Posts for June 13, 2022 (page 9)

Dear Caroline, 

                    Hi sweetie, I hope you feel better about your insecurities today. I know you don’t like the attention your height brings to you. I personally think it would be amazing to be 6’1 at twelve years old. You’ll never have to ask someone to get you something from the top shelf or be upset about the sun visor not actually blocking the sun for you when you are old enough to drive. I got the photo you sent me of you in your basketball uniform and you look like an all star! I’m doing okay, I appreciate you asking. Still holding on to a few strands of hair. My doctor said it is not likely to grow back but my friend Elma and I are going to the wig shop on the south side of town to find me some new hair. The shop is called “Bad Hair Day’, I really find a lot of humor in that. I’ve always had dark hair so I thought maybe it would be fun to change that. They do say variety is the spice of life. I’ll just have to get there and see I suppose. I hope your team does well this season and I’m looking forward to your next letter.

                                                                                        Your Pen Pal,
                                                                                                      Rosemary 

tossed and tumbled dry
spines-drawn alien carried here
blocks my exit at the gate

                still water today               
                       our fingers touch while floating
                                                 among cloud shadows

Work’s not weird now, just silent … ish
I walk to my home office
No more pesky drive with sweary words
Hardly any words these days
Spoken, that is
But lots of emails
Each one filled with words
Zooms, too, are talky
Yet things whispered in my office
Or guffawed at during lunch
Go unsaid between our homes

Morning unfolds like haiku, 
serenity and mystery. Lone duck
floats on reflected pink cloud.

Call of mourning dove 
supplies five-syllable line.
Splash-plop of fish: six and seven.

Cottages sleep in tree shadows. 
Boats bob on tethers. Goldfinches
chatter, decorate the silence.

For ending twist, great blue heron 
unfolds wings, lifts off, lands 
by table with last night’s wine glasses.

But. The quickest way to say,
“I kind sorta listened to what you said–
now I’m going to add the part I care about.”

And is so much better. It tells a story
of togetherness and cooperation.

Or is how you say you see
a different path.

Either tells me you don’t care which–
it is the “I don’t give a shit” of words.

Neither starts with an “N”,
just like “no”. Coincidence?

But why can’t we speak in short sentences
and decide whether to say this 
or that and pause to consider if
either is really worth saying or if
neither makes a difference?

Oh yeah–if. That’s a good one.
If speaks of possibilities and
of a future that
just
may
be.

I announced the death with repugnant details
to completely random people –
so I could quickly get rid of them,
to chase away their dreadful manners.

My loved ones suspect nothing:
every caring touch mimics a random gesture,
deliberately illustrates someone else’s deed.
(Just my breastbone disappeared.)

Author: Marin Bodakov
Translator: Katerina Stoykova

Mirrors reflects walls

One night coming home from the agency
after the customary stop at the bar 
for his vodka martini, my dad wrapped the T-
bird around a tree, an oak 
rising next to the winding road,
a creek whispering in the shadows. 
Broke both legs at the knees, 
four cracked ribs, a deep gash 
across his forehead. 
It’ll be a miracle if he walks again
the doctors said, but he willed himself 
back on those busted stems, cantankerous hinges 
the rest of his days.

I think of him as I drive the same road, 
how I’m falling short of the man I could be,
reeling from rather than rising above 
my own poor decisions.
The tree is fuller than it would have been,
no visible signs of a scar, no shard
of bark out of place.

Firemen pulled him out of the wreck,
he balanced on those shredded knees,
put his suit jacket on over a dress shirt 
splotched like a red Rorschach,
and said, I’m going home to my wife and kids, 
words that rose up off the road,
stumbled through the shattered night,
into the mist of unattainable legend.