My father
held
an unor-
thodox
love
for Marys.
His
mother:
Mary.
His
wife:
Mary.
His
mistress:
Mary.
Legend
says
that St.
Anne
gave birth
to
three
Marys.
There were
three
Marys
at
the
crucifixion.
There
were three
Marys
at
the tomb.
Prom-
inent in
the
Gospels
are
three
Marys.
One
would
think
my name
would
be
Mary.
it
is
not.
I risk running aground
My black anchor
pants pink
but she has no chain
I lost our map to the desert
I will not go with the dog
for nights of silent stars
She could not share my memory
I am a rogue planet
could harbor life
for want a sun’s warmth
She and I dog paddle
I breathe five breaths
to count me present
push against the water’s depth
(synastry reeling red
as a tetchy obsession with tangling thread
and absolving knots beyond ponderous gullets
of aglets pecking at mother-tucked husks of a seedbed)—
Theogaloam,
what sniggering lampposts speak and
concede at dusk to the corkscrewing
fireflies spryly trepanning a blistered chin,
the simpering possum’s shin now
aroar with serratia marcescens mistaken
for tartly laboring legions of leprous
ketchup—
theogaloam,
sigh of a craftsman’s malcontent
when prying the fly from the marmalade,
bass strings whingeing angels crimp around
moments of woefully treacly simplicity,
cat’s allowing mere moths to live,
and the prickling din of a city
come Christmas Eve, the trash cans
toppled, reprieved, and sweetly
repurposed to furnish a log flume—
theoga loam,
more than a quickening sense of a sticky agenda,
crickets colluding with cryptic stars
arranged to rekindle in clamorous tar,
in macadam bid ambered and amply scalped,
those prowling hordes of bloodhounds quietly
cleaving with wheezing prows the calamitous
static once sieved to seem maybe like
this and that,
the salt of the Caspian, clabbering milk fat
woven to more than a souring cloud, a
vision enshrouding some finicky cryptid
gilt, prophetic, imperiled—
the oga loam,
smiling miles from hell or home
interred in a tarrying locust,
wisteria’d thorns the dully stuttering
gar teeth clung along teats of a marigold
lamppost gargling ardent nymphs
and summoning, but as mere recompense,
these twisted soles of their sister stars
to smudge among buttery dust and alacritous
shadows those harrowing hymns of the famished
dermestids licking the scythe aglint and
steering but peaking weeds to bay
as coyotes rasp at infecund escarpments,
as shadows thrash and thrum at collapsing
scowls, and, crassly as sycamores howl,
demurring to turn in their half-dead dances
Brahmin and dryads derived from a simpering
starling’s psalm,
or the owl’s epistles as
shrill and fulfilling as stammering lampposts
yawn—
and long to dissemble a white-knuckled sunset.
At the end, struggling to breathe,
Mom announced I never thought I would die.
“Really?” I said. “Do you know how much
time most people squander worrying
about their death?”
Why on earth would anyone do that?
you said, fading. It takes a few minutes,
that’s all.
Beloved, though it be selfish
I pray I die before you
I cannot fathom life
without your smile
the curve of your hip
the scent of your hair
the feel of your soft cheek
the gentle touch of your hand
Let my last sight be your soulful eyes
let my last sensation be your soft hands on my face
let the last thing I hear be your sweet voice whispering
Let the last thing I say be I love you forever
I look up the spelling of tzatziki.
Microsoft Word suggests “tatami.”
I wonder why it knows the word
for a type of Japanese flooring
but not the Mediterranean
yogurt and cucumber dip.
I look up the spelling of minutiae.
Singular, minutia. But who would
ever handle one minutia?
No one I know. Minutiae is
pronounced muh—NOO—shee—ee.
Has anyone ever used the long
double “e” in conversation?
I write:
Militant minutiae march
across the stage.
It only takes a minute to
make their matters known.
I cross it out. My tummy hurts.
I think about puns involving
tzatziki and the feeling of “icky”.
My eyes flit over to my notes and
I glance at the first three lines:
-to swallow whole the sea
-impasse
-a glass of red wine in a theater of dreams
Oh, my love! My dream! There’s an
entire ocean raging inside me. But,
for too many reasons, we can’t
break free.
On a wobbly wharf
a row of tall totem
elders, hands fisted,
stare sternly over
sea-green water,
guide boats home
like lighthouses.
Moored canoes bob
with each wave,
knock against rot.
