Every year,
As the leaves get greener
And the sun gets warmer
I crave the summer
Like a kid craving ice cream
But in those few weeks
Before the blazing sun
And refreshing water hit,
I reminisce on fall,
The kind-of-cold but
Kind-of-warm weather
The hot coffee and
The smell of the dying trees
But the feeling quickly goes away
As I remember, we must enjoy summer
Because seasons come and go
Like old school friends
And fall is only fall when the leaves are orange
Cookey
The men at the Music City Auto Auction
stare at her, for she wears skin tight
shorts that hug her hips like a thong
in the crack of her ass
and highlight her vagina lips frontal view.
I approach her, asking: “How are you?”
She stares at me saying: “I’m all right.”
I say: “No one is ever all right. I’m wrong
often.” She laughs so I say: “I think it’s crass
of me if you need to
know.” Her eyes explore mine, reminding me
I am writing a poem about her, word by
word in our long silence, eyes questioning.
“Your hair would cost you a fortune in
Jamaica,” I break the silence. She smiles.
“My nails cost more-see.”
I look at her artsy nails, longer than I can try
to weave into a poem about eye questioning
alone. “Ohio, she says. “I grew up in
Toledo,” and smiles.
My poem ended and hers began.
“Jesus would have loved me like he did
prostitutes like Mary or the woman
at the well. Oh, hells bells, he would
have even let me dry his feet
man.
Did
you ever know a woman?
I see you could.
Too bad we will never meet
again.”
Singing alone in my car
is scary.
As if someone
were to be riding shotgun
staring down my every move
ready to poke at any wrong note.
Recording each syllable with an itchy
trigger finger hovering
over a simple “post”
button waiting for the worst
moment to scratch. Leaving
behind remarkable
stains on my light grey seats
that even the mightiest cleaner
can’t cover.
reading other people’s poetry
trying to find myself
in their words
in hopes of alleviating
some
of this loneliness.
but their sadness seems so
delicate–
packaged and presentable.
a flower on a grave.
a single tear falling.
the wind in the trees.
mine feels like…seething rage–
a selkie scream–
something ugly.
upending and upsetting,
aberrant and abhorrent.
almost offensive to nature itself.
like a monster from a movie
that knows only
“devour” and “destroy”.
how do you continue on
with this crashing around
consuming everything inside you?
why should i placate it and call it pretty
just because other people do?
(A reflection on twelve years in therapy and “The Guest House” by Jalaluddin Rumi)
This being human is a smart house.
Every morning a new task.
A checklist, a planner, a fierceness,
some momentary control comes
with an unexpected emotion.
Group and mute them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of burdens,
who desperately sweep your house
empty of its empathy,
still, treat each guest frigidly.
He may be calling you out
for some new analysis.
The memory, the shame, the angry ones,
meet them at the door with a google doc,
and invite them to their prospective compartment.
Untangle and silence whoever comes,
because each has been dropped
as a human inconvenience from beyond.
The cat waits a breath, poised
on tingling feet atop the skyward fence,
bulwark of barriers between garden and street –
navigable by only those who leap with abandon.
She knows the path
to wrestle with leaves and vines and bugly beetles,
birds and bats and the cat down the way,
capturing for a frozen photograph the hunt,
the flight, and the walking about.
The woman follows, called
from under the dome that moves with her
most days, champion of chastisement,
watching the fence in a moment of lifting vision.
She sees the cat.
Suburban jungle beckons, mired in mixed signals.
The cat, cat-sure, winds along her sheltering fence,
envied and admired for the elegant bravado,
the wandering, and the watching over.
The day lingers long, faded
into denim sky followed by hovering clouds,
flowing and filling the careful approach of night –
space for breathing-in the cat’s wilding courage.
She watches the woman
drift through inner space, find the familiar dome,
fold into a couch with pillowed corners –
corner shelters bearing both creatures, the chaser,
the lingerer, and the delicate dark.
I.
I was the one they chose. Gold
minuscule forget me nots laced with plain
dashes. Dainty, thin with a past.
Introduced by the jeweler when the wide
bands came to the knuckles on her short
fingers. Nestled in the estate section of antiques,
they didn’t care that I had belonged to someone else.
Slipped on her left ring finger with shaky hands
during their vows, she wore me with pride.
For fifteen years I lasted, till my thin self
could no longer be resized.
They kept me in my special box
as they searched for my replacement.
Ii.
She never wanted diamonds but they
chose me cause mine were channel set
deep into grooves where she couldn’t
knock me loose as she mothered their girls
and worked with patients.
I felt splashy on that third finger.
But alas, one of my diamonds
came loose after fifteen years
of constant wear and disappeared.
Put away in my sacred box
They sought another.
Iii.
She found me on her own
at an upscale artist boutique
My silver band fashioned
with chiseled squares and minute
rectangles. He approved. I adorn
her third finger to this day.
Little did I know, I would
be the ultimate ring
carrying her on her own.
There is nothing more pure,
genuine,
Or truthful,
Than a message coming from the heart,
While our brains may make most of our decisions,
The heart makes the most important ones,
For unlike the deceptive nature of the brain,
The heart can never tell a lie,
Follow your heart,
Follow your dreams,
Live the life your heart aches for,
With the one your heart truly loves
