Steam lines over a bread loaf?
The “Cruelty Free” rabbit?
A lowercase “V”?
An uppercase “F”?
Apron strings?
Backwards baseball cap?
Nose ring?
Diamond tattoo?
A ginger kitten?
No.
When I hear your name
my first vision
are those lips
you drew
with front teeth
slight gap.
You made me a zine
I look at two or three times a week.
This is when I realized I love you
I said.
Eyes closed, I see
your lips
quivering
our first night
on that awful couch.
That was when
I knew.
Night, desert driving.
Let’s put the top down!
But it’s 103 degrees
even now in the dark.
Stop over for the night.
The sun only catnaps, so
we doze with her, then wake
to chase those foothills up ahead.
A worn old road winds
and climbs.
With the pressure change,
a change in mood,
a satisfying solitude
there together.
Soon, the shouts of
rushing falls,
water calling out to dirt.
And the smell,
rich evergreen perfume,
A promise from the earth—
I was always meant to
have you here.
My hair whips in the wind.
You flash a sun-glassed smile,
and we climb.
Soon we will be among the giants.
Wise old women with rough skins
and soft hearts. I feel the secrets
they grip in their roots.
I am a human woman
on this spinning sphere,
Put in my proper place here,
Dwarfed by history.
Time here exists only
as height
and circumference.
I’m made small again in
space and time,
Humbled anew in my own mind,
Brought back to a place
of stillness, wonder.
Something of the spirit
hums here.
You tell me I’m the one humming.
Can you put a knee on a note’s neck
Put a note on a knee’s neck
A reminder
To quarantine the tone
Repetition not homogenization
Can you pour the notes in our eyes
Shoot rubber livers
Hold back your notes
Put a badge on your nightmare
Put a neck on the note’s knee
Before the music skitters to nowhere
I
The end of a crane against gray clouds, a tassel dangling in the wind. I remember the blue heron at the edge of the pond, leg bent against the fog, and I suddenly know why they are called cranes.
II
In between classes, on the first day of the year that I have worn short sleeves outside comfortably, I see a cardinal perched in a tree and I wonder, who watches over me today?
III
I leave my house for the first time in two days. As I get in my car, I notice the body of a robin dangling from a bare branch in my front yard, its neck and beak caught, capturing the bird’s descent. Locking, sealing, the moment behind the depths of my own brown eyes. I drive away.
IV
There are trees blossoming everywhere; pink, white, yellow, red. The fields are lush and green once more; and the air is warm and humid, the water lingering in the air from the previous night’s downpour. A small, shiny bird perches on a telephone wire. It is spring, even so.
V
114 new cases. 7 deaths. I glance out the window, not wanting to believe it, and spot a darkly colored bird grooming itself in the rain. Perched on a branch in the same tree that led a robin to its end. In the emptiness and gray, it still checks for observers and the green eyes of my cat, waiting at the window.
VI
The cardinal visits every afternoon, always catching me off guard. I see his brothers fluttering together at the top of a distant fence, stained with rainwater. Bittersweet. The trees stretch towards the atmosphere and the grass sighs once more.
My father’s near death experience
I stand at the foot of the bed,
my eyes glued to the monitor
above him.
I count his heartbeats
as the machine records them.
I observe his blood pressure as it drops,
and then he dies.
The nurse rushes in,
responding to the machine’s alarming.
she shocks him
and gets his heart to beat.
The rest of her team arrives,
but she waves them off.
He looks at me and says, “
When I floated above you,
I knew I was out of my body,
for I could see it.
I could not touch it, asleep,
so it appeared.
I knew I would not escape this death.”
“But you did,” I say.
“Did you see that shadow man,
running around the walls?”
“No,” I say.
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I really showed him,” he says.
“I bet he’s angry about it.
I can’t say I blame him though.”
i am a storm.
i can smudge out the sun in an instant
and use lightning and thunder to demand your attention.
i flood the earth with the water she desperately craves
and scare animals into their hiding places.
my thunder makes adrenaline course through your veins.
you can feel me coming from miles away.
the calm before i truly arrive is your only warning.
when you feel the pressure in the atmosphere shift,
you should prepare. you can’t ignore me.
i come when i want, stay as long as i want.
i’ll wake you from your dreams
and beat on your windows so you can’t go back to sleep.
i am the darkness, the thunder, the power, the fear.
i am all of it.
the pressure, the electricity, the rain, the force.
i am a storm.
it always happens around the same time
even when it’s raining with heavy clouds
I can feel the evening sun push through
the hazy, heavy, horrible muck
carrying the sharp cut
of nostalgia and ruin
of her and how we became a neon
flash that grew and blossomed
spilling out and redefining
who I am
exposed
unafraid
but those can’t match
when I was fishing out the coldest
Pepsi’s I ever drank from my father’s
work cooler
while getting him another beer
I can still remember how he smelled
sitting on the picnic table with a cigarette;
sweat and blood and tar
and the white-gold pure heat of the sun
while he told stories and laughed
the time when I still believed
that he loved me
or when I was on the southern coast
with the hard-edged heat masked
in the coconut wafting off those women
that would walk by with their sun hats
and I wished to taste the salt off their
shoulders
that place where I believed that
the more I visited
that my entire family was
enamored and transformed
in a sad way because none of them
knew that they weren’t meant
for that kind of place
and I wasn’t meant
for my mother
because I wasn’t that kind of kid
or the sick and broken feeling
that I got while deep in a hollow
right after a heavy rain
with the orange sun struggling
to find passage through the
heavy
green
leaves
stood in a patch of wild Easter lilies
while the insects started back up
their chorus and the night shift
of animals started to move
I watched
that
old
bitch
gather those flowers up
in those gnarled hands so gently
knowing what she did to me
knowing what she would do to me
but unable to be smart enough
to figure out how to escape
from the whole thing
besides killing myself
or her
so when I say Summer is my favorite
still seems a little confusing
by my god
the what could be
is better than the
what has been
all ghosts
all gone
just like
parts of me
will I make amends
for the things I have done today
will I be able to let go of the things
that I’ve held on to so tightly?
I know mother always said
“Don’t end the night with things weighing on your heart”
but it’s already dark and I do not have the strength
though his light is still on
the path to his room is too long
I will regret this choice in the morning
Wind rustles the leaves,
frogs and birds call,
but a sharp engine cuts
across the background –
a plane in the distance filled
with people on their way
to somewhere.
The sounds
of man invade even the
sacred space of the woods.
There is no escape –
no places left untouched
by our destructive greed.
I have tracked the bird calls
and frog eggs, tree buds and
flower blooms for seasons
upon seasons; my life
mapped out in careful
phenological notes,
nature a concept far more
entwined with our fate
than the economy
will ever admit.
The past few years
have destroyed the
careful pattern
unfolding in my
records to map
out the sudden
and erratic
changes in our climate,
building more evidence
for concern
each passing day.
I walk the forests,
as I always have,
lamenting
past clear cuts
now filled with maples
and sycamores,
pawpaws and sassafras,
absent the giants of
old growth sacrificed
in the name of dollars.
We leave scars across
the land for progress
and money,
burning out what’s
not valuable to the
capitalist eye
and harvesting
the rest for profit.
We leave litter cascading
over protected areas where
we go to “soak in nature,”
cameras snapping perfect
moments for followers online,
and we cry out in horror
because the world
collapses around us,
and we just
can’t figure out why.
I am sick of my stretching
parachute stomach.
Resentful of this daily process
of tucking
my not so secret
apron belly
shame
into my genes.
I call the plastic surgeon
who says my insurance will cover
the removal of my kangaroo pouch.
Did you have bariatric surgery?
No.
Call us back when you’re down
20 more pounds.
Insurance won’t fund
this procedure
until your body mass index
is lower.
By that time
my fucking pannus
will be shifted
into the tops of my socks.
My roll
will have slipped
under a rolling pin
of self loathing
and spread like dough
to my knees.
My belly button
will look like a goddamn
bell shaped curve
with my mental health
at such a low
we’ll throw that outlier
right out.
I call the dietitian next.
I add apples and kale
to my click list order.
I drink some
bullshit green tea.
Is there room
for radical acceptance?
In this flesh prison?
In these clinging pants?
No.
