Posts for June 5, 2021 (page 4)

Retreat:

A better person would care more,
I suppose,
but then all those years of perfecting
my resting bitch face
would be in vain.  

So go ahead, let her pour you
another drink.
Let her pull summer kisses
from your winter seasoned lips.
I wonder if she can taste me there.
And if she does,
does she chalk it up to the bourbon
still swirling in your mouth –
a dark, oaky flavor she’s never
had the privilege of knowing
intimately.  

You didn’t drink bourbon
until this past November
whenI taught you to put down the
domestic beer and pick up
a touch of class.  

Class. 

That part apparently didn’t stick. 

A better person would care more,
I suppose,
but I’ve always been a bitch.  
At least, that’s what you said
the last time I caught your hands on hips
that weren’t mine.

how many early mornings do we share awake under the same roof? do we have solidarity in muffling feelings because every wall in this house is a formality? is that a silver lining “solidarity”? i never meant it so literally when i said womanhood is an inherent prison. the weight of our bodies and souls are nested in this house and our bodies are russian nesting dolls bursting with insecurities of each other. we are a nuclear family in every sense of the phrase.

Is Woody Guthrie a country musician?
I’d say, yes, though feel free to disagree. 
I’d follow that oaky Okie sepia voice
anywhere, even through the Dust Bowl,
like the Joads.

While the what-we-have-now knit itself
together, Woody was the seer
singer-songwriter of the 20th century.
I imagine him in Country Music Heaven,
shaking his head about how much is the same
& about everything that has irrevocable,
thankfully changed.

-for my father

in a wistful slumber,
i turned so i was
huddled closer to the couch

i was cold
& i yearned for
its warmth

& you, quietly,
placed my mother’s
blanket over me

Sometimes you pass through
a little town where there’s 
a graduating class of one.
And you wish you were there
at the party that you pass
on the road to somewhere else.

For days, clouds sat
heavy on top of the ridge.
Sometimes rain fell out,
scratching our roof.
Sometimes a movement 
of air tore a small hole.
For a moment, we could see
something–deer grazing
across the road, raccoon
trundling along the tree line.
Once, an owl screeched 
at noon, confounded by 
the endless not-day,
not-night. 

Understudy

She called the front desk at Palm Beach Company
to ask Lydia, the switchboard operator,
if she could talk to her mommy.

Honey, we have so many mommies
here. To which mommy would you 
like to speak?

             Her name is Louise.  She’s my mommy.

One moment, please.
while I connect you
to your mommy.

It was a kindness with lasting effect,
clicked with metallic efficiency.
The child decided that’s what
she needed to be the little adult
everyone claimed she was.

When the electric oven caught fire
that summer, she knew not to throw
water on the flames. She latched to 
grown-up protocol, methods that led 
her to beat out fires with precision.

That switchboard operator had it down.
Both human and automaton, her voice
clicked insect cadence while hands
whirred plugs in and out of connections 
with samurai blur and sensei courtesy.

On a visit to her mommy’s work,
the pupil came to thank her mentor,
watched her juggle phone calls
for most of a Friday morning.

Long after, all callers to Myrtle-7-6307 
reached the operator for a modest
five-person concern:

Webster Residence.  How may
I direct your call?  One moment
please, while I connect you
to my mommy.

This testimony tastes like the surprised eyes of a pierced fish,
a gasp choked, proud hands toying the panicked gills,
underbelly ulcer like the open mouth of a blobfish.
These truths called sins oxidize in the open air
when the cold blood inches to a slimy warm
like room temp, like 98.6 and crawling to a flame.
It’s waking up from a baptism with tadpoles in your mouth,
wet body lifted before the tongue of the moss maze
rushes an apology for spitting out the spirit carcass.