By the Door
Pristine baby shoes
Black laceups kicked off after church and forgotten
Workboots with mud still clinging to the tread
Grass-stained sneakers with duct tape on the toes
One pair of pink baby booties
Pristine baby shoes
Black laceups kicked off after church and forgotten
Workboots with mud still clinging to the tread
Grass-stained sneakers with duct tape on the toes
One pair of pink baby booties
watching the espresso so
slowly
blend
downward
pulled
by gravity or some sense of
satisfaction
into
white silk
I hesitate to stir,
lest I interupt the universe
and the show it has put on display
for no one
but myself
Amigos, come go with me!
The bobcat has returned to our woods;
will you hold the flashlight
while I get my pearl-handled walking stick,
have all the beeswax candles been lit
and does the wood stove need banking?
We must protect the domestic fowl
but before we set off into the dark
let me tell you how I operate:
I spilt oak in the hacienda’s front yard
so when the world becomes invisible
my grandchildren will feel in their bones
the flash of blade that jumps off the page
of Mi Historia
After Maria Gonzales
sends her children to school she will do
the chores that I cannot … this is a dream’s
memory of when she will occupy every
room but mine and of when she wipes
my body with a red rag and moonlight spins
out like a spider’s web to ensnare us
in the rapacious stare of la gato montes
When I got back from Puerto Rico I had roaches. This was a first for me despite growing up grossly poor and variously inhabitated. When young I prayed an infestation away and thought it worked. Now financially better I know prayer only works if you can’t do anything else and I can do something which is bug spray if I want to invest in poison so the linguistic lesson here is maybe it’s a luck thing or maybe if you can’t do anything nothing happens and if you can do something about it you should in which case can’t = nothing and can = something which is how it is in all things I’ve noticed. Like how I could have gotten stand-by for my plane ticket to get home earlier if I had paid for a special ticket insurance when I had originally gotten my ticket which means I had to have had more money before now when I have no money. But now is here. And poor Greg can’t process this and they won’t let him out of security to smoke a cigarette but I was actually looking forward to spending 12 hours in a airport because why go back early to a place where I have to remember I have no job and there’s no ocean.
Donuts With Daddy Day at preschool today;
my eyes protest–
I say nothing.
Daddy reports the little guy
had his with sprinkles.
Mom says, “Who’s Sprinkles?”
with the deadpan
I taught her.
“Whattaya mean?” he says,
“They were his.”
Her eyes laugh!
We say nothing;
we savor the moment,
while the moment
is buried by crosstalk
and crackers.
The dusky fragrance of rain
and liquid lightning strikes
season our pleasure
sweeten the heat
of our lavish play.
After, you tell me
the final frame
before unspeakable loss
how you partitioned the clutter
negotiated the leap
how you now feel
infused, a fat-lit blossom.
~ Found poem composed/modified from words in Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s poem, “The Music Lesson”
I see my neighbor has freed
herself today from her house
stands in her driveway hands raised
crying to the wind the wild outdoors
rusty hair a-tangle,
her reedy body thinned by loss
misuse
delusion.
She lives on green smoothies
wine vodka.
She dashes to her mailbox to pluck
a yellow daylily her only flower patch.
Her only sun-moment for the day.
scooting back on the toilet seat
i grab bar hanging above me from ceiling
lifting and pushing with legs
until i lower butt down and feel only
open space beneath me
knees touch down on cool tiled bathroom floor
pressure begins building on knees with lower legs
pinned underneath me, i know not to panic (even
though i probably should). eventually after yelling
HELP! several times and getting my dog in on the act
to no availing ears, i come to accept my fate
as my hands begin to lose hold of the trapeze rings.
with my foot straped in i begin to realize the severity
of the situation because the position i am in with my legs
pretzled up under the weight of the remaining two thirds
of my body. i drop, squirm and flop (or tried to flop) over
so my knees might be spared the pain of being stuck
like this but no, like this i remain for over an hour,
the next day the pain is alive and my right leg is compromised,
having to reevaluate how i do basic transfers, i know i need
to get it checked out so i go (unrelunctantly!) to the ER
which i’ve decided is not the place to go during an actual
emergency. before i finish composing this sarcastic theory
the nurse calls me back, asks my height and weight, takes my
temperature and blood pressure, tags me and takes me
to a smaller waiting room where i control the television
this time (i dont watch tv) and where i await a group of ladies
to perform an x-ray on my knee. then we (my caregiver’s
with me) wait … and wait … and wait. finally, tired of this
game, i decide to go, explaining that i will wait to hear “nothing
is broken” until they call. but before i go i’m given some crucial
advice: take ibiprophin for pain, elevate leg 15 minutes at a
time and ice as needed. i completely ignore their suggestions until
bedtime then SHIT! i’m hurting so i ask if he (my night time
care giver now) will help me get into bed without bending knee
at all. he does this like a pro and i’m amazed, then i ask him to get
an icepack for my leg. i put it on and lay there while my body and
mind go numb simultaneously. next day pain’s gone.
