With the tall, long-boned
frame of a basketball player
his large hands could cradle
the pocked orange orb and spring
to score a three point shot.
His sun grooved face
and big teeth, equine
and masculine, highlight
an aw-shucks charm. He’s self-
effacing with a wide smile and a strand
of hair falling loose and always
something to say, often
a contrarian, male
point of view. The heart
of his being merges man
and a whisper of something else.
Humidity rose from deep in the fields of grass
Heat vibrating amongst the air
A clash of Summer against the stillness of the world
She had arrived
In a full-on fury of sweat
Commemorating the journey from a dull sleep
Below the Earth under months of cold and frost
By cascading in connection with the Sun
Violent, white rays of light
Creating the ever most black of closed eyes
Unable to handle the strength of Her beauty
Sun bleaching sides of trees
And Sun scorching innocent leaves
Her fury She sees as a joy
To bring along a party of life and mischief
Amongst the quite lands
She dances across
While Earth silently basks in this whirlwind
Receiving at times the joy
But at times receding back to avoid Summer’s ego
But an ego She does not see
She continues to dance, swirling around
Humidity like a hurricane around Her
Her season’s warmer each year
But not by her own doing
man has encouraged this
man has created the disrespect
man has lacked the compassion
Summer continues in Her bounty
Of heat and sweat
For only She sees growth
Green trees and lush forests
Babbling water gleaming from the Sun
The Earth singing with Life
That would otherwise be tucked away
From the burden that is the cold
But tries to receive Her gift
Tries to see the joy of
Her Summer days
*pursuant to my last submission*
“the places that you’ve come to fear the most”
– Dashboard Confessional
Two days passed, and I went to apologize to your remains,
wet grass and strip of flesh and fur, perhaps an ear
yet listening. What I found was a mouth in the dirt
covered in dead grass, a hollow and sunken lines
of yard beyond. Hints of tunnels, rising though invisible
to my eyes, from beneath the soil and green.
“Maybe he…” I started, my friend beside me saying,
“Maybe he…” and I knew before either continued
we’d thought the same. That maybe you had
escaped the swirling blades I’d been given, the ones
had been given exalted purpose by exalted gods
and a moment.
I only ever found that one ear…so I wonder if you can hear
still, with the one remaining, from deep inside your warren,
(surrounded by your brethren, I hope, and a mother)
and tonight, the two of us saw another, older, (but not so old
as the giant I assume is your mother or father, or
a grizzled veteran of previous owners of this house) so
perhaps your spirits have not fled this space—
we sat under a sky of red and white and blue summer twilight,
my friend and I, and I vowed to watch for you, for that older
rabbit with one ear and a scar, and swore, if I saw you, when
I see you, I will find a way to befriend you, again, and even
bring you inside, to warmth, to love, so that you never grow
so grizzled as our neighbor. I will atone
for the way I was used.
My friend says it is late and he must leave, but also, before,
that he might be leaving Lexington for a job, a perfect job,
back home. Him gone—I think about the injured kitten he found
when first we met. How his love and Capricorn patience has
changed me through the years; taught me poetry and how to break
a line; how to be quiet when healing means rambling; how to listen.
And somehow it all connects.
All makes sense.
If you are here. If you can hear.
I’m finally there.
The two boys in front of me,
6 and 4,
Are nervous about our takeoff.
Mom explains the flaps on the wings
And the lift into air
As we rumble down the runway.
6 holds up both arms,
Like he’s on a rollercoaster,
And 4 does, too.
With hesitance.
Once we’re aloft, though,
Everything’s smooth.
4, almost whispering:
“We’re flying over a barn.”
I can’t see his face,
But I hear his voice
And its unbridled awe …
“I can see the whooooole town.”
And then
We’re in the clouds.
Note: After 22 days of poetry there’s no reason why you should read a poem this long but if you do I’ll write a little thank-you poem & send it to you. Love, Linda
Born on the Same Day
No scraps of time between
contractions, no rest
stops for breathing—blood
engine of birth. My son
is a bone & scarlet
asteroid hurling
between galaxies—my body
& St. Paul. Nine years
before & on the same
day, Commander
Gene Cernan scratches
his daughter’s initials in lunar
sand. He is the last
man on the moon. Of his walk
he says he wants to freeze
time. Back on earth—the gravity
of his marriage. “If you think
going to the moon is hard, try
staying home,” Cernan’s wife quipped
to a reporter. There was a withdrawal—
not black but muddy green swirled
with creek mud. Postpartum,
I’m told two decades later. By then
it had folded into me like heavy
cream in gravy. “Daddy, now that you’ve gone
to the moon will you take me
camping like you promised?” Cernan’s
daughter Tracy pleaded, oblivious
to the moon. Son,
did you feel like that when
your moods soared
& slumped? I stitched
you back together with the twine
of my life but the threads
snapped & now you’re
not here. I scream
my apology to what’s in front
of me—the cashier, the sassy
waitress in this street
corner cafe. You aren’t
listening, but your refusal
won’t stop me. My darling
boy, I’m so sorry. I love
you. Please forgive
me. I apologize
to my puppy, my key
chain. To this smothered bean
burrito. To the moon rising
above the skyline. Like Gene
you had a restless
streak. Once he crashed
his helicopter while chasing
a dolphin. “Let’s get this mother
out of here,” his commanding
voice boomed & the Lunar
Rover torpedoed 250K back
to blue & green. Gene had
a deep hunger just
like you. After roving the moon’s
floor for three days he collapsed
in surrender & wept. Son, Gene
returned from outer
space & weightlessness. Huddling
with blankets & hot
dogs next to a popping
campfire we used to howl
our love—unbounded—
to the moon. Remember?
When lightning struck a tree, a poem emerged in an image: Baryshnikov dancing in a film— in a room with only a chair. Over it—on it—seemingly through—it he danced the kind of poetry in motion that I understand from the inside out when I write. When lightning struck a tree, the boundaries of where I end & where I begin merged in silence. I flourished in my creative subconsciousness. Perhaps I will use your secret for being happy or maybe I will write you gliding across the sky like lightning the way Baryshnikov danced.
You were my friend.
You dated
then married
my Brother.
After 25 years
you called it quits.
You turned
the boy
then the girl
against him.
You barred
him
from your
dad’s
funeral.
He called me
in tears.
He couldn’t
let go
of you,
the boy,
the girl,
your dad.
I tried
my best
to console.
Your sister
found
him
hanging
in the
closet.
Now
I am
still
tore
up.
After he broke my little finger,
snapping the bone to make me leg go
of my phone, it swelled by a third
& the ligament pulled tight, leaving
the finger curved inward like a claw.
The middle knuckle froze, useless
for typing, gloves out of the question.
No health insurance then so I didn’t
get it fixed. For years I kept my left hand
balled into a fist, hoping that no one
would notice the claw, the knuckle
turned to stone. When anyone did,
I’d tell a story about being jumped
by a stranger on a street one night.
No one questioned it. I even bragged
that I had put up a struggle & held
onto the phone, as if I’d been brave.
This week I tell the story again
to the therapist working on my finger,
stretching the ligament, prying the claw
open. The knuckle is still frozen
but she’s determined. She dips my hand
in hot paraffin, pulls off the glove
of wax & stretches my finger, presses
it down with heavy weights. It hurts,
almost as much as it did that night,
but she holds my hand as she does it,
the first time anyone has held it since
he did. I want to tell her that he wasn’t
a stranger, that it wasn’t on the street,
that he’d held my hand other times,
too, & it never really hurt except
that once. I want to tell her who he was,
but that would be telling her who I was.
Instead I ask if she’s ever heard of a basilisk,
an ancient monster that looks at its prey
& turns it into stone. A basilisk looked
at my hand, I tell her, & see what happened?
She says at least it was just a finger.
