I
Christ overthrew the tables
of the money lenders
in all four gospels.
The Beatitudes
are only in two.
II
Two
is the minimum number
of sides of a table
in this universe.
III
The table stands.
There is no one sitting.
There is no one in the room.
IV
The abacus fell
from the table
and ruined his calculations.
in your dreams
she is always forgiving you
83.
sometimes she is sincere.
she is dipping finger tips
into tea, testing temperature.
she is sucking in cheeks
to chew on soft skin.
she is saying, it’s really okay.
She understands.
84.
sometimes she is still angry.
she is walking too hard,
pressing heels too deep
into carpet.
she is washing dinner plates,
flinging one on top of the other,
still thick with soap.
she is saying, you only care about yourself.
She is asking, did you ever really even love me.
85.
sometimes she says nothing.
she places cold hands
on the back of your neck.
she presses her forehead to yours
, so close you can count
the white hairs along her upper lip.
you can smell the tinted lip balm
you’ve grown to love the taste of.
86.
sometimes she cries.
her shoulders rise and fall,
her back sinks forward,
body bending into itself.
she cannot catch her breath,
hand clapped tightly over mouth,
horrified by the sounds coming from it.
87.
sometimes she watches you blankly.
she apologizes-
she says, she has never been good with faces.
she asks, where do you know her from,
how did we meet. she asks, was I important to you?
you tell her yes.
you tell her she was the most important person in your life.
you tell her you’re so sorry
you never told her before.
Intensity
Tenderness.
Children sharing hurts and lovingness.
Face of a watch.
Children who have no conception of time.
Blood.
Children becoming blood sisters.
Bone factory.
Children playing in a field next to the bone factory.
Grocery store.
Children lacking fresh food.
Factories.
Children working in factories.
War.
Children growing up with war.
Assumptions.
Children learning to have assumptions.
Intensity.
Our children—we beat our breasts for the world’s children.
Melva Sue Priddy
how to embrace
this no small loss
before the letting go
runs its course
is left to me alone
with only memory
to apprentice me
in what is unbearable
and exquisitely alive
she said “step forward, faun”
with oats in hand, sitting on a bourbon barrel
at that point, i was just a pawn
and fuck drake and montrezl harrel
and that one northside jaun
jonesin’ on marvin gaye and will ferrell (or is it farral? that ex-snl hack, fareal)
and all you gawddamn poets get off my lawn!
(and it’s so obvi, my penhand done gone sterile)
but it’s okay… it’s the last day of may
or june… or whatever. HAPPY PRIDE!
happy poems… and happy bday, terrell owens. (tah-dah! …or nah?)
For all who produce and sustain Lexpomo
In a large church in 2013 and I think in Washington County
—at least as it plays in memory—
Bill Moyers asks Wendell Berry, vocal pitch rising,
“Wendell, what is the solution?”
Straight up, he wanted Wendell to specify the solution
to the suffering humans are causing our earth and each other.
Wendell says, his own voice changing a little, becoming
that mildly expasperated voice of a great teacher asked something silly,
“There IS no solution, Bill. Only small things. Do small things.”
I started separating out my compost to
take the right stuff to some neighborhood chickens.
Washed the egg shells and toasted them.
Kept the white potatoes and citrus out of it.
Walked a bucket around the corner every couple of days.
Small small small.
These 30 poems, too—small. Smaller than I thought, setting out.
But put all their sister and brother poems together and the poem energy grows.
Poets not harming the world—no—
poets working out their commitments and sorrows, their pushing back.
“There’s a world of pleasure in contrariness,” Wendell said.
And he also said, “To be patient in an emergency is a terrible trial.”
Small contrariness, with patience: that’s my wish for all.
Keep going. Keep going right into the emergency.
If I’m cooking, she’s not allowed.
In the kitchen, her feet are bare.
Toeing the threshold. Hardwood to
Linoleum. Spills are easier to clean up
while she plays. Witness the process
of wielding knife to sweet potato and a head
of cauliflower soon. Sometimes
seasoned asparagus. Then bake.
If I am cooking, she’s not
allowed into the kitchen. Unless
guacamole needs to be made. Then
I leave the counter to her and watch.
From behind, I’m silent so I can hear
her splitting
the avocado again.
You were the baby who squeaked
when I picked you up ~ the one
who did not want to be held ~
I learned early on to put you back
in your crib and let you hold yourself.
~ for Anna Cooper Bagby, MD
on the occasion of your graduation
from Family Practice Residency,
Fort Collins, Colorado
Colorado Hail
pelts
the pines
and
floribundas
outside our airbnb.
I run
to see if
it really is ice ~
opaque beauty
falling from a June
sky.
Lying
on the concrete
are dozens
of tiny frozen spheres
perfectly smooth,
knocked off their orbit,
still shining
their own light.
I pick them up
one by one.
Watch as my
open
hand
warms
them
to a milky
puddle.
Adili would wait.
The white men
would sleep, soon.
The moon would
hide her face
all night.
There was time.
He would move
like a viper,
silently sliding from
shadow to shadow,
until he was
among their
sleeping bodies.
Their fire was low.
Soon, only one white man
was still awake.
This man did not
understand the night.
He paid no attention,
except to the canopy of stars
and cries of distant animals.
Adili kept his knife and spear sharp.
His hands were dry and his grip, firm.
He knew where to press the blade
to enter the body freely.
An upward thrust,
to pierce the human heart.
He felt no sadness for the white men.
They did not belong.
White men will always cross,
to claim what lies on the other side.
Adili would not allow them
to find the far side of the valley,
where his family had lived
since before the Great Tree
was a sapling.
His blade
would send them
on a journey
to a different place,
under a different moon,
and a sun that burns
red and angry
amongst a pride
of hungry lions.
Adili would wash the hot blood
from his hands
and say a prayer
for the white men
to his ancestors.
Send them, my fathers, send them far away.
