Posts for June 16, 2019 (page 5)

father’s day @ Ohio Valley Dragway 

I keep turning the emperor card around
& around until it’s just a spinning tree.  

& I remember sitting in the front seat of the RV
parked nose-end against the fence of the Ohio Valley

the smell of burning nitro, a mix of berries
and burnt rubber creeps through the vents.

I am against the glass when a dragster kisses the guardrail,
flips over & carves into the earth in front of me. stops and ignites.  

& I am still against the glass of the same pit of that RV
where my stepmother’s nephew slid himself into my shorts
—the same pit where I rode for hours in silence & cigarettes.  

& I remember asking how you were. & how you turned your whole body around
to start a conversation with someone on the other side of you. & you are always 

stuck in the summer
of your adrenaline rush,
spinning the tires. 

& what am I supposed to do now? Remember
when you came to remove the lion from my house?

& how I was 3 months when you shoved
me into my mother’s arms & walked away. 

& this is how it always is———again and again
violence. silence. repeat. violene. silence. repeat.

here we are
watching me blow my nose
in another poem
but if our cheeks never touch
in real life then does any of this
even matter?

a memory 
how surf rolls sand beneath 
stumbling feet…
my father stands on the shore 
rock solid safe and strong

Oh, not like the eyeglasses or keys
that mysteriously meander   
their way into the freezer  

or the running shoe
puppy-chomped and spit-soggy
wedged under the bed  

More like the sun-speckled trout
snapping filament, flipping tail
and racing for open waters  

the last parking meter coin
slithering from hand and rolling
toward the muck-mawed sewer grates  

a country wet with promise
suddenly hung out to dry
like some red-blotched wash of negativity  

She didn’t notice when poetry left
just one morning her tongue thickened
lifeless as mossed quarry stone  

The clouds were no help
no castle or dragon shapes anywhere
only vague fuzz linting the horizon   

She watched a girl draw mandalas on the sidewalk
hoping for spark in the colorful chalk strokes
but all she got was dust up her nose  

Even the sun seemed to taunt her
disappearing like a plump-winked eye
a ripe cherry bitten by birds  

She leaves the windows open now
just in case a moony night
coughs up a shooting star or comet  

Some random spore rangy and wild                                            
that might catch in the lacy blue curtains
or land on her idle tongue
and give it ease

CW: sexual assault

One of my sisters
shared a meme:
”If you’re happy to be alive
thank your father;
your mother probably wasn’t in the mood.”
Which is funny
if rape is funny
(which it isn’t).

But she’s a different generation
she’s from his first marriage
the marriage, he eventually told me
when he’d been diagnosed
and knew his days were numbered,
“She didn’t like to fuck.”

Dad died with four children by his side,
three from his first marriage,
crying as his body seized and gasped
for its last breath.
The next day was rough.
His oldest son was angry,
and his oldest daughters were shaken.
I’d never known 
the pain,
resentment,
feelings of being rejected
they’d all felt
until then.

So my sister shared a meme
and I immediately assumed
she didn’t realize
the implications
of the joke.
But then I thought back to dad
and the day after he died
and how, during his last year, he opened up
about the affairs.
And I wonder, what didn’t he say?
What if my sister understood 
the implications,
the hidden violence behind it all,
but shared it anyway?

No one identifies as a
Dumbledore, Jane Bennet, or Captain America.
Their incorruptible goodness
is unobtainable.  

Rather we see ourselves in 
Jo Marches, Malcom Reynolds, and Tyrion Lannisters
Imperfect characters,
In an imperfect world,
Trying to do right.

the day was dim, hinging
on dingy, perfect for plunging
into her tangle of a garden.
She yanked weeds, divided
perennials, tied tomatoes
and beans to bamboo stakes
with ragged cloth ties
that fluttered like moths
in the thick night air.

your mother’s friend
gives you a tangle of mint plants
eased from the ground
with their roots wrapped in a wad of wet paper towels
because it’s bad luck to ask for mint
but your mother has described to her
the empty flowerbed at your new home
and the time you have on your hands now

so you remove the paper towels
and put the wilted stalks in the dirt
and a few plants look like they might survive
by summer you’re happy to be able to pluck a few fresh leaves to chew

and you put other things in the ground
like a heavy rootball of peonies from your mother’s neighbor
a bucket of daylilies from your parents’ pastor’s wife
halved hostas from your mother herself
you mulch and water
and walk the bed’s edges in the evenings
wait through winter

then the following spring
the entire bed sprouts mint
around the peonies, daylilies, and hostas
that survived the rough transplant

and even though you are certain that the status of your flowerbed
remains conversation fodder for your mother and the women
you’re also grateful that they had other intentions all along

Rocks like waves to crash upon them
Bringing news from a distant shore
Rocks don’t mind the coming, going 
They know that’s just what waves are for. 

Rocks see sand as weak and feeble
Ever shifting, never still 
Tossed by water far and wayward 
Following another’s will

Years for rocks seem but as moments
Standing firm upon the land,
Beaten by the waves until
Strong rocks diminish into sand.

This
mo-
ment
be-
tween
a-
sleep
and
a-
wake–
when
I
am
per-
fect-
ly
a-
ware–
yet,
com-
plete-
ly
un-
a-
fraid.