Balance
I try to remember
that parenting is a balance
between caution
and recklessness
but when we both laugh
as the storm hits our cheeks
I tilt us towards abandon and
take us both out
into the rain.
lessons in Patience that kentucky has taught me:
trusting that spring will break through winter.
waiting for the clouds to keep swimming and a thunderstorm to arrive to watch the sky light up with the voice of god like a child waits through previews.
sitting the the grass trying to take a fucking picture of the fireflies to send to my
loves still at the sea.
listening to children at work tell me long stories about their days at school.
listening to their parents tell me longer stories about their days at work.
listening to myself tell an even more monotonous story about how ended up here.
waiting for that thunderstorm to pass.
listen for ques
like sirens birds chirping
my toaster telling me the
bread is done the water
droplets falling on my phone
from a tree even after the rain
has gone my mother’s voice
playing with my hair
my state of mind is in
the clouds
a response to prolonged
periods of rain
Red flits among the blueberries.
A Finch has braced herself
in the nets for her meal:
Wings atop, body through,
And tries to fly away–stuck.
By the time I reach her, she, upside down,
has resigned:Head limp, eyes fixed,
Talons still clutching the threads
I spend my lunch hour
She knows when I finish,
Snip the string binding her neck,
And zips away leaving me,
Calm to that point, wailing
As if I were hanging upside down
Friday Afternoon Stop
While my son drives from near Pittsburg,
I tell him about our German speaking
ancestors on his grandmother’s side.
When he gets near Washington, Pennsylvania,
I point out houses and bank barns,
predating the Civil War.
When we cross the river, I point out
Wheeling, West Virginia to his left & tell
him his great-uncle worked in the steel mills.
I tell him Little Washington behind us
was home to many kinfolks,
& to his right, Steubenville
is where his grandmother grew up,
living with her oldest sister
next door to Dean Martin.
When Ethan stops for gasoline,
I ask him if he can tell how
strip mining scared the landscape.
As he drives along I-70,
I tell him that the landscape
was open wounds when I was young.
He tells me the land is ruined.
I tell him I thought that it was,
but the fields, green with grass
& cattle, have been levelled
for housing developments
& farms.
He tells me I should take
some time off to come back
& reconnect.
Traffic backs up. Six miles later,
he drives past wrecks
on both sides of the highway.
in the dark
dark part art dart
thinking
it’s cold
the curtains are breathing
there are no
no roam foam loam of my
heart
where is my heart
are you sleeping
was your day too long
are your people safe
mine are
bleeding reeling trying to believe can’t not
future you are the future
f-f-f-feather future or
none
when was the last time
you thought
curtains are breathing
of me
what is real
anything nothing
maybe an aberration is everything
day glare in your eyes melt
hope in your hand in
my heart i tell myself
we are together when we hurt
we do not hurt alone
what is real what is
what
alone
Generations blur, Eleanor’s blond hair
Dimpled cheek, twisty skirts belonged
To another. Was it really forty years ago?
Three generations sat adoring the fourth,
Similarity wafted over each to wrap them
In a cord of blood and years, hopes and fears.
Confused I watch, searching for a feature, or word
Or sign that points to the one who is my peer.
Do I fit with any of the four in front of me?
Did I teach grandmother, mother, child, grandchild?
Ah yes, now I see, it is the gray hair, faint lines,
Slight tremor and graveled voice that finally places me.
A blended eighty years fools me most days, but now
Not lost in the blur, the years roll away. Freed, I see
Youngest to oldest capture a past that tells all
Generations from then to now, we are really one.
1. sooty gum bubbling like tar
2. mango cart woman’s dark nipples through her white hanes. a mirage
3. gaseous trash bags glistening with their own leak. corpuscles burst and bleed off the curb
4. heavy fruit rot. its special kind of drunkenness
5. inescapable crotch reek of the underground. everybody’s glands rendered pubescent again under the sun this afternoon. everything ages backwards today
6. the chill before a sweat breaks. before the body weeps. the half-release before that whine
7. limbs of the tent city heaped over the sidwalks like burnished sausages. horsefly/housefly/fruitfly delight
8. another way to say heatwave: reverse molting, only wetter
