Posts for June 1, 2020 (page 10)

Sabine saves small items that are fragile
and breakable, a hand-painted china
jewelry dish with faint wisteria blossoms
daubed by her great grandmother Elsie,
an eyeliner-thin border painted in gold
around the scalloped rim.

She kept hold of a one-inch porcelain
lady’s head from the 1950s with a white fur
hat and a delicately glued pearl
headband. It’s true that we almost lost
her — more than once — but this chachki
was easy to keep track of, she could tuck it
into her foldable gold Lady Buxton coin purse.

When she lived under a bridge.
When she flunked out of treatment.
When she split town in a dilapidated
Econoline with no muffler.
When she od’d and they shot her
desperately with Naloxone.
When she signed into the state
psychiatric hospital. 

I can’t croon you a happily-ever-after
tune. I kicked her out and opened
the door for her to come back —
more than once. After the last stint
she surrendered and maybe
it was enough. Almost three
years with no slips.  She started
a collection of antique buttons
in an old popcorn tin. It is flowing
over with specimens — Bakelite,
glass, mother-of-pearl, leather,
velvet-covered, china and bone.

I would like to write
words that would make you change your mind
Big fat chance of that

Only pompous fools believe their words mean anything
Ask your wife – ask your kids

Huh?  is the answer 96% of the time unless you ask
Are you hungry?
Want some money?

I’ll be writing mostly about the masochistic tendencies of cat owners
I’ve spent months now examining why I’ve allowed several to adopt me
And have important scientific hypotheses to communicate

Experiments to perform
Analyses to peruse
Findings to release

The important things in my life are so unimportant
I hope this is true for you
Breath comes much easier when you’re not shouting

will turn this car around
        if you need a ride home from the protest
will raise her voice at you
       or her cardboard sign – IN ALL CAPS
will send you to your room to think about you’ve done
       to be an ally or a co-conspirator
will bring it up at the dinner table
       because it’s impolite not to talk politics

is a light if not a flame

with my Aunt Marilyn
I needed trees and a body of water.
In a nearby park, passed a contorted filbert,
a dawn redwood, a dragon’s claw willow
budding though it was only mid-December.
Saw a muskrat den on a pond,
a cardinal hop on a knot of tree roots
exposed in a creek bed.

On the way home at dusk
I drove up a hill
to hundreds of starlings
sweeping into the sky,
a synchronized rise,
velvet black against blue,
and I drank in the wave of beauty
along with the ache of soon losing her.
 

From a secure launchpad            
          private monies fire
two white men into space
          their rocket slick black-and-white
The President shows up            
          to boast
what he calls
          an all-American-made victory  

On the streets          
          flames and fury
white cops have murdered
          another unarmed black man
flat on the ground with a brutal knee pressed
          against his neck
until with his last breath
          he calls for his mama in heaven

How would you describe the scent
if a newborn baby?
Salt and blood,
the woman-slick just begun to dry?
What words for all the smells
that rise from deep in the small
caverns of her body?
Is it days or weeks until
she’s milk and powder,
soap and wipes to clean away the slick
that comes from inside her now,
coiled worm of bowels?
Briefly she’ll smell of dryer sheets
with names like natural and fresh pine.
Other times it must be
formula dribbled and dried.
Now she is all face,
smooth or scrunched
on an odorless screen.
When finally I can breathe her in
will that make her any more mine?

In Louisville, the cops are stealing milk
and water. They fire pepper bullets,
detonate tear gas. Last night,
the National Guard shot someone.
J. tells me while I fix coffee, pouring
into my favorite mug, adding a cloud
of cream. One year ago today
we adopted our dog. On a Zoom call,
someone sneezes. The cat bangs
at the glass door. The bird feeder
grows empty. I’ve come to think
of the grackles in the yard as my
own. My sky chickens. I bought
a linocut print from Sage:
Apple Carrot Artichoke Banana.
I can’t be in the streets. Am stuck
protesting from my own home,
my immune system too fragile.
The bronchi in my lungs compromised.
But bodies are already out there dying.
One killed in Louisville last night. City I love.
City we’re moving to, soon. Every day I ask
God to help me feel more, and identify
what I am feeling, as a piece of my recovery.
We are in the process of boxing our stuff.
Selling possessions. Making donations.
We carry our hope and our loss with us
into each room, wondering where it should go.

He should’ve died in that NASCAR accident.
When the light struck him
And he flipped
Over a dozen times
Give or take
He should’ve been taken from us
For his own sake
Because after he awoke from seeing the light
He couldn’t work anymore,
He wasn’t a man anymore,
He couldn’t stay awake anymore,
I mean just look at what he’s become.
If only he could see,
But he’s blind now

‘Twas upon thy brow, did I the stone set,
The great Ruby of Khalstuhn,
And, in thy eyes, did another flame burn–
In time, thou bore two sons.

Malcome and Muldayne grew into fine men
Yet the Ruby did stay their hands
When from far fields did they return,
Talk of war between the clans.

In thy firm grip the Rod of Ellseph
Thou didst stamp it on stone floor
And in the sky did dark clouds fall,
Grey fog did hide the moor.

Malcome and Muldayne stood near the Jewelled Queen
The Ruby, still, did shine
In time, I left this Earthly plane
The Ruby–no longer mine.

I eat orange sherbet with a silver fork
With lime, a red plastic spoon
I tear massive chunks
off of angel food cake
And each night I talk to the moon.