You know how much it costs to pull a tooth?
The answer: more than I make.
I don’t know enough folks for GoFundMe
and am too old to make an OnlyFans.
So I sit in pain and curse the state senators
for preaching about the sanctity of life
when so many politicians make money
off misery. Something should be done.
We’re in need of a reckoning, I reckon.
Soaked in warm water overnight, brown
ovals and white ovals (two small bowls) have swollen.
Plumped for soil. Primed for sprouting.
With hoe, I drag a groove two inches deep
and make six rows. With garden hose
I fill the troughs with water, sprinkle in
natural fertilizer. Then I drop the beans,
one variety at a time, one every six inches,
and catch myself counting. Counting.
I’ve already counted the days to beans
so they will be ready to pick and can before
that camping trip. Now I count hoe strikes
necessary to cover the beans, and hoe tamps
to hold the soil firm during beans’ first rain.
While I am scattered seeds, un earthed.
I know nothing of the rules, rights, rituals
of this game. I only know that I love the names.
The ring master calling, “next up, Maisie,
Oliver, Trekkie, Beauregard.”
How could you not love that flow of syllables,
especially when someone responds
“Which Maisie are you calling?” I’m
an anthropologist studying a near extinct
Amazonian tribe. I store these words, delight
in them, treasure also the names of breeds–
Visla, Weimaraner, Shilo Shepherd,
Australian Shepherd, dachshund.
Even the Scottish terrier who slow walks the course
with fine distain for human expectations.
ignore it if you will
The Cut
it’s deep and raw and real
pretend if you must
The Cut
is whole and clean and sealed
as crust sugars over
The Cut
sweet, sad, poison annealed
dripping venom by the drop
oozing sweet melancholy
into the tarnished places in your soul.
The Cut
becomes yours before you know you have turned.
We’ve been here since last August to the current June,
but it’s not even after noon
how will we spend these intermittent minutes this afternoon?
I see no limits and we’re both immune,
to the usual effects of what’s more opportune,
each stranded,
lost and marooned avoiding the temptations
we currently sail on current away from our current frustrations,
to a concurrent location,
where we don’t stay recurrent with gyrations at endless durations
I hope it doesn’t end too soon..
drifting in an ocean of maroon without deviation
*trigger warning: mention of suicide ideations*
**PSA: I am okay**
I was born on the cusp,
and while I’ve never bought into the idea
of the moon manipulating behaviors,
I’m running out of explanation
for my displacement.
My bones ache with a sorrow
that was created when space expanded.
It formed with the atoms
and leaked into the stars,
wove it’s way into galaxies
and wound up in my marrow.
When I die,
perhaps I, too, will heat up
and expand into vast universes.
Maybe I’ll evaporate.
I’m conditioned to believe that
there exists a slot for me to place myself,
made just for me to find.
But, as I grow older,
and lines appear on my face
like maps from the places
I should have never gone,
but did anyway,
I’m losing interest in finding my place.
I am so unsettled.
Maybe I’ll walk into the sun.
Perhaps,
in years to come,
I can combat the worried lines
on my forehead with sun spots
and scars and crows feet
from experience
and my own terrible luck
and joy.
Maybe I’ll kill myself.
I.
Electric lines stretch from Mendocino
to Big Sur where the rocks jettison distraction,
clamp in fear, culling awe. I work
asleep along the clustered power lines
populated by transformers, the womb
like cities bursting with energy to fill the country.
Fingering a dog-eared copy of Joan Didion,
you dream of darting across slouching California
to leave me ensnared in this Medusa’s thicket,
in a flash of bristling light.
I am rolling clouds come with thunder,
standing atop a ridge
unable to grasp your graces,
vaporlike in my hand.
I’ve ceased to cherish you,
and you have done the same.
II.
I work the line until nightfall,
and walk out thermos in hand to meet you,
the night rain constant on the highway,
our rust bottom truck winds
the road. The stars, nestled white maize
in black porridge, a light peering through
the ether tar, and you and I breathe
under all this corruption.
I’m told he’s been laid to rest
though I know in my heart
he’d rather be up playing
on his tablet. I sit in the stillness
of his darkened bedroom
and stare at his trucks, trains,
and threadbare teddy bear.
The silence, an eerie calm
is deafening. I seek the serenity
of the noisy streets of downtown,
the sirens, the roaring engines,
the guns firing, the screams.
A cartoon spinning stack of
teacups and saucers,
clarity of a drill sergeant and
the patience of Jesus,
doors locked and
communication open,
minds curious and
books censored,
ideas on the table and
words carefully minced,
curriculum followed and
creativity flowing,
bandaids,
blood sugar tests,
temp checks,
inhalers
rubber gloves for pulling loose teeth,
epilepsy meds and
epipens at the ready,
mindful breathing techniques and
self-soothing instructions,
adult egos tended and
self-worth intact,
phone calls and
loud speaker announcements,
mask on and
breath steady,
persona spotless and
inner world exploding.
