Posts for June 10, 2021 (page 4)

you’d want to go back, too
that place of open windows,
curtains blown by city air
drying sticky sheets
at two in the morning
after we got back up
to make sushi
from rice (the wrong kind)
and sardines,
that place where we
drew a bath together,
then slept late
and you rushed out the door
to make it to your first class
that Monday, and every Monday
then, we’d lounge past tea time,
not knowing what tea time was anyway,
fry sausage to make box pizza,
play some Prince on the stereo
leaving the windows
open again

i
    drop
        my
            tears
                 into 
                     the
                        wishing
                             well
                                of
                                   your
                                     cheek
                                          .
                                            .
                                               .
                                                  .
                                                     .
                                                       .
                                                       praying you will stay 

The first time 
I told the story 
“The Garden That
Ate The House”
the kids dropped 
their requests for
lions and wolves, 
they only wanted 
more of the couple who
tended the garden
next to their house
for years & years until they 
they got old and had to
move away. The family
that bought the place
went for three weeks 
to the Grand Canyon;
when they got back
they couldn’t find 
their house. It all
looked like a jungle:
Roman tomatoes 
in the mailbox, tool
shed full of artichoke,
the garden path clogged
with sweet potato vine,
mulberry tree fallen 
on the roof. The kids
had to hack their way
through and crawl 
into the kitchen window
where vines of wild grape
and Indian squash grew.
They didn’t even have 
to go out for dinner…

That old club where we used to hang out

One of the legs was crooked 
holding up the canvas awning. 
Sign said – Live Music at the Greenwich

You won’t find a brightly painted toucan
or an autographed guitar hanging there
only agent Egypt with King Tut and Isis
standing guard over bottles of Grand Marnier,
the bar mirror reflecting hunched shoulders
and cocktails served in plastic cups.

It don’t look like much
with its jammed up stage,
its crooked red velvet curtains.

Then all that soft feathered tom-tom,
boom boom on the bass,
sweet sound of the sax,
curls your toes  

Transfixed and tranquilized,
you’re transported outta here.

After a school year of sitting at home
as a student, it’s odd assuming
the position of teacher for five days.

These kids, they ask
about family and favorites,
for help and humor,
gracing me with their own in return.

And as fatigued as I am
after endless assignments and essays,
and though this camp lasts only a week,
and despite my wish while here of sleep,

I cannot deny that these kids
have erroded a cove in my heart,
that they will not simply be service hours
for clubs and college apps,
but memories with names and faces,
memories of a boy asking if it says
‘Man’ or ‘Main Office,’
of a girl sharing how her siblings
are each spaced two years apart,
of being pestered to stay longer
any time I left early for other obligations.

I am sorry I cannot stay or come back,
but after these months of virtual solitude,
of static silence, I feel as if I have
finally stayed with a class this year.

     i brought the rain east from lexington today
in my volkswagen jetta, bought when the world was gray
each passing sign on what felt like a highway
kept most of my panicked, flighty feelings at bay

     i started laughing like i was at some comedic play
as i pulled off the pike and onto the downtrodden byway
for i knew that for now, i had been able to get away
and that i would see the rain come again someday

                                                   I am truly a worm,                                                  not                                                     not  even human.

Psalm 22

Critical Race Theory. How critical?
Enslavement, segregation, racism,
genocide, colonialism have confiscated
truth.  Those of us who still have feet
take to them looking, looking for
where the peoples went, long time passing,
leaders, dancers, physicists and lovers,
piano players, schoolgirls, fathers,
babies, physicians, truckers, weavers,
bankers, herders, builders, pilots,
running backs, gymnasts, farmers,
teachers, essential workers, plasma donors
had been transported, wasted, burnt, shot,
evicted, fired, suffocated. Rachel weeps,
her children’s genes expunged.

Along with this: to pray Psalm 22
requires Critical Species Theory.
Worms and ants and all share status
in the Dreamtime. Humans, another blurry kind
who’d better bow. Teillard and technicians
of the earth herself might say consider

the hind feet of echidnas

There once was a pooch from a shelter
Who digged, ran, and ate helter-skelter.
Her escapades many
Give me headaches aplenty,
But somehow she’s still a heart melter.