Posts for June 14, 2020 (page 7)

He slides the photo across the counter, points
to the smiling, youthful woman with sable
hair and shining eyes.  It’s a portrait
of his wife at age eighteen, he tells me.
Wasn’t she beautiful?
It just makes me so sad.

I’ve heard his political views, his proud
stories of Rockwell International and WWII.
But today, he is handing me his heart.
I would be nothing without Gladys.

His voice breaks; tears surprise us both.
I pat his hand.  He nods, sheathes the photo
in its faded manila envelope and tucks
young Gladys back into his coat pocket.
His shrug is a shameless ache.  He shuffles

to a seat in the waiting room and stares
at his hands.  Is he imagining them smooth
and strong again?  Remembering their fervent
persuasion; long, lustrous hair streaming
through his fingertips?

Mommy, what does a orangutan say?
Mommy, do you like hipposes?
Mommy, wanna watch Hakuna Matata?
Mommy, let’s SNuggle. 
Mommy do a dance. 
Mommy run through the water!
Mommy’s cooking. 
Mommy’s making spaghetti.
Mommy’s making a blue cake. 
Mommy’s wearing a purple shirt.

Mommy’s happy?

I love you, mommy. 

I love you too, buddy. 

So much. 

I tend to wake up early
Sunday and the world is still asleep or groggy
rain falls and falls and thunder announces the sun has risen
but isn’t making an appearance just yet
I open my windows
a cool breeze blows in

there are plants outside my window
tall plants as I’m on the second floor
in the past they have been trimmed but this season
the stalks have grown and the people below
probably cannot see out
these plants sway, though not quite trees, they sway
thin and leafy, they blow back and forth in the wind
and I wish I was like them
I wish I could gracefully move about all the while standing firm
dancing an ever so subtle dance while whispering “all is well”
growing and encompassing my space because it truly is my place
I imagine one day soon a landscaper, or at least someone paid to trim
will chop, chop, chop the bushes or vines or whatever they are
shorter, ever shorter until they no longer obstruct the view
or maybe, though doubtful just maybe, they will continue to reach higher
until they are as tall as the rooftop

the possibilities a rainy morning yields
wishes I have for myself and others
if only I could stretch these early hours
make them last and include the forays of my pre emerged thoughts
instead I linger here
listening to the silence before I invite the music

Slate gray clouds bunched low in a line
above houses at the crest of the hill
spread toward me, a sponge wiping
dirt from my face, regret from my mind,
treating conditions I hardly know I have.  

Rumbling authority reassures me Zeus
has his part of the world in hand,
I will find my part in the center
of my present, no longer smeared
across nagging past and foreboding future.  

The smell of the sweet ozone, a darkening,
the splatter of the first fat drops,
the street’s petrichor rises like Lazarus,
tears release the hatch of my heart.
I don’t know what’s dry until it’s wet.  

The water below the old bridge was still
listen to its siren song
the surface was a sheet of looking glass
you could see rich depths and details

Can you hear the hushed sound
Rusalka and other monsters might drown you
down there where the old stories whisper
what dangers swam below the deeper fog

The water was still, a Rusalka pool
ledges and green algae were its paint
but even that was a mystery
you could almost see the bottom

Rich details painted on creek rock
the surface was a sheet of glass
you could see eight feet deep
the water below the old bridge was clear

Daria is grown now, over 30. Last I heard
she moved from Nashville to Atlanta
be an EMT. In my 7th grade classroom
I remember her asking to speak
to me privately. We huddled side-by-side,

legs crossed on the hallway floor, our backs
brushing against the sharp poking
vents of the army green lockers. The n-word,
 I hear it every day, she whispers. Sometimes
 from my brothers and it’s just silly
street talk, but at the Circle-K store
 it’s dirty. How did this word
 get started Miss Bryant? How? I think
of possible explanations but they curl

like cicada shells in my throat
before they can form words
in a disciplined teacherly
voice. Today I am Daria’s friend
who doesn’t know the right answer,
what to say or do. Let’s research
 this together, I offer.

I don’t remember the answers
we uncovered, they were academic
and incomplete, but I do recall
Daria taking a detour and digging
up a wealth of black
reference points — enough people,
flowers, animals, places, events,
fruits and vegetables to fill a scrapbook
of ovation. Obsidian

mines of Wildhorse Canyon. Black
Sapote with fruit like chocolate
pudding and Arkansas Black,
a fine but underrated dessert
apple. Her favorite Black
Iris was named One Step Beyond. Most

excited about discovering high jumping
Alice Coachman, the first
black woman to earn Olympic
gold and who ran shoeless along dirt
roads to learn her sport, Daria wrote
a three-page report I didn’t
ask for. She added a hand-drawn
portrait in charcoal with five-point
stars orbiting Alice’s tough feet.

A silver balloon
Tied to a dump truck filled with dirt.

I stare.
Imagine the situation.
Whose is this? And why?
My heart reaches toward it,
becomes attached.

In the parking lot,
My grocery list
Written the back of a bank receipt.

I stare.
What have I forgotten?
Above me, the silver balloon floats away.
It catches my eye. 
I wonder who will miss it.

In the parking lot
A man in the car diagonal
Watches me watch the balloon.

He stares.
Why does she not look away?
He doesn’t understand.
I cannot.
I cannot.

                                       iii.

To ask me why I rage, I cannot say.
In truth I’ve never ever asked the wind,
why it moves through tall trees by the way–
asked why a river suddenly will bend
where human eye would think it should run straignt–
asked why some birds choose night wherein to sing–
asked why saplings will grow tall and straight
or die before they green another spring
or searched, mistrusting words to answer why,
or found that words reveal the truth at hand,
while left unread all poetry must die
though virus runs amuck throughout this land.
     My voice will lift in protest and in rage,
      unheard, unwanted here upon its page.
      

Just a simple word spread across all languages,
A string of simple letters,
So simple yet so complex,
The illusive white whale everyone seeks,
But not everyone achieves,
Only when you stop seeing past the horizon,
Stop searching for a new dawn,
Only then does happiness elude you,
never give up,
always press on

Some days, my body and I have a battle–
stormclouds stuffing my right leg, my stomach