Would it be easier
if you weren’t alive?
Not that I wish you dead.
Those days are over.
I no longer carry
such malice in my heart.
Instead, ancient grief
tinged with regret
pierces my memories.
I still fight the urge
to call you. Especially
when I do something well.
Does anyone grow up enough
not to want her mother?
Owlish—
observant, ears pricked
& demure paws,
(which otherwise would spell death for an untimely fly)
4 sets of 4 on the floor;
they all judge my scooping.
Bucket to the next box
grated spoon secure
lest any litter be scattered
1 by 1 til all are done.
Approvingly, my little platoon scatters
for sunlit windows & warmth.
Just because you can’t see the strings
doesn’t mean you aren’t a puppet.
here at seven
catastrophic
progress
made
mud and sand.
neck day
next day
necks stay
in excess.
may stay
that way-
go away
stay away.
she focused her finder scope on Alnitak,
the left-most star in Orion’s belt,
then slewed South and a bit to the side,
finding the Flame Nebula easily, but straining to see
the Horsehead Nebula
her friend Steven thought the so-called “Orion Nebula”
was the only object of interest in the constellation,
but Betsy considered it old hat–
beautiful, but boring, which is also
how she saw herself
She added her H-Beta filter to her eyepiece
and she zeroed in on the Horsehead–
there it was, faint even in her 14-inch Newtonian
Betsy stepped back and let Steven
have a look, telling him about
averted vision and how to relax his eye
Steven said he thought he might have seen
something, but he was obviously
unimpressed
As the night drew on, she showed him a few galaxies, globular clusters,
and double stars, but her heart wasn’t in it
yes, she thought, space is cold and distant
but this hillside in West Virginia is no
better
I.
Sky alive with raggedy ravens, one swelled
to a massive Mesozoic shadow-bird, beak
open in a croak so deep, so raucous, it jolts
vibrations along telephone wires, ripples
fields into waves like a sea, twists trees
into whirligigs, one tall trunk a totem
pole of bulging eyes stacked one upon
another, all the better to see you with, my dear.
II.
Some things you can’t unsee, as when the nurse
calls late at night to say they somehow tore
Mom’s leg open lifting her into bed. Ambulance
summoned, we rush to the hospital. The amount
of blood lost from the foot-long gash, its depth,
surges shock through my body, shivering
from belly outward like the scream
I want to unleash.
~ Inspired by Charles E. Burchfield’s Telegraph Music, 1949
She Quit Cooking From Scratch
The curve of her hidden
by a cotton house
dress from the Sears catalog. She fried
hot water cornbread in lard. It popped
like little foot bones. Wrap the crisp
bread in a paper towel. Tear apart
& share. The heat of her. No air
conditioning, only one plug-in fan. Big kettle
of turnip greens boiling in ham
slabs. Some things you always
remember, the comforting grease
of greens sweet as cake. With her hot
long Avon nails she picked the meat
from pecans for putting in brown
sugared pies – our favorite was dark
chocolate bourbon. I remember
grits thickening in the saucepan, pools
of butter melting on top, bubbling
yellow waterfalls. I remember the deep
loneliness when she quit cooking from
scratch & when the heat of her
vanished into frozen
meals, microwave ease & snappy
trips to drive-thru.
Something about
Death
Awakens a sleeping phoenix
Nesting in our family tree.
Reminds everyone else that we’re still
Alive,
Capable of reconnecting
In a fiery frenzy of photos, texts, and video calls
Before the urgency burns itself out again.
