Posts for June 13, 2021 (page 7)

All day a current of fear runs
through the household, a background 
buzz impossible to ignore. 

The ninety year old aunt won’t leave
her bed. The three year old cries
for any and no reason. 

The dogs feel it, too. They run circles
around the hole left by the absent one,
whine and misbehave.

The rest of us tend the engine
of daily living–cut grass, feed horses,
cook and clean and cook again.

And through it all, we send scant news
out over the web of far-flung family,
telegraph back concern.
 
Later, my sister steps into the summer
darkess, her grandson in her arms,
whispers his momma will be okay,

his baby brother, too. Together, they 
count fireflies, name constellations,
watch the new moon rise. 

After two years of growing, my bum leg feels like stone–
bumpy, rock-hard as solid silt–tan, gray, red earthlike stone.

The word disability teases my wellbeing–
it’s as if I can see it etched on granite gravestone.

In the dark, under cover, I can be anything
new. Imagine a shape-shifting creature, snakelike stone. 

Like something new and inhuman, I loft myself high
into the air each day. My body, molelike millstone. 

Skin so hard, sharp teeth, the quick mind of a wanting thing,
If they have anything to say, they might as well strike stone. 

Meet Rosamund, a shaggy furred
mammal from an alternate
universe. She’s almost 65 & pink
& when I say pink I don’t mean
Caucasian, hand crocheted baby

bootie pink. I mean straight
inside the tongue of a rescue
dog, wet trumpet, wild
plum. Rosamund gets a $50
kitchenette between Odessa

& Abilene. She is sleeping
late. Understand, she’s a pocketed
biped from the marsupial line. Think
swamp wallaby or long-footed
potoroo. Today she snuggles

under the covers until The View
comes on at 3. Whoopi
Goldberg is asking Helen Mirren how
she maintains her sex
appeal & energy at 74. Inspired,

Rosamund dons herself in a flower
splashed jumpsuit, slips on her rose
colored cowboy boots & by 6:30 she’s
ready to ramble through West Texas
towns  — Sierra Blanca, Valentine,

Van Horn, Balmorhea. Surely
her handy pockets can minister
to the maltreated & have
nots. She wants to be
known for her random

generosity — just call her Rosamud
the Magnificent — but everyone
walks on by her when she stretches
her fuzzy marpusial arms like bat
wings. Below a crescent

moon her raggedy pink
fleece morphs into winning
lottery tickets, high-yielding
scratch-offs & one hidden
Powerball — $376 million. How

can a hot pink marsupial in a jump
suit who means nothing but good
luck, free meals & fresh
biscuits be invisible? She loads
the bed of her pickup with homemade

casseroles, dragon kites & apple
butter & sets up a roadside
card table on Route 90
near Van Horn. The Guadalupe
Mountains sawtooth the sky. Tonight

the cars whiz past as her offerings
dangle & sway. Tomorrow she’ll drive
north & after stuffing fistfuls of silver
dollars in her jacket she’ll try again
somewhere between Odessa & Abilene.

I ask this.
I ask that. 

All of these questions I will never know the answers to.
If I could ask 1,000,000 questions my first one would be,
why do you love me?
why little, old,  nonsense me?
I never did anything to help, you.
I sat and ignored you.
Why?
Is it because I am cute?
really, why?
It’s your turn.

as a child the world was too much
I escaped

piloted through a Phantom Tollbooth
changed with The Changeling
tesseracted through A Wrinkle in Time
ran with Ramona
sat in the Shire
searched for a ring
beheld the vorpal sword
metamorphosed
became enveloped in the mists of Avalon

Worlds upon worlds upon worlds
brought to life on the page, in my mind
For an hour or two or even a day The mundane slipped away
replaced with magic and whimsy, wisdom and mystery

Too soon, too soon, always too soon
came the moment to return To real life

friends, each with a bouquet
meet in the street, pink snapdragons nod,
happy to see a friendly face

everyone says, “turn those smiles upside down”,
people with tall grass get lost in their yards,
when you’re sick you may throw down,
Dr. Scholl’s makes gel inserts for hats,
big toes are the mirror of the soul,
and you? Well, you love me.

monosaccharide

into parallel exchange
     mixing overall-
               blushed out over
               pulses of pink
               yellow light.

                   fill and scoop-
           baby’s turning blue

               in thin/grey folds
     winds cover and blow
                      away yellow-
     go now dropping down
       down again (in) silver.

Someone –
probably me –
forgot the poem
left in the pocket
of the pants put
in the wash
maybe not just once
but two or three times
so now the paper’s
permanently folded,
words molded together
along the corner seams,
so it’s lucky someone –
probably me –
recalls the first lines
of the poem now stuck
together, the trapped
lines still flow so easily