Posts for June 6, 2017 (page 4)

It’s not a horsefly
It’s the nice kind that throws up on people.

Happy Catharsis everyone, and NO BITING!

The once-ambivalent baller
On a whim, parked the car,
Found a leather pumpkin
There for anyone.
He made three baskets,
Out of seven or nine.
Then he started bawling,
Limped back to the car,
And drove home.
The pivot foot, maybe forever flimsy,
And the aim is untrue.
He probably should admit
To such failing to his young team.
Maybe at halftime,
But never after the final buzzer.

Like Rocking Chairs: a Prayer

May these words
take shape
after the heartbeat;

may they occupy
this space fully,
pulling back 

on their own 
gentle motion.
Lulled awake, away.

The first one was not so much a check list 
but a suggestion of thoughts that might
consume me.  My therapist said: 
read through these and see if any 
of them describe how you feel.  
So I did.  Then she started telling me 
about books I could read on grief 
and how to walk the tight rope of 
remembering all the dead people you’ve
ever known and all the living people you 
know will die without looking like the 
sad girl at parties.  I am still falling off 
regularly but getting better.  Now I have a
new list with a big bold title that screams 
14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic
when you look at it for too long so make 
sure just to read it and not to try so hard
to understand.  

Gin and tonic waits in coffee cups
To be raised to lips and poured into 
Bellies filled with Sunday brunch. 
Another afternoon with my foot in my mouth,
Another night with a stranger. 

In Lexington there are peaches

July peaches

all the way from Georgia.

Watching her bite into one

laughter down her chin

reminds me

of the rough hands that picked it

and the seed it’s from

and the rain. 

Everything she does

is full of everything it’s made of.

to bare yourself
to the bone for someone,  

there’s always a chance
your bloody and dangling flesh  

will be left twisting,
dripping in the wind,  

without tourniquet,
cauterizing flame  

extinguished.

Your color dictates
how close you’ll get to me
On the bus
Your comfortable to sit in the back 
Away from me
If you sit in the front
Your face is afraid I’ll offend you
If you sit to close to me
Demons will plague you
No one taught you what to say
To me other than hello
You don’t ever share your secrets
You keep them silent
You won’t share nothing with me
Unless someone tells you so

       I thought him crazy as a loon
       But who was I to know
       He’d push a cart around the streets
       He had no place to go

       I’d see him every single day
       In front of shops he chose
       Seated in a canvas chair
       Unless of course, it snowed

       I heard he died a month ago
       And I was rather shocked
       I swore I saw him just last week
       Was I just being mocked?

       I often wondered where he lived
       He had to sleep somewhere
       It seems he had a little room
       And he just died right there

       They said he had more money
       Than he would ever show
       And kept it hidden far away
       But now we’ll never know…
       

bed. you are my favorite. but as with all favorites. you can be problematic. 
some nights you are made of daggers
others of sparrows.