The grass is golden-green just past the perimeter of my deck, my thoughts circling, circling,
within, reminding me of the shadows of birds between rooftops in Lisboa, nine years distant,
tiny black bodies and a murmuration (like a maelstrom, I wrote, then, in that poem), the wild
and dangerous energy of a city, of a people, of a moment in time suffusing their physical forms
with something else, something other, something I feel, even now, those terracotta rooftops
(that almost took/accepted my life) so far removed from the gabled particle board painted-
black, above where I sit
now.
The death of a cat. A Cookie (a Captain Cookie, if we’re being precise, named by sons
when I’d wanted to name him something mythological, something powerful, something potent,
but children have a way of knowing beyond seeing and you, my boy, were affection and adoration
and inquiry at the edges of blankets, at bed time, entreating an option to enter, and
sleeping against my belly through the night. I held you on top of that belly as the drugs carried you
away, like the way I sat by my father’s bed, he in his coma sleep, and held his hand
as I read him the latest Nicholas Sparks he’d started before his unplanned sabbatical from the conscious
realms. I didn’t know if he’d ever come back to that body, that room, this life; I knew, I chose
that you would not, to your mist-grey body, to my side, to this house. You are buried
a dozen feet, lengthwise, below where I sit
now.
Her phone is silent. On silent. And mine is silent in her absence. The future I had envisioned is
silent, sleeps against my belly like a stone in my intestines and a hollowness in the depths of my
spirit. I see a path through the dark and looming wood of a forest that is dissipating, coming
apart, even as I walk, its edges growing indistinct and undefined, until vegetation and clarity
close and direction fades to a half-remembered voice of lost intuition. And where I sit
now
there are no replies, no read receipts; things lost in the past give no response in the present
or any indication that they are, that I am, seen. Or remembered. The battery on my phone is
diminished to ten percent—and dying. So little time. So brief a transit, this walk through a life
to whatever places remain beyond, on the other side—of a deck, of a body, an enclosure to hold
the fragile buoyancy of a life. Of hope. Any hope. I think on you. I think on what is lost and
losing tangibility. I think on what is left—on a screen, on a deck, inside a tentative place where I sit
now.
It happened quickly enough,
the earth movers came
and scraped the land clean
knocking down the grove of trees
that provided a windbreak
for the little house, then the little house
was laid flat, its floor boards
and door jambs hauled away,
backhoes dug down into the soil,
that good dark loam, to sink steel beams,
graders widened the road to three lanes
with room for a fourth,
someday.
And just like that,
Starbucks and Red Lobster,
Great Clips and Home Depot
so close we don’t really need to drive.
We didn’t know what we’d been missing.
We didn’t know to hate our lives.
begins with barely-get-wet rain
that whispers in trees and kisses
your skin, subdues the raucous
morning chorus.
A morning of water that ticks on leaf,
and leaf shakes off. Glint of pond in distance.
Rain dimples its surface,
sends turtles deep to sleep.
The mass bell hasn’t rung. I am awake
in the sleeping house. I turn from reading
news to poetry, from poetry to window
gazing, eyes and ears unfocused.
The sound of falling water turns off
my brain. My body goes soft. The need
to do rattles the downspout. Worries
wash into the rain barrel. Later,
they will feed the flowers. Right now,
there is only this: green shimmer of grass.
Purple hearts of redbud. Silver sky.
Inhale. Exhale. Sip tea. Repeat.
Who creates these xeriscaped dreams where
everyone clutches their change purse of plans?
I ride my bike for miles through aisles
in the store where everything is bought.
I look for a friend, would settle for a fiend,
but find I’m meant and blessed to be alone.
Silence always has the most to say.
I woke up every morning feeling sickened
We’re tired, dull, and scared now that it’s quickened
We feel the end coming
You and I still running
Never will accept that we are through
And you are
Breaking things, we never tried to fix them
I’m kinda dumb compared to all your wisdom
Now I’m pacing through the hallway
Crying always, all day
I don’t think we’ll bring back what was lost
Our hope, our time
Your love, and mine
We poured our souls out
Is this a sign that
Even though we gave everything
I’m ending up with only
Memories of you and me
Tainted by our apathy
I’m breaking down
Hoping someday we’ll be fine
Now that you’re not mine
hastened down the hatch
the raspberries had become so delicate, after thawing from their frozen settlement they were accompanied by a brownie of chocolate so decadent, I forgot about the boundaries of etiquette and the detailed elements of cabochon embellishments went unnoticed and became of little relevance and with the hurry of such negligence, robbed the baker of their intelligence and lost was the resonance we could have shared with benevolence
chocolate and popcorn
you like them both in your mouth at the same time, we weren’t even watching a movie but that’s fine
you mismatch your socks because pairing them is paradigm, even though both of them have a folding line where your toes align, one mint green and the other pink with a hint of lime
odd combinations of things with you are fine, a quality I find quite sublime
ruby chocolate and wasabi
You dress for the arrival instead of the occasion and never show up on time
you think in actions and have magnetic moments, it’s fine
you might as well lean into what you’re inclined,
pursuit of happiness isn’t a crime
you want them to not expect it but also not be so surprised,
at the devised twinkle in your eyes…
when you smile,
knowingly you sprinkle it in every once in awhile..
creme brûlée and a sorbet
You’re like your desert, a crème brûlée,
you’re sweet décolletage on a sunny champselysées
a friend in pursuit..
I’m ever walking away
I’m bitter, sour, rain under the Eiffel Tower, gray
dark chocolate and sour cherries; a cold sorbet
brownies with sprinkles
you sent me brownies from Peru,
wrote you went back to stay a month or two
Washington, New York, Miami, Malibu
stating they were great but you needed Europe too
figuring out your life felt overdue
all these places that you travel to,
never looking inside of you,
that’s why I said goodbye to you
Morning ray, ethereal mist,
first-light prayer
Softly blanket the newly cut meadows;
Baby-pink whispers of daybreak shadow
Shear-lace cover exposed forms and despair;
haunted whispers echo secrets of holler affairs
below treetops and pinnacle plateaus
thistle-down break through, dancing to tempo
amethyst heads unveiled into thin air.
The wicked wind breaks across trace narrows
Swelling with gust and sigh, the seeds travel;
The struggle witnessed by eye of sparrow
Levitating cotton cross damp gravel;
Feeding the soul and strengthening the marrow
tangled tight but for slumber unravel.
