Posts for June 12, 2019 (page 4)

They say

no response

is

a response.

That may be true,

but

it’s a response

that nags

and eats

at the corner of your brain.

It’s a response

that teems with

hope

and

expectation.

It’s a response that holds

more questions

than

answers.

Command myself, with simple language
to write you this particular poem

to tell you that I have nothing to say that doesn’t need to be said

that my significance
holds court
on a throne it made, bespoke

from thrift shop plaques and handknits and the giggly
moments where you laughed at my jokes.

–I am only incorrigible because you keep incorriging me–

Remember?

–it’s harder to say, isn’t it? these things when they turn out good?–

this poem is poking your fingers into soft soil and making pockets to hold seeds that turn into passionflowers — someday

this poem is a hug that squeezes all the broken parts back together into something that looks like almost exactly like the person you were before

this poem is taking your meds and eating a vegetable and getting fresh air and remembering you are loved

this poem is saying thank you for your presence –not– I’m sorry that I worried you

this poem is a portrait

and a mirror

it’s

“I’m okay”

a gnat crawled up from the sewer

only to land on me

(me, sunburned in the tub)

I guess he was surveying

the landscape, the first gnat ever

to lay foot on the soft moon of my stomach

but then I lost track of him somewhere

between the birthmark by my belly button

and the tombstone tattooed on my breast

can you imagine being born

just to live and die crawling 

all over someone else

The last time my father goes to the doctor prior to his death, the doctor asks, “So Mike, how are you feeling?” Dad’s answer is a little unorthodox, he says he grew up in Paducah, which is right on the river.  It’s at a point where two rivers—the Tennessee and the Ohio—come together.  After their confluence, one can plainly distinguish—for about a mile downstream—between the Ohio, the far side, which is dirty, brown and muddy, and the Tennessee side, which looks much cleaner.

 
Meanwhile my stepmom, Cathy, judging by the content of Dad’s reply, thinks, What the hell is he talking about?  Given his frequent episodes of dementia and his recent diagnoses of Alzheimer’s, it isn’t uncommon for him to go off on some random tangent.

Dad’s doctor has a clear frame of reference into what he is talking about; apparently the Doc.’s wife is from Paducah so once when they were there visiting, he’d gone to the riverfront and seen firsthand where the rivers join up and the remarkable difference you see in hue as they flow side-by-side until they become one.  Having explained this, the doctor says, “Yeah Mike, I know exactly where you mean.” Then Dad says, I feel like I’m down in the muddy side.

corvoid
he sits

contemplating

I’m in love with confidence. I dig a mover,
a shaker, an assertive risk-taker.
I can open my mouth and declare a bold
statement. I just gotta believe it at the time:
my biggest turn-off after unkindness is retraction.

I value forward motion. I can initiate a move
and get all the boxes, but I’ll hastily toss out
that old one I’ve hated carrying around for years,
losing track of the 12 steps and mystic cosplay
recently stuffed in the space
underneath the unwanted, defunct laptops.

Beauty can lie in firsts for me and I can flirt first.
I can ask (almost) anyone out- I am that fearless, playful lover you were warned about cause I can
speak without thought, an unforgiving child forgetting
I also hide underneath an eagerness to be adored.

Condition contains
elemental dilution
solidity low

Frozen particles 
wave function intervention
perceptible play

Condense the quantum
critical temperature holds
creative vapor 

That sweet old man
my mother-in-law
said about her
grandfather 

to her, he was always old
as she is to me and 
I will be to my 
grandchildren 

and yet somewhere
Oscar Chestnut’s skin 
is smooth, Alice’s legs
are lean, my smile 
uncreased, and 
my grandchildren use 
canes to creep around

in a single straw of
time, every 
moment exists
both bloom and fire
both bud and trash 

the sap bubbles
the vein is dry 
a flick
of the second hand

I am eager 
for a slim miracle
to see all things
that ever were
at once

Ron’s first day.

He cannot find me standing outside Starbucks
at Harrison & Dearborn.  I’ve talked with him three
times on the phone.  Directed him to where I am.

His black jeep passes me by – license matches
one on app – I run – traffic is rolling – catch
him – throw myself in the back.

You Ron, I ask?

        Yes, he giggles.

Odd I think.  He looks like a serial killer.  I find
out later he lives with his mother.  Norman Bates?

We head to the Hyatt on Wacker.  He mapping his phone
in his left hand, driving with his right.

Horns, think horns all the way.

          It’s my first day.  I don’t know Chicago yet.

Oh really, where you from, I ask?

          South Chicago but I’ve never driven in the city.

I get my phone out to map for him.  Ron does a couple
of big u-turns to put himself back on track.  I think where
are the police in this city?

We head underground.  No mapping here.

Ron gets in a left turn lane.

Don’t turn here Ron.  Cars honking right by my side.
Ron, you gotta’ use your blinker!

         Now where?  Do I go this way?  I sell life insurance,
         he giggles.  I just took a check to the grandmother
         of a gang member who got shot in his neighborhood.
         His grandma was real nice.  She walked me to my car
         with a meat cleaver in her hand.

I wish you all the luck with your driving Ron and this new job you have,
I tell him sincerely.

I walk a mile to my hotel gladly.

My Lyft app says my ride is $25.00.

I contest it.

Lyft replies:
‘It does seem your Lyft driver took a circuitous route to your destination.
We will refund $10.00′

Next time I might give Uber a shot.

When young I disdained
old skin like mine,
scaly like the belly of a fish
a translucent shine.

I thought there was something
wrong with old people,
those defective creatures,
they could have done better.

Also the flab, how could they be
so undisciplined?  They just need
more effort, motivation.
So young was I, the expert.