Posts for June 11, 2021

I don’t wanna say he was innocent-beyond-belief

or even over-sheltered.

I mean there were Catholics right next door

and he did quit being a Junior-Mason, aka a DeMolay

when his Catholic friend was blackballed

because

folks said

the friend

couldn’t keep their secrets

but would have to tell them to a priest.

Still,

he’d never been inside the Catholic church

that stood right across the street

from his family’s bare-crossed Presbyterian home ground,

not to mention that he went to public school

and learned only the things they felt like teaching

which happened to include

classes in secular Latin.

I mean, can you say “Puella pulchra”?

He could and still can.

And so it came to pass that,

maybe an odd ten years later

and a few that came out even, too,

he was sitting

in a first grade classroom

and…

No.

Wait.

Let’s back up a little farther forward first.

See,

it all started when he was sitting

in a room

in a house

with a woman and two girls who were her daughters

and heard a voice that sounded very like his outside voice

except that this time it was deep inside his head

and a hell of a lot more calm than usual

and so he listened

hard

when it said to him and only him,

“Oh my god, I fit here.”

Then,

maybe three nights later,

he and the woman were on the house’s back porch

knee-deep in a bottle of plum wine

because they thought it helped them

tie the knots in their growing rengay tighter

when

suddenly

two pulchrae puellae stood before them.

“Mom,” they said,

“is it okay if we talk to him?

You can stay and listen if you want.”

Rengay interrupted and permission granted,

they went on.

“You wouldn’t know this,

probably,”

they said,

“but our mom is happiest when you’re around

so

if you’ll move in with us,

we’ll give you presents every day.”

Ok.

That said, let’s try again.

And so it came to pass that,

two remarkably even weeks later,

he was sitting 

at his first-ever parent-teacher conference

in a female first-grader’s classroom

when he heard his truelove say, “Are you ok?”

“Oh.

Sorry,” he said,

“I just got

distracted

trying to figure out

how my beautiful brand-new daughter

learns as much as she always does

in a room where she’s gotta be 

constantly distracted 

by the statue of the dead guy

who’s bleeding down the wall.”

a pain in the chest;
some mental calisthenics
to quickly forget

whatever she has in her marrow
that black-neon pink sway
when she moves from room to room
like an electric blue ocean 
of sparkle-static caught in wind
with hair that smells 
like an exhausted three am 
twisted bed spread soaked through
with the lines of yellow warm light
coming through a cracked door
listening to her voice
a distant song that breaks
your heart
every single time

drink bourbon 
black out hide
in plain sight

soften rough 
edges try to
tidy a life

the you that is
a thought will
never be enough

this my dear is
the secret to all
the good stuff

Soft summer evening, alone
beneath a cerulean sky edged
in gold, the soft forehead kiss
of the sun before she goes.

And I feel so small,
contemplate how it is this world
and not another that the miracle
of gravity holds me to, this one

where birds soar and waves rush
and love is loud and bursting
with fresh, bright fruit
every minute! And how it is

that you would be here
too, together with me in space
and time. And the wonder
that fills me is a prayer offered up

on the bright wings
of sunset.

windshield sky is rain-heavy gray
smeared to the horizon
I’m going 80mph   passing trucks
on I-64   my sister

is on speaker phone
sobbing and
sobbing and
begging
for her life to make sense again
and
     
        I can’t help her

because it never will   and

relentless traffic is the only thing
keeping me grounded
from the jolt of my sister’s distress

she tells me
I feel like I left town and never came back
just enough awareness
to split us both down the middle

A simple request
Crescendoes like a quick-approaching thunderstorm,
Soon erupts in a yelling match.
Our nerves perk, alert to the challenge, the cumbersome or unknown,
Irritated words popping out of our mouths like squeezed pimple pus.

The latest:
“Better reschedule that appointment
Since you’re staying up late anyway…”
“ But how? But why?”
“It’s on your phone.”
“But how? But didn’t we get that paper in the mail?!”
“No, that was something else. It’s on your phone!”
“Look, here’s the paper!”
“I know, but that’s not what you need now! It’s on your phone!”
“But is it a text or an email?!”
“I don’t know! You made the appointment! Dammit, It’s on your phone!”
“BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?! YOU DIDN’T TELL ME IF IT WAS AN EMAIL OR TEXT!”
“BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW! YOU MADE THE APPOINTMENT! IT WAS ON YOUR PHONE!”

It always ends with one of us, usually me, storming away to seethe,
Throwing “I LOVE YOU!” like a punch through strained cords and clenched teeth,
Finally calming enough to sleep,
Then to wake and breathe
And shake my head as I see
Our storm was pouring from clouds of anxiety.

Apollo is like the sun—
he puts cancers where he touches you
with those beam-bow and arrow-point limbs
and with his infinite Sminthian kisses, his
plague mice against your mouth.

god, the sun can’t stand your skin.

and as he remarks,
                              “dirty thing,”
                              dirty between the earth and not of it,
                              beneath the sky and not from it,
he takes away that skin the same way
you might take away his garments
or the sunset color in his lips.

It was Sunday when we met again.
Seventeen years had passed.
When last I saw her, she was a child, shy.
She told me she had two girls of her own.

Before two weeks had gone
by she sent a text and asked
if she could come by
when

I had time.
I told her I always
had time for her and rhyme.
She said I should not stare

at her black eye or ask where
and how she gets it every time.
Her youngest child’s sperm donor preys
on her at night. Not being sublime

she said he forces her.
I knew what that meant.
Anger flushed my face.
I waited for her reply.

She said that was why
she wanted to come by. 
She needed a happy space
to mend her heart and mind.

I went
outside and placed a key to
her safe house
in hopes it would make
the difference. 

When judging something,
don’t base it off the thing itself.

Instead hold it up
next to every single piece of competition
and scrutinize how it holds up there.

Give no thought to what it can do alone-
that means nothing 
if something else
can do something better.

Nowadays it all must be 
“better than.”
Nothing can just be.

Fitting into your own piece of the puzzle
just isn’t enough-
you have to fit into everyone else’s too.