Posts for June 5, 2021 (page 2)

(after Robert Okaji)

First you must get out of bed
like a sloth, moving glacially

so as not to make things worse. Next,
straighten, also slowly, taking care

to tuck your tailbone. Breathe
until your heartrate subsides a little.

Imagine you are enrolled in your mother’s
finishing school, a dictionary

on your head as you move through
the day. Set the timer for twenty

minutes when you sit down
with an ice pack at the computer.

Save your work when the timer
goes off, put the ice pack back

in the freezer, set the timer
again, and lie down on the floor.

Repeat until you meet the deadline
or run out of daylight.

I need to start
but I don’t know where, what, or when.

I need to start my chores,
start getting up earlier,
start stopping my bad habits,
start over.

Take me on a journey,
getting there isn’t hard.
Just let me start 
anywhere but the beginning.

During a nuclear explosion city mouse supposes that he will have to find refuge in the tight confines of the damp subway…
city mouse doesn’t like the idea that many passers by assume he is a rat…
city mouse gets unnerved when discussing taxes and his recent file for divorce…
city mouse thinks to himself, nightly, that he might be better off trampled by a deer. “Are deer even real?” he squeaks to himself, his eyes dry and staring at his apartment ceiling. Closing them against the calamity of his surroundings, city mouse rests…
a dreamless sleep.

I will never apologize 
for the hunger 
that I feel for you

every 
single 
line
until I know
your DNA

his tiny fists gripped the bouquet
as if it were a lifeline to beauty
and maybe it was

until the Queen Anne’s lace
scattered her white tears on the pavement
at his muddy bare feet

and the Indian blanket flower and wedelia 
began to droop

and a red rash appeared
where the comfrey kissed
his soft flesh pink and itchy

shirtless shoeless early
June to everything
it’s season for how many
years have i done this?
we heathens, too, have
ritual without religion

chicken sqwak in mid egg lay
sharp shin hawk on the spruce
smudge and toke,
i pray

last night burned
as it settled
with dry logs on top
still this morning smolders
ash, i add it in handfuls

a dream ferments like kraut
flutters like a cabbage moth
lets wolf spiders crawl
without a flinch

first part
the wood chips
with bare feet
a stride between
each pair of seeds

each wrinkled
duet dropped
two knuckles deep
into a finger poke

sow in one spiral row
from bed center
lengthening

like a line of nazca
i have never seen

there will be watering
and weeding
but god willing

before summer’s done
i’ll grow a snail shell
of corn

I find the baby at every gathering I attend. 
Once located, I ask their parent for permission as I lift them into the air. 
And then, I quickly find a quiet corner out of sight,
So no one else will ask for a turn with said baby. 
I have successfully  spent so many Saturday  afternoons covered in the slobber of an infant I’ll never meet again.

But I cannot wait for the day that the baby at the party belongs to us,
And I’ll get to pass my baton and gratitude to the next Baby Thief.  

Citronella tangs,
Buzzes and hums strain,
Flickering love lights flit by
Through bruisy blue sky.

other kids crowd gifts and thrust
 in hands to help, birthday girl stunned
 and motionless in the eye of this storm,
a smear of blue icing on her cheek.

 She looks out placid. My sister
 explains that she doesn’t really care
 about presents. Perhaps it’s because
 she’s never opened one, but then

 I have never cared for gifts either.
People always swore it was the thought
 that counts and I wasn’t a fool and I
 could see what relatives thought of me. 

My niece finally left what had become
 a pile of stuff to swing outside, higher. 
 

When I die under mysterious circumstances,
Which is the only way I will agree to go,  

Cremate me on a bonfire ignited by moonshine,
Gather my ashes and put them in a disco ball,  

Flip me on,
Crank up “Boogie Wonderland,”
And take to the dancefloor,  

I’ll sparkle,
You spin,  

I’ll twinkle,
You twirl,  

I’ll whisper,
You listen,  

And I will tell you the secrets,
Of the universe.