American Sentence XXIX
The man unfolds the black and white photo, ponders how late is too late.
This stack of books calls
Stirring hope of progress but
Stalwart reading fails
Seeking finish is folly
We have more stories than stars
I taste harsh words on my tongue,
saltier than tears,
sweeter than loneliness.
Swallow them whole so they cannot creep past my lips but they feed the demons in my mind that say “leave before you are left”.
For a moment I imagine
I am a hurricane moving quickly so you don’t catch the eye.
Swirling, fighting.
So much energy spent to try to
Be Still.
Your silent self-preservation angers me yet still you anchor me,
Bobbing out in the deep, alone, save for the waves.
I’m scared of, and at one with
the storm.
Someone loves someone
I read it on a tree
But, it’s hard to tell
Who the lovers be
For the beech has covered
The letters with a scar
And it’s hard to tell
What the names are
Time changes all
Loves come and go
Proclaiming love
Doesn’t make it, forever so
But someone once loved someone
Enough to carve it on a tree
Since it is in my own backyard
I might have been me
The cat lies on the table
On the back porch,
Still as the Sphynx,
Staring directly at me.
The neighbors think he is their cat;
That his name is Fluffy.
How absurd.
The cat thinks he belongs to no one,
And he thinks that I am lazy.
The cat . . . of all things . . .
Condemning me for laziness.
He sees me sitting here all day,
Staring out into space,
Occasionally dozing,
And judges me.
I can see it in his eyes,
In his posture.
Well, what have you done today?
I retort.
Speak up, Edward, I say.
Speak up!
Catch any mice
To earn your keep?
But he just raises an eyebrow
Licks a paw as if I had not spoken to him.
Condescending jerk.
The neighbors may think his name is Fluffy.
But no one asked Edward what his name was
Until I came along.
And I knew it couldn’t be “Fluffy.”
Perhaps Augustus or Sophocles or even Calvin,
But not Fluffy.
I would like to think that
Edward and I have become friends
Over these long months
Of wasted hours.
After all I have bared my soul to him,
Day after day.
Though he never reciprocated,
Other than his name and
A brief mention of a previous life in the city,
With the abusive old woman.
I realize I hardly know him at all.
Fog escapes from the valley beneath
Obscuring all but the knuckles of peaks
Gods hands clasped in prayer
Standing on the edge looking down
I wonder if they would open to catch me
It’s uncomfortable at first,
having him stare, seemingly
enraptured, through the sliding
glass door, witness to my grooming
as my friend snips at the gray.
But come to think of it, I myself
have been known to stand
at hair salon windows & take in
the show, the stylists like sculptors
chiseling away at blocks of marble.
So why shouldn’t this shaggy old mutt
be allowed to appreciate Laverne’s
consummate artistry, her hands
still quick & nimble after all these years
of making me look almost good?
Maybe he yearns for her touch,
imagines her fingers flitting
through his tangled fur, taming
& trimming that unruly thicket,
the years falling to the floor.
Though I quit smoking,
been living clean, greet each day
with sun salutations
and green smoothie,
I can’t expect to get off scot-free.
That’s not how the body works.
The cells remember,
and they are patient —
they wait for you to find
your life’s purpose,
learn of that new grand baby
due in seven months time,
start over with a better partner
than you deserve,
finally retire from that soul-sucking job,
sign the contract for
your first published book —
biding time stewing
in the body’s bile
until you breathe easily again,
then on some moon-ordained night
they messily divide,
uncoupling like young lovers
caught in flagrante delicto
by a stern parent, hand on light switch,
who’s returned home
too soon.
There is a zoo inside me, the girl says
Two dogs and a cat, who new you best?
She took me home–or what I thought was home
But was in fact the hell she made for us.
She always liked
To get dressed, go for brunch, “maybe
there’s a good movie playing somewhere?”
Wrong religion, we were not churchgoers.
I told her: That’s lovely.
The word was lovely. Love,
Also, maybe, was lovely.
