Shanghai Mag Lev @ 267 mph is fastest train in the world
propelled by magnetic levitation
On board this Mag Lev
sights whiz by causing vertigo
Bound to an unknown destination
puts me in a trance
Where am I going?
When do I get off?
My mind levitates above my body
watching It all unfold
Covid-19 at the controls.
words
are getting gross.
“loyal”
is disgusting.
“strong”
makes me puke.
“angry”
rolls in my stomach
like thunder.
rage
blinds me
like a flash of lightning.
i apologize.
but i’m not sorry.
I’ve almost made myself forget
her cigarettes with their kiss
of lipstick on the tan, mottled
filters – her fingers,
how they hugged each one,
dimpling the white tube
right where it met
the stiff band,
almost lost
the sense of her small slender hands
lifting them. Have almost forgot how
she brought them to her mouth
as if in secret
as if no one could see
(she never
ever all her life let
her parents see
her smoke).
Almost I’ve lost
the memory of her inhales,
the drift or sharp
expulsion of the smoke, how white
it was –how pure,
like my guilt now
at how superior I felt
after I quit,
how cold her anger then,
born in those years
– ice between us.
In kindergarten, I had to use the fat crayons.
The skinny crayons were immediately
crushed in my tight little fists,
leaving me staring at my ruined drawing
with scalding tears brimming
because the lines never turned out
the way I kept imagining.
There’s something about a fat crayon
that just doesn’t behave the way
you wish it would, defying the lines,
asserting its boldness across the page.
When you’re five, coloring with them,
you get moved to the “slow table.”
You know it is because your teacher said so.
Sometimes it’s just easier to stop coloring.
You take home half-finished artwork,
and each time you go back to school,
your hands feel so sadly heavy
and there’s a buzzing in your head
that drowns out the quiet voice
that used to tell you what to draw.
You start to feel the same heaviness
in your stomach, and you can’t help it.
You’re sick at school in front of the class.
As you start the solitary walk to the nurse,
you feel the tears burning but don’t let them go.
The nurse’s plastic-covered cot sticks
to your skin, making you sweat.
Staring blankly into the mirror on the door,
only seeing a tiny person who cannot fit
inside the carefully calculated kindergarten lines,
all unruly frizzy curls past her waistband
and hands that refuse to cooperate
and a clock that operates on different time,
you start wondering why God colored
your classmates with shiny skinny Crayolas,
but decided to draw you with fat crayons.
With each tick of the clock and every
sip of steaming Dark Magic joe
my brain fires more connections
darting in all directions
Keeping with routine
I journal randomness
Memories wave from far corners
images materialize
Mamaw and Papaw burst
on the scene of remembrance
He says “Had the big eye last night
Didn’t sleep a wink”
She counters as is custom
“He sawed BIG lumber”
her snappy comeback just loud
enough for him to hear
Both grin like monkeys
Some connections are never lost
My skin was paper,
The blade was a felt tip pen.
Gliding over the surface,
I created images of red.
People did not recognize the act of art,
Until the art of destruction,
Was in the form of restoration.
gray, scaly legs
longer than the mown grass
and yellow talons
clutching at the air
caught my eye
a hatchling grackle
fragile as democracy
naked and ugly as our nation
lay screaming
fallen
from its nest in the eave
that I could barely reach
on a ladder
but I tried
easing its nearly featherless body
into the narrow opening
as near to the nest as my hand would fit
in the morning
it’s on the ground again
on its feet this time
still screeching
strong enough to latch onto a finger
of my cupped hand
I climb the ladder
tuck it once more into the chink
I will stand vigil
leave the ladder in place
hope is a thing still growing feathers
and I cannot abide any more death
Drenched from the downpour, tropical plants,
bomeliads and hibiscus shine in the rain,
rooted, stoic. Sweet jasmine drapes over
the seated Buddha gazing at his clasped palms.
Pots of orchids- lavender, pink and white,
hang from the fence, thriving somehow
desite my neglect. Textured brown
mulch mimics a forest floor.
This lush world is overseen by a towering
magnolia, glossy leaves dotted with white
blossoms, votive candles of worship.
Rain still drips from the eaves.
I’m dry on the sheltered bench
breathing in the still damp air.
A small creek at the far end of our flat back field
flooded into a rut dug, a border separating yards.
A dead tree trunk charred by lightning leaned
in the furrow widened into a deeper depression,
where chain-sawed branches floated when filled
with rain. We called it our moat, poked the bloated logs
with long sticks, balanced on fat ones as if riding down
a river from a sawmill, inhaled the scent of muddy water,
soggy bark—earthy teetering on the edge of rotten.
Built dams with rocks, leaves, mud, released them with glee.
The hill on the other side of the creek, bare but for scraggly weeds,
eroded in vertical valleys that carried runoff water. During drought,
like a desert sandstorm, the wind snatched the dry red dirt,
filming our lips—a sour, citrusy taste.
