Posts for June 2, 2024 (page 14)

Mostly because I am lazy,
Partly because I love it,
I landscape with poke.

A native plant, it sprouts early and fast.
Green praying hands ‘poke’ up through neglected soil
Quickly rising above other ‘weeds’.

They say it is poisonous-
But it is also delicious-
The puffer fish of spring foraging.

It has established itself in the bed
Outside my westfacing kitchen window.
Its speedy, gangly growth provides welcome shade.

Large green leaves and red stems
Provide texture and color.
Small white flowers create purple berries

Enjoyed by birds who spread the seeds
And staining purple shit, to cars and lawn furniture.

Sensitive to cold, its season ends with the first frost
But, its roots remain, waiting for the next spring.

You are deduced to meal.

Sold in a plastic tub, 99¢

You do not know this is your reality

You do not know your last moments on the earth I have been blessed with

will be spent wrapped in the unhinged jaw of a Predator.

Its teeth will slice through your thin skin and you will be the first of many.

I will try to desensitize myself to this reality.

The man I love will cover my eyes as he feeds you like Prey to the slithering scaled creature in its glass cage.

He will tell me, “they’re feeder mice baby, circle of life.”

I know in some form that is truth. That you would not live long either way. But the crack of a spine will ring through my ears. And I know it is yours.

**Trigger Warning: Miscarriage, Pregnancy Loss, Stillbirth

“In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.”
– St. Augustine

They had given me an epidural
But the pain was still excruciating

I couldn’t tell if it was mental or physical
But I felt it in every fiber

I let out low moans
And heavy sobs

It was the day I birthed death

The lifeless babe eventually came
But the placenta did not

Hands were inside and outside my body
They pushed and pulled violently

With my head shoved against the headboard
I begged, “Dear God, make it stop”

Dead baby in bassinet to my left
Sobbing husband in chair to my right

“Dear God, make it stop”
It didn’t

Some grace-filled voice finally broke through:
“Let’s give her ‘something’ and take her back for a D&C”

The last thing I remember was someone strapping down my arms, cruciform

It was a moment of intimacy
Like I had never known

Someone understood this pain
He had taken it with Him to Golgotha

It was the day He birthed life from death

Brighter than sunbeams
His glory danced all around

The pain didn’t stop
But it was being pierced

The One who transformed death into victory
Was stitching the darkness with brilliant light

I was thrown into the abyss
And there, I found Him

I reached out to touch His wounds

“My Lord and my God!”

Cool enough to sleep with the sliding door cracked

Sung to slumber by the crickets

Vibrating lullaby

Second story apartment

The balcony isn’t too high

The screen doesn’t lock

What if someone scales it

Catches me by surprise

Its inherently more dangerous

To carry womanhood between your thighs

Tonight I’ll let the wind kiss my face

And hope I live to see the sunrise

Loneliness is the bulb of life beneath the brittle foliage and frost, hard and unmoving, that wakes again in the light of another dawn;
it is the orchid that lifts its beautiful head to nod at the abundant newness, a reckoning with the forgotten melody   

a lifetime has passed
since I last jumped rope
I leak from glee 

we wander up the mountain of your childhood I can read the stories on your face you tell me this one day is enough but then
I remember US- thumbs out on road after road for
months hiking and hitching on highways and winding country roads heat scented by tall
pines climbing sand dunes on Les Iles de la Madeleine eating canned
sardines and oysters out of backpacks riding with insane teenage Québécois fearing for our
lives six hours in rain hitching out of Quebec City Sleeping in
packing crates, in culverts, under bridges, in a teepee, under stars sailing on ferry boats Saint Lawrence River  Lake Michigan, walking the bridge at Souix st Marie
nothing but the blue of distnce.

now this Faulknerian
journey gold haze of memory
every painful step

A mongoose catches a hoop snake differently
than two short snakes of disparate temperament.  

Saints are babies learning to say their names.
Saints have three names and can ignore most lies.  

Three different mongooses, one for each snake.
Every fight’s a different martial art.  

My spine pines to revert to tissue paper.
This spongey brain is a baffled baffle.  

Angels crowd the ring and lay down bets.
Sometimes they bet on the snake, and that’s okay.

It seems to happen at least

1
Sometimes late at night
I think of that day at the coffeeshop
when I took your picture & you refused to smile.
It plays over & over in my mind in a loop,
a dog chasing its tail.

2
In middle school
the boys wore shirts with loops on the back.
The girls who were sweet on them
would sneak up behind & yank off the loops
as keepsakes, declarations of interest. My loops
remained in place.

3
Hula hoop, lasso, engagement ring, noose.

4
The planets move around the sun
in loops like a rubber band
stretched between my index finger
& thumb, elliptical.

5
You looped your arm
around mine, walked with me
a while, then
let me go. 

6
My mother found crochet late in life,
her hook looping strands of yarn into sweaters
& sofa throws. She was making me a comforter
when she died. A friend of hers finished it,
closing the circle.

7
It was some dark matter
that drew us together, dark energy
that pushed us apart.

8
I make the same discoveries,
the same mistakes, over
& over again, a snake
swallowing its tail.

9
I’ve been happily single for years now
but when someone asks me out for coffee,
I say yes.