It’s Like Riding A Bike
she whispers in my
sleep-filled mouth a slender foot
now gathering need
It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
— Atticus Finch
First of all, Atticus,
a housefly is no mockingbird.
I’ll grant they both have wings
& a song, if you can call that
droning buzz a song (an original
at least, unlike the mockingbird’s
karaoke of its neighbors’ greatest
hits), but even you couldn’t
concentrate with that racket
in your ear—or fail to think
of what it likes to eat & where
it lays its eggs—& before I know it
the swatter’s in my hand
& then comes the silence,
blissful at first but then somehow
not. There’s the corpse to deal with,
for one thing, or maybe it’s the way
a corpse is a corpse no matter
whose, or how even with those
compound eyes like disco balls
it rarely sees the swatter coming,
defenseless as a child skipping rope
beneath a falling piano, or how
near sunset it’s drawn to the light
streaming through the west-facing
window, where it’s a sitting duck
or would be if I weren’t drawn there
too, distracted by the very same sight,
& we both fall still & gaze
in wonder at the end of the day.
but still I think of you whenever
a thunderstorm lands, a good gullywasher,
how we’d snuggle on your sunporch loveseat,
awed, soothed by the rhythmic downpour,
the way wind dragged the raindrops, how sometimes
they fell in sheets, the wet shine of the deck,
bodies of our cars, green leaves,
the surprise of lightning spikes that flashed,
zigzagged, forked. To fully relish the drama,
we remained silent except for concurrent startled
intakes of breath at lightning’s close spurt
followed by an intense thunderbolt
that rattled the window glass, rumbled
the soles of our feet. O, that lush, musky petrichor.
when you feel the urge to be generous in your 9 to 5
even as those above you push productivity as the highest virtue
when it occurs to you
to send a hand-written note to a colleague
for no particular reason other than you thought of them
to attend the lecture for a friend whose work is unrelated to yours
to take a meal to coworker who is pregnant and deserves a night off from cooking
to publicly praise the intellectual efforts of a co-worker
do the thing
submit to the nudge
resist the pressure from those above you
to engage only in things that can be counted
to pursue a path of upward mobility
to monetize and manipulate and monitor
everything
to be made into their likeness
what would like look like if the ultimate purpose of work became that of
helping us all to become more human
connecting and building up
rather than dividing and conquering
fostering our truest selves
A Mother’s Day to remember.
The emotional sucking, life-
form has dissolved forever.
Happy Mother’s Day to me 😁
we’re eating corn snacks
laying back to back
and front to front
i can finish two cigarettes
in the time two of you can finish one
we’re a spoon and a fork
and the bed is the drawer
you and me and all of our tats
wherever you are is where i’m at
you’ll wake me up just to go back to sleep
in papaw’s bed with the dogs at our feet
our grades are posted
we chatter like kids in line for lunch
families lean forward in bleachers
to cheer on their graduates
poised for summer
Can chatbot rhyme
and measure meter?
Can it extend a metaphor?
Can he/she/they catch
morning light across the new
plowed field and feel it
as a lost nostalgia?
If it goes out
at first light
after a restless night
to search those fresh turned
furrows and reaches down
to dirt to find
an ancient arrowhead,
a shard of flint knapped
expertly by hands whose
bones eroded many many
moons ago, does it’s own
hand tremble?
Because every story (must have) a beginning
and every soul (is but) amalgamation
of half-remembered truths—
Once Upon a Time…
An idea became a (dark) dream became the (shadow) of a man
and when the man deigned to sleep, the night shuddered and released its breath,
one shaky exhalation that chased the pale circumference of the moon’s breasts
and everyone found listening
heard the shadow (almost) say
it is good.
And the moon’s eyes fluttered in feverish anticipation
(the stars, alone, watching the clouds twist in her hands)
and the sound that escaped her lips was more than guttural
and when she languorously slipped
one silken foot across the roof
and gooseflesh of the other
the crickets, below, faltered
seeing themselves undone
and the cows hid their faces
behind lonesome trees
and nobody (else) lowed
for fear their voices
might be heard
or worse—
understood.
