Posts for June 19, 2020 (page 6)

My father’s third visit after his death
Was his whole house
With all the furniture gone
And the floor crunching with dead beetles at every step
Like a long uncleaned garage
All of it greyed with dust
I wandered the place-  what remained
Down the unlit hall and to my old room
Where the closet was closed.
(Where every weekend when I came home,
he’d always hid some small gift for me)
I opened it to find it freshly washed
Utterly pristine and occupied
by a single dress on a hanger
Which was not for me
but for the room’s occupant in the waking world
The visit ended into the rainy front yard
where he stood blurred
As always unspeaking
But I knew
the gracious final gift he’d left
This is not ours now. it was, though

If, while you sleep,  

my feelings yearn for poetry
and I get up–
turn on the light
in another room
and chase words of love
as warm as a walk in June
when an orange sky
above Coal Bank Mountain
betrays sunrise–
and I imagine a dove’s
haunting song,
as the smell of honeysuckle
drifts toward me.

When there is no space
left between me and poetry,
I write.

Foot-long toothy fish teem in the water,
scratching my legs. An unknown bystander
does nothing to relieve my torment.

The day before: a trip to the co-op,
my first adventure in three months,
the trial run for my home-stitched mask.

I grab produce and protein and follow the arrows
on the floor. I ask for help to find polenta and tea,

then hurry down aisle 6 and forget 
the Lapsang souchong.

Were those fish calling me out 
for avoiding eye-contact?

Were those monsters my suppressed fears? 
The quest does not always equal the expectation.

Sometimes I can feel it when a memory is happening
it fills the room
casting silvery webbing, a gentle heat
There’s the taste of my teeth, my hair has reached the corners of my mouth
they rise up out of the floor 
to ensnare the moments where I can’t remember going home after
When I leave this yard, frozen with rage
stop crying in the front seat
sixteen I’m sixteen
go to bed and finish the movie later
It’s caught outside the web
smoke left in your clothes
But I must have made it 
I know I did
My key still works in the lock, the bed has been slept in
Someday they’ll dig up the ruins of the quiet moments in my apartment
brush away some dirt and say yes, 
she was here
in some ways, she never left
I’d know her anywhere

I’m pondering,
my fearful mind wandering,
I’ll wear it – 
long locks confined in a hair net,
I’ll toast those buns – 
rise early, clock in with the sun,
I’ll make those Frostys cold – 
mop the back and smile when I’m told,

Just please, I’m begging you,
don’t make me teach another class over Zoom.

The fall looks bleak;
I stand on a precipice, worn out and weak,
And now, I wonder, what will they give?
A rope, some planks, for a virus-free bridge?
Or will they just hand us a new three-piece suit,
wireless router, Google Classroom, and an old parachute?

It grew tightly knit and tangled,
branches and leaves and woody vines
creating living cobwebs
Walling those within
and those without

A sturdy blade
Spilled sticky sap
and lush leaves scattered
Crushed underfoot

The wind waited
Impatiently holding her breath
while human exhaustion became
a slow and salty rain

Coaxed with violence
cut and pulled and heaved apart
the jungle let her bleeding fingers open

Her smile was wide
Teeth glinting in the mouths of snakes
and hungry cats

Her laughter puffed around them
Swirling breath with clouds of stinging venom
and creeping infections

Her fingers closed again
branches and leaves and flowering vines
creating lovely spiderwebs
Trapping those within
inviting those without

Sun rests on leaves with a heathered yellow pull, 
even a grand Texas sky cannot hold it aloft at this hour.

Thick air drags my feet walking under buzzing boughs laden with blooms,
their lofty perch traded for sidewalks.

Breathing in heady summer scents: wood fire, blossoms and wet asphalt,
I pretend I am a balloon:
my heart dangling from a curled ribbon of thought, helium floating over fences.

With a breeze
I

am

released.

After it’s over she always
Finds herself in the corner
Licking her wounds and rewatching
Each frame of the movie now burned into her soul.  

It stays with her whether she wants it to or not. 

It’s like an infected mosquito bite 
Behind the knee, no one else 
Really knows it’s there
Until it kills you.   

Sometimes she has to stop herself from
Setting out a plate for it at dinner, 
After all it is not a welcomed guest 
But rather more of a stalker. 

It follows her everywhere hiding in plain view.   

The truth is when you lick your wounds
They don’t heal, they just
Fester and spread
Infection to all the good parts.  

You really have to get rid of the source for it to heal.

“How to lose 30 pounds”
I google
While the banana bread
Warms in the oven
Two cups of sugar in there
And the rest of the chocolate chips
I’m out of control

Thank you for showing me
it’s not so bad to live alone,
that nurturing independence
is better than being betrayed,
that there are many wounded
souls out there who can’t
be trusted.

And thank you for letting
me know I don’t need
anyone to complete me,
I’m quite enough.
And truly thank you for telling
me about separating strawberries
with a paper towel.
They last longer that way.

And most of all, thank you for proving
I, time after time, can drive by your street
and never, ever pull in.