Posts for June 22, 2018 (page 2)

i have never been graceful or athletic

i did not go to ballet or participate in gymnastics
i feigned so many illnesses to avoid phys ed 
embarassed i could not climb a rope
or jump the horse or hit a ball

i would watch with awe and envy 
my friends as they did backflips and cartwheels 
and pick at the grass as i watched them climb trees
their agility something that always escaped me

i still wish i could do a cartwheel
but i’m quite sure i’d break one of these old bones
yet… i still wish i could do just. one. cartwheel.

Emptiness & Emptiness

If grief is someone walking out a door,

someone taking the last ripe peaches

and leaving nothing, not even their scent,

if grief leaves you encountering only a scarf’s

edge fluttering at the edge of darkness

or the edge of daymares, 

if grief leaves you sleep deprived,

your eight pound head so much heavier and 

your reality empty of emptiness,

remember the faint life that was,

remember the life once pinned 

to this world’s clothesline

and your feet still rooted in fertile soil. 

Melva Sue Priddy

When truth became a round stone
every way it turned was the same
so people who could afford it
bought overpriced condos in hell
thinking to launder their money
not noticing that the real estate agent
wore flame-resistant loafers.    

I was cheering for Los Ticos of Costa Rica
to defeat Brazil and their beautiful game.
Their patient play kept the Little Canary at bay.
Favored Brazil could not break the deadlock.
Neymar’s frustration grew.

After 78 minutes, Brazil’s captain turned
to trickery, toppled backwards,
“a dying sapling swept away by a mudslide,”
“tipping over like a rotting tree.” Penalty.
The forward took a dive.

His go-ahead goal brought profound relief.
At the final whistle the world’s 3rd-ranked player
wept, shoulders shuddering,
his hands waving as if to ward off
the pressure of leading his team.

Brazil defeated Costa Rica 2-0. On the summer solstice
Neymar won over another fan from across the ocean.
In St. Petersburg, there’s no joy for Los Ticos,
but in South America, kisses.

waking up next to you
and twenty years of sleep feels pointless
until my alarm clock has freckles
and lips like cocaine bubblegum
making coffee I won’t drink
(I’m going back to sleep)
just to feel your hips behind me
the right combination
of cigarette smoke
and Eileen Myles poetry 
smells like honey from a bear
I am fading in your arms again
waking up next to you 
and twenty years of sleep feels pointless

Does the Tin Man shut down
to protect himself or
was there no heart to start with?
Was there such early damage,
the connecting synapses explode?
Did stoniness live
in his parents even
before he appeared?
If he tries hard can he pass
for normal,
or can people always hear
the clank when he walks?

to the lady at the wire table,
with the floral dress,
crusty hair,
and two cups of sour iced coffee
spilling over the rim-
if only you knew who was standing behind you 

Sixteen years has taught me
not to tell mistruths,
but the right lies.

That sinister twitch of the mouth
a seven-year-old alphabet
block builder saw
in the hoary old ancient man
was for his own son, who
had once played alone quietly,

remembered, and the stifled joy
when he thought of him, war dead,
while still really a boy,
now 40 years past. It was said
he never forgave his country.

The little one didn’t know
the man had wanted to smile
at the feeling a child’s intent
creating had fostered.

The look had lingered a second,
almost imperceptible.
Now it was spent, and had never
appeared as other than bitterness
to anyone who knew him.

All I can do is feed you,
though your hunger runs deeper
than Frisky bits can ever
appease—ridge of spine beneath
mangy, matted, fly-speckled fur
rubbing my stingy ankles.
The least of these at my door.