Posts for June 7, 2019 (page 9)

Set adrift
on the Sea of Summer Vacation,
I fearfully peered through my blurry spyglass
and felt my heart grow faint.

Ravaged by tsunamis
of fast food dinners,
whipped by towering waves
of late bedtimes,
and sucked mercilessly into the whirlpool
of screen time,
I finally succumbed.

Bravely facing the swirling waters of
Look at this perfectly sculpted birthday cake
I just made
and
My children have already finished
three
of their library books
Facebook posts,
I edged my way down
the splintery plank and
plunged
into the lonely darkness
of inadequacy.

So here I lie,
washed up on the beach of
Tried So Hard.
And tomorrow,
I set sail once more.

It started its life as a log cabin,
Two rooms, cistern dug, timbers
Cut from thick woods running all
The way to Hinkston Creek.  

Added to a hundred years later,
Stone walls for two more rooms,
A sleeping loft, narrow ladder,
Six bright windows, two solid doors.  

Families came, families left, one
Owner gave it to his son, and he in turn
Lent it to a WWII hero shell shocked,
Same cursed PTSD we hear now.    

Hoppy strutted off to the war, tall
Proud, handsome. Fearless, bought
Of hard work, farm food. Pretty girls’
Attention made him feel invincible.  

Never was the same after Iwo Jima,
A meanness ran deep behind hard
Eyes. He would swing before thought
No matter who, child, wife, hand.  

Wife endured, smiled though no one
Could figure how she could, seeing
As how the tales never stopped
Of night flight over the fields to hide.  

The  boys left soon as they could,
Sad kids always wore a haunted look,
Never stopped loving their daddy,
But cared better with miles between.  

War’s white crosses tell of just one hurt,
Death demands its own tally of our men.
Those ravaged minds living uncrossed
Steal today from the soul and kin.    

I learned basic math as a small child.
Division, they said, takes one bigger thing
and breaks it into more than one
smaller thing.

Teacher displayed a red apple,
whole.
Cut it into pieces.
Divided.

She then taught us you can
add the pieces
back together and make one.
Wrong,

I thought.
You may bring the pieces
close together,
but they will not
“magically transform”
back

into one.

The apple slices can
only ever
be
apple slices,
and they quickly
spoil.

Same thing happens
with people.
Once you divide us
we can never come back together,
wholly. Not without
scars.

Elmer’s Glue™ did a lot for me
in first grade,
but it can’t do that.

But you know who gets along?

Penis and vagina.

You get those two together
and not only can the materials
that make a man
come together
(you know–egg and sperm?)
but you can have a bit of fun
doing so.

They were meant to be together.
Mother Nature says so.
Sure, penis and vagina can
fight (done in the right way,
even that can be fun),
but only when they

work together–

only then–can a person
be created.

All of us–
every single one of us
(yes–you too!)
are the result of
the union
of one penis and
one vagina.

There is no other way.

They were made to come together,
after all.

And so were we.

Will you be my penis
if I am your
vagina?

Can’t we all just get it on get along?

On the drive back the night I arrived to your new home
with raw London Broil in a pan, I wondered if it’d help you
to learn to listen to your mother if
I remind you gently that you consider your decision
before an incident might end up in a poem.

Or: on account of most depictions of her life
being constructed of lies, I could summon
a story of the ghost of Margaret “Molly” Brown.
Tell you that she uses her spare time in the afterlife
to ensure children like you listen to their mothers.

Margaret spoke different languages but as for
me, I don’t know how fluent I am at bluffing.
So I may stick with a serious look, and
“Honey, this poet got other topics to cover.
Think twice: Don’t inspire me!”

Could backfire. And what do I know? I know
I am a mother of poems. And each one,
I learn. Failures and final drafts.
One thing I learned when I
listened to your mother:

We owe ourselves and others poems.
Poems when we’re good, poems when it’s
hard to cool our tempers, poems when we
can’t concentrate on the words, poems
when we forget our worth, poems when we forget
our body, poems when we forget to hold back
our tongue or our heart, poems
when we’ve never been better. Most of all, we need
poems that remind us how it feels
to do the next best thing.

              In Guatemala

It’s just the three of us now –
Gus and Charlie, white Pomeranians,
two little mops at the end of their leashes,
and me, too, my mop of white hair
coiffed for whom, now?  

Gus trots the path of fidelity
to sidewalks and fire hydrants he knows
but Charlie keeps looking back
like he’s wondering where is Hank?  
Every day we make the rounds
Gus and Charlie tugging me
in different directions    

Because I adore
poems, I vivisected
some & left them
for you at the foot
of the bed.    

Broken things
make me wish
for a hammer.
Broken is just the beginning.

she’s anxious about the anger.
a flat-out fury started down deep,
bubbling up and spilling out
from all my private, female, parts.
she worries
and she’s not wrong.
i feel my bloodstream boiling,
the righteous heat of rage
floods all the chambers of my heart.
but I say

bless it.
bless my heart.
fuck it –

my heart hasn’t hardened.
in fact, i feel the furious beating
get faster by the second. 
my ventricles and veins
get to oozing venom 
so it trickles off my vicious tongue.
i can taste cantankerousness and copper.
i can’t keep it down anymore

and it makes my Mommy worry.