
but he pulled her hair back from her face
until she was finished.

Then, he helped her home.
And left her with the stangest feeling
that maybe- just maybe
she had gotten him wrong.

This book I’m reading tells
me to set aside time each day for concentrated
worry, and then store it away, a neatly pressed
tablecloth, but later
in the day, the cross stitches begin un-
raveling, the tiny rose-
buds disintegrate into ash, and I have at it again.
My concentrated effort reconvenes.
I worry about the red wine stain in the carpet that always returns.
I worry about my dog.
I worry about my summons to jury duty
I worry about the dark circle under my right eye.
I worry that my husband will leave me.
I worry that he will not. 

when you opened
your eyes,
you were never really sure
you’d find her. 

already you’d feel 
your throat tightening,
hear the shaking
of your heart
in your ears,
fear causing bile
to slowly rise
until you could 
taste it on your tongue
like soft blood

you’d run from 
tree to bush to garage-

you’d look under
parked cars,
shaking knees
scraping against
hot pavement,

until finally
you’d open the right
lid or door
and see her looking up at you,
angry, demanding to know
how you were always 
able to find her 

how you never gave up

So Many Adventures Await
it says
on the lid of a gift box perfectly square
with cheerful confetti triangles of rainbow
color variety I brought home from visiting
my kin on Pigskin Road

So many shots in the dark await
I say
as I imagine it containing chocolate cones wrapped
in silvery foil with waving white pennants
or maybe
loose sandrock and fragrant grass with a few dead
blades mixed in for good measure–
a dandy retreat for a
horny toad

Give me the venture of chocolate
I say
on this moody and beautiful and rotten sunny day
Free me from my sullen stew of spit and steam
and chunks of organic fury and
free the horny toad
to go its down-to-earth
on-the-earth, close-with-earth way

Wait.

On second thought
I’ll climb in the box and skip kisses
to be a freed toad