Posts for June 23, 2021 (page 7)

Inside the house they’re tearing down
were frequent bouquets of daisies
picked up at the grocery store
arranged in a blue earthenware pitcher
that at other times held home-brewed iced tea.
The daisies fresh in their bright and yellow
shone forth on the kitchen table
and were refreshed over the week
with long draws of cold water from the kitchen tap.
These daisies if you were to press them
between thumb and index finger would bruise
and leave on your hand a fine yellow powder
that would remain until you rinsed them
under a cold stream at the sink.

2021

Nothing bloomed
quite like normal
More akin to reluctance
Had to search the hillside
for the colors
Waited, but they never truly
came.

Summer’s done here
The usual symphony of spring
resembled instead
Great Mamaw’s quilt
passed down
wallowed, washed, sun-dried, faded
A worn out kind of love
One last hurrah for her
house dress — arm pits, sweat stained
Gotta keep them babies warm

Emergence from forced pause
feels tentative still
Where’s the trick?
The gimmick
Gotcha

Spring’s done gone
I’m still here waiting for the blooms.

I think I hear my philodendrons
whispering
about my indifference lately
weeks gone by without watering
or worse
the sudden disappearance
of their neighbor
the one planted in the cobalt blue pot
the older thinned-out leggy one
just gone    I think
they sense my intentions
look how they droop and lose leaves

Do I smell their fear?
Yes! when I loom over their foliage
holding clippers
I am surprised by a certain musky essence

The truth is
I’m just tired of them
they have reason to worry    their future
likely lies at the bottom
of the dumpster
a dark and slow obliteration

Is it possible 
for a plant to forgive?    to understand
that I am just the catalyst
of the inevitable?    still
I feel shame
as they sway towards the window
sing in the sunlight 
offer up oxygen

Brothers and Sisters
turn, turn, turn—
oak planks beneath them.

I know this feeling

of riding in the back seat and
seeing the car veering toward the
concrete median and someone else’s hands scrambling to
jerk the wheel to
swerve and miss it while
I grip my own thighs

which is why 
I might have
jumped
just a little 
when he squeezed my shoulder at lunch and
smiled into my eyes

Even the six year old will die
And will have always been dead
Almost as long as I.
I try on many deaths
Ones with a suit – not likely
Or naked in the tub with soap
     between my toes
     or sitting in someone else’s
     geography with the curtains closed
The air will disappear then the whole
     surprise of dreaming 
     that I’m drowning
     and drawing away and the echo
     of my words said aloud (or  not)
Well
All is
Oh well

It’s when I plant my feet 
that the street beneath me
starts to shift.
It’s when I laugh out loud
that the cloud I’ve been under
starts to lift.

It’s when I’m feeling old
that I’m told I’m returning
to my youth.
It’s when I start to cry
that the lie I’ve been telling
is the truth.

It’s when I start dying
that I’m trying to tell you 
that I’m done.
It’s when I start living
that I’m giving you a sign
that I’ve won.

When did this conversation start
In the beginning but now
Seems so fresh as if this was
The beginning and each moment
Is good and the light shines
On the green world 
Making it understandable

1. The crumbling factory where Wanda lost
her job setting pockets
on coats in 1999. She was one
of the last 55.

2. They boarded up Apex Bank
& moved it to a doublewide
on Broad, a four-lane & the only
street where cars still meander.

3. Evelyn sold her possessions
up North in Ohio. Bought a brick
ranch for $45,000. Cheap
place to retire but closest
grocery is on Star Route 44,
next to the Dollar General, 12
miles away.

4. Roofs of downtown stores caved in
down to the basements. Watch
for occassional rat.

5. In the distance, the steel bones
of a railyard —  green gray, reinforced
concrete. Old cars rusted
& empty.

6. Daylight through cracked
windows, fractals
of the lost
era of factories.

7. Be wary of copperheads
in the scruff between collapsing
walls & train tracks, still used. 

8. Evelyn sells oils
& watercolors for $20
at the Senior Center.  Her oversized
iris looks like a gigantic giraffe
tongue. Old ladies
here still chatter, their blue
tongues wagging.

9. Don’t forget the wooden
door of the former
pool hall where men once joked
& cajoled. Most men
die first around here.

You know how it goes:  some kid who’s turning two discovers cake like it’s sliced bread or plutonium the rainbow frosting circling his mouth like the rings of Saturn up into the nose blotching the forehead smothering the hand like a sweet messy mitten or the one about the old lady who gets led into a room on shaky legs for a surprise gathering and ends up fainting just folding like a crepe paper origami pet bumping her head family racing her to the emergency room daughter screaming the whole way to her husband I told you not to scare her or the young blonde who bends over a cake with lit candles and sets her curls on fire men more astounded by the tank top cleavage than the smoldering reek of hair or the manic boy who leans over the table and dive bombs face first into the cake like a kamikaze pilot or a blood thirsty mosquito collapsing the buffet and sending silverware and potato salad into orbit so when your partner announces he wants to give you a party for your birthday and asks who to invite you read the tarot deck of his eyes imagine those bronzy arms enveloping you like a love letter and whisper you causing the ripe of his lips to turn skyward Just you