butt-dialed and listening to you breathe
i’m not needy, just
greedy, i guess. a victim
of too much beauty.
i’m not needy, just
greedy, i guess. a victim
of too much beauty.
I don’t know why I set my alarm clock for 9:30 am on a sunday;
the light coming through the window preheated my eyes
until 12:30 in the afternoon.
something heroic in me stirred right then
and I wobbled slowly out of my blanket cocoon
like a Red Skelton new years sketch;
inebriated by sleep; beyond any shame or doubt.
I weakly stumbled into the arms of a cup of water and the coffee maker.
I slapped the radio until it worked;
with the fervor of a frustrated block obsessed preschooler;
I let the good folks at Prairie Home Companion do all of the talking my cottonmouth wouldn’t allow at the time; While i stared blankly at my oil splattered oven trying to remember why I woke up.
I knew I had dreamt something I couldn’t remember; the dream had been as unremarkable as it was pleasant.
Suddenly; images of sizzling batter danced through my inner monologue as clapping and cheers, from a crowd trapped in my radio speakers, nado-sirened across my apartment
Eureka! Mr. Watson come here I want you; we’re making pancakes.
Like a kid with a grade school crush
I grabbed all I needed in a matter of seconds;
wearing the right shoe of a chemist, the left shoe of a priest
and the socks of a carpenter
mixing solids and liquids; heating surfaces; whisking; dumping; measuring
singing along with Paul Simon
as I ceremonially flipped discs of Jesus’s matter
in remembrance of having remembered things I ought to have remembered or at least written down for christ’s sakes;
stretching my arms high above my head;
yawning praises and counting blessings;
for the earth still turns
the sun still shines
and the band still plays; no matter what
Ankles, prop me up
when I’ve already given up,
when a complaint breaks
any sincerity- and nobody applauds
like when the bartender, tired
and bruised under her bra,
drops a wine glass.
When the last table
shows no signs of hurry.
When the ones won’t
add up. When they tell
me to have a nice day
and that I’m going to hell
if I don’t believe what they believe,
and that the steak was tough.
I know better, ankles,
than to let any of this bug me up here,
I will take it like the dishwasher
takes a murky splash to his face,
without flinching.
I won’t add misery, ankles,
so long as you keep me upright.
i want a man to come courting
with a fistful of daisies and ditch lilies.
and an axe and a maul
all his own.
his shoulders should be broad,
for bustin’ firewood.
he ought to be eager to sweat for me,
ready to warm me right up
with hard work.
’cause winter comes on quick,
down my gravel road
it’d be best to bring a jar of honey
and sweeten me up.
i always wanted an apiarist.
a tall one.
’cause no matter how hard i stretch
i can’t get the clothesline high enough
to keep the quilts up off the ground.
White Hall Ghost Tour
How many had come before us
to take the White Hall Ghost tour,
we are not told.
Two professional paranormal experts
tell us at the start of the tour:
“This is our fifth time here.”
What they don’t tell the group,
they say to me. The lead expert says:
“If we don’t pick up anything tonight…”
The second expert chimes in, saying:
“We’re not coming back.”
I nod my head as though I understand,
but I question their faith in themselves;
their dependence on expensive instruments;
& the lack of enthusiasm they exhibit.
I rush to join Ange and the students,
hanging on every word our tour guides say,
the house speaking through them.
In the upstairs master bedroom
where the original owner slept
& died & was buried on land he owned,
there is hardly room enough for our group.
I back into a small closet with no door.
The lead investigator props against the wall opposite me.
The second investigator hovers over him.
When our guides ask, “Are there any questions?
I ask, “How do you know when there is a presence?”
“There should be one touching the hairs on my arm now,” I say.
The lead investigator turns his hand-held toward me.
Its red light turns on, flashing wildly.
The investigators display renewed interest in the tour.
“Ange!” I call out, motioning for her to join me
in the confines of the closet while everyone else leaves.
She has a look on her face that I had not seen before.
“Did you feel something, too?” she asks.
“I did,” I say, placing my arms on her shoulders.
When I turn her toward the bed
& point, she also sees the two handprints
left & right of the depression of a buttock.
She is visibly pleased.
At the end of the tour,
the lead investigator approaches me.
“It is clear to us,” he speaks for the two of them,
“that ghosts are attracted to you.
We’d like to come back when you could come with us.”
Reification
A quick fix to the terrifying anxiety of living
in a vast dark world: we put in a box
all power and then pray to it,
never acknowledging that nothing
in the universe is separate
from anything else.
Nothing stands alone, un-permeated.
Your heart, a haul
a needled sack
altar to damage
Your face, a magnet
mirror of all
you swallowed
Yet you dream, a luminary
throat and rib kisses
singing the dark light
~ Found poem composed/modified from words in Lo Kwa Mei-en’s poem, “Through a Glass Through Which We Cannot See”
Still there are far too many blouses and slacks
even though we reduced them by half
in the first move to the home, and half again
in the next, saving only those that almost fit,
like her skin, laying loose against her bones.
There is so little left. Even her wedding ring
I’ve tucked inside my father’s in my dresser drawer,
her gardening hat on a shelf in my closet.
