the curtains are breathing
you call me from upstairs
you wouldn’t recognize me
a black, elemental mist that is
pulsating
nothing solid
to put my arms around  

but I carried you forward with me
into my garden
at the first blush of color  

there were no words
the moments too pure for words
bubbling with their thousand tiny breaths
like a game of connect the dots
 
I heard roots
the small
neatly wrapped
blooms, soon to be
translucent green
the hostas
twitchy and fat  

seeing how deep I’ve dug
with a spoon of memory
the seed that was its start
where a world peeled
its earthy womb too early
and the world feel apart  

but I’m trying to
send you back, back, back
calculating both the journey and return  

what I want most
to find you in the real world
nested in an open meadow
with the sun on your body  

although we never crossed that boundary
I had to pull myself away from the flames
hold the truth

everything, everything
made sacred
is unstoppable

* Cento using lines/phrases of various poems of Lexington Poetry Month 2017.
Thank you to upfromsumdirt, T.M. Thomson, Rae Cobbs, Christopher McCurry, Bronson O’Quinn, Melva Sue Priddy, M. Wells, Callie Budrick, Ryan Keinath (The Philosophical Physicist), Brandyn Johnston, Ka`imilani, Sabne Raznik, S.L., Jamie Mann, Kevin McCray, HB Elam, Lori Taylor, M J Eaton, Pamela Gibbs Hirschler, Lisa Miller Henry, and Steve Cummings for interesting lines to work with.

Does anyone still wonder:

If Jimmy Durante ever found out where Mrs. Kalabash was
If all that Sam the Sham really wanted was a “ring dang doo”
Why Johnny was so long at the fair
Who put the “bomp” in the “bomp ba bomp ba bomp”
If a guy who had rhythm, music and his girl would ask for anything more
Who’ll stop the rain
If anyone would really walk a mile for a Camel
Whatever happened to Baby Jane
If Bosco really is the drink for you
Who put the “ram” in the “rama lama ding dong”
If Rodney Dangerfield ever got any respect
If anybody really knows what time it is–or really cares
If cats can really suck the breath out of babies
If Hushpuppies really made sidewalks softer
If Chicago is–or ever was–a toddlin’ town
If the government should own and operate the railroads
If people who need people are really the luckiest people in the world
How many roads a man must walk down before they call him a man (and just who are “they”?)
If we really are what we eat
Who put the “dip” in the “dip da dip da dip”
And–of course–if the Hokey Pokey is really what it’s all about?

A photograph
on my bed-side table:
Mom and Dad,
taken at some family gathering
(Dad’s 50-th anniversary?
Mom’s 45-th birthday?),
holding each other
(maybe dancing?),
looking at the camera
smiling,
happy,
and young.  

Younger
with every day.

              Zlatna Kostova

I used you
I’m used to you
I used to love you  

Now I’m not even sure
I use “used” right

I was reading a book
And a quote from 1905
Used “Use” as in
I use to live in Italy

I used it as a verb
When I used you
And as a noun (I think) when
I got used to you
(meaning accustomed)
And as a modifier of the verb
To Love
Meaning sometime past
When I did

Our language so strange
It’s no surprise
We can’t understand
Like we used to think we could

“For what we do presage is not in grosse, For we are brethren of the Rosie Crosse; We have the Mason Word and second sight, Things for to come we can foretell aright.”
 — Henry Adamson, The Muses’ Threnodie (Perth, 1638)

I hid the expensive cheese
behind celery, radishes, nappa,
so you couldn’t eat it all.
I’d walked full-bellied like
an overripe melon, dragged
into my 38th week, too long
you said, to carry your son’s child
Something’s wrong you said, often.  

As if I hadn’t known since
the dream before we moved to the city,
the one in the old farmhouse
where we’d planned a home birth, a glow
like a firefly jumped from the sugar bowl
flew up the stairs to my womb, nestled
near the baby. We had to move, I said.  

As if I hadn’t known when I invited
our former country landlord
and wife to Thanksgiving dinner
so unnerved I set out sunshine tea,
cloth napkins, bread plates, relish tray,
but forgot to start the turkey in the oven.  

Next morning at breakfast, I pulled
the semi-frozen sausage roll
from the freezer following the recipe
in Bon Appétit (for easy cutting)
while you practiced your morning yoga
in the harem pants you made and sold
building up your hunger. 

I sliced a clean, half-moon line in my ring
finger, smooth, almost surgical. I look at the scar
now, remembering I couldn’t scream at you to leave, 
take with you your Rosicrucian ways, the Edgar Cayce
life readings, the Tarot Cards, and the Benson & Hedges.  

Pressing hard on the two halves of my flesh
to slow the red flow, I understood why I smuggled
smoked goat cheese into my home, buried
away from you, why I savored razor thin feuilles
of the gjetost, each one thick with desire—my tongue
was hungry to speak the truth: It was I
first knew this child would be special.  

zhe is a whale that dives
dives into the twilight waters 
& dreams it’s a hummingbird
that flits from flower to flower
from perch to perch
as it sips the nectar of truth
from multiple flowers

zhe is a hummingbird 
that dreams it’s a jesus bug 
that skims across the surface 
of streams & ponds 
in & out of sun & shadow 

zhe is a jesus bug
that dreams it’s a giant squid
that slips through the fissures
of the deep like a wraith
like a hawk on the wing
that rides the winds
to where the clouds are born

zhe is hawk that’s a giant squid
that dreams it’s a butterfly
that dreams it’s a whale that dives
into twilight waters that dreams 
it’s a jesus bug that is a hummingbird

Spot it at last, or so you think,
     creep up on it to lure,
         surprise it
           butterfly net in hand
      Nabokov in mind.
Deftly turn net
         to trap then release
            into
              killing
                         jar. 

When it stills, look closely as
      you pin it down &
           mount it
             into waiting verses
         trusting them
      to bring your trophy
              immortality
                 not another
                      killing
                                 jar.

You never gave me
much
room to know
you. Your children, my
lens—those pinhole glasses that
showed
only what slipped
through,
shadow of
sun eclipsed.

Hand to the plow, 
Don’t look back, 
Never give up. 
Faint heart never won . . . 
I can do it,  I can do it, 
Even though the words are scarce,
Even though the talent is thin,
Even though others write so well, 
Even though and even though. 

Shucks, I only have to do one 
At a time, sorta like eating an 
Elephant. LexPoMo put starch 
in the spine and a pen in the hand. 
The ribbon is just ahead.
Hold on
Hold on and 
Hold on.