Tonight
brewery opening
blind date with a book
that’s how we roll
in the after-storm tapir grey
horns sing the song of impatience
and streets smell of overripe mangos and sweet gasoline
radios crackle and lights fizz out like harmonizing fireworks
dios mio
what is rain but an opportunity for the music
of una ciudad de calidez
Hey, it’s me
I’m just calling because
the kids who come in at work like to lie to us for fun
to see what they can get away with mostly
and they smile when they do it
and it’s going to make me boil over
Also I need your opinion on if it’s still gaslighting
if they’re under ten
And if you know a good kid way to say
Hey I’ve got Baggage™ so when you tell me
the reality here is whatever you say it is
it makes me want to burn this place to the ground
But you know, nicely
Call me back when you get the chance
The cool shade of the woods
pulls me into its depths, luring me
further than I’d intended to go,
so rich with vegetation, the air feels green.
There’s a sign for a cemetery,
I make the decision to follow, tracing
a jagged, crooked track downhill,
aromas of cedar and mycelia infusing as
humidity encases me, sweat sticking on
skin like dewdrops left lingering on leaves.
Life hums from edges of the trail out into
trees buzzing, calling, climbing, searching.
I look down and notice a Luna moth
resting on a weed where I almost stepped,
camouflaged, barely visible there amid all
that pale emerald haze.
I walk with a stick, weaving slow circles in
the air matching each step, a steady
rhythm clearing spiderwebs, working to
notice each small thing along my path.
With less access
to formula and tampons
than automatic rifles
we watch celebrities feud in Virginia.
I search “why Virginia”
and “synonyms of hollow.”
Televised live.
Vacant, cavernous, empty.
Some constituents watch the testimony
from hospital beds and recliners
coughing incessantly
or covered in lesions.
I find statistics for “monkeypox”
and the latest “Covid-19 rates.”
I ask my phone about
“Zoloft maybe making it worse.”
I review “how many mass shootings this year”
and wonder about “roe v. wade 2022”
Siri tells me of
“peanut butter recalls”
and “end of the world predictions.”
We are all breaking
news.
I was tethered by children, a house
paid for with an inheritance.
I was tethered by Mahoney furniture
provided by someone’ death.
I was held captive to a dream
I wasn’t cut out for, but no
I had just never learned,
what would be needed,
being a girl after all, and not
allowed to take shop classes.
But still, it was my dream,
the warm green scent of it,
earthy, intoxicating.
And there I was tethered
to a home I had bought
and paid for.
Even as a man’s wild demons
raged and I was desperate to leave.
You are watching this show, set up at the dusty corner
across from your comfort where you were hoping to find
lemonade and instead you got
This
old box as a stage with two flashlights taped Into corners as
spotlights
Inside,
strings pull my hands to this keyboard all
cardboard and tape
my jaw points to the cottonball sky
my heart to the painted forest
my knees to the scattered earth
I want my wooden heart all
Broken and bored through to be
Blessed
Released
Remember, please, when I say this, that this show cost you nothing
There is a latch there, right where anyone would guess it would be
To My heart
Brass and worn, sticky but not stuck.
If no one was looking
(No one is looking)
You might just be able to thumb the catch free.
I am
the slime beneath your shoes
the mold that dusts your bread
the milk that’s spoiling inside your fridge
I am
the coiled snake with rattles shaking
the silent tiger stalking through the grass
the hungry shark roaming the ocean
waiting for the fateful fool
who braves the waves on moonless night
I am
the housefly you so long to swat
the venomous spider spinning webs in darkest corners
the infestation of roaches
ready to squeeze into your ears
the buzzing mosquito looking
to fill my gut with all your blood
I am
the maggots bursting forth
from rotted meat or flesh
the stench of death
filling nostrils and turning stomachs
the pallid corpse with eyes wide open
and I am
thinking
dreaming
of you.
I need a yellow room—sun blessing table cloth,
draping over chair like a rumpled sweater,
puddling floor like a pond.
I need sun to stretch into corners, obliterate
shadows, then kiss the piano into
a crescendo of beams
motes at the center,
dazzling my eyes like topaz & hope,
a dream of warmth & weight that my hands
wrap round & bring
to all things—garden & poetry & night,
& birdsong in my ear, blue jay squawk in spring,
robin tremolo in pitch of rain, crow hag call from bare
branch, wren’s surging throatsong
skimming snow.
~inspired by Patrick William Adam’s “Interior Scene”
