Posts for June 8, 2024 (page 10)

I.

We hide the pill in a small ball of mozzarella.

Nancy used to eat around the pill

and spit it out,

Angel swallows the entire thing in one gulp.

She is mad for cheese,

thus she is our people.

This morning,

I offered her

her daily cheese ball.

She took it gently from my hand

as always.

But soon thereafter

she was jumping at me playfully

and snapping at my fingers

as if I had more goodness

I was with withholding from her.

It gave me the kind of laugh

I need to start my day.

II.

A few weeks ago,

I did not

put the pill

firmly in the cheese.

Angel bit into the cheese

and the pill fell out.

Before I could reload

another piece of mozzarella,

she looked down at the pill,

sniffed it,

licked it up

and swallowed it.

She is the easiest dog I have ever loved.

My geraniums were tore 
all to hell and I suspected
a squirrel was to blame
his bastard paws parting
the soil to pocket a nut
                                                                                I do not mind battle, the excitement
                                                                                 carries one through

The next morning
the squirrel was laid out
just beyond the swiss chard
as if fainted dead away
unmarred, waiting for
someone to palpate his apron
soft and white and covered in flies –
                                                                            I ate but was not satisfied
                                                                            with nuts in their season

No one wanted to fool
with the dead squirrel
in the backyard except
the new world vultures
who were happy
to apply for the job

                                                                         Two kinds live in this garden
                                                                         The dead and us

Then another showed up
in the bare branches of the pink oak
and another and another
willing collectors of carrion
discussing meat disposal

                                                                        Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver,
                                                                        But when your enemies lay before you, rejoice

and me, tree eavesdropping

tips on how to be lighter—

let go my old bark.

Branch out to hold more

up.

Today i walk my gender graveyard 

sitting on the side bouncing in our chairs
to the band on the stage enjoying
watching the older folks dancing
(we are closer to being those older folks
then we care to admit)
trying to get you to dance
nobody is watching you I promise
nobody is going to come up to you
in kroger and say I saw you dancing
and you looked ridiculous
nobody here cares how you look

I wanted to feel dizzy again,
with the input of experiences leading to ambivalences in emotions I let in

I remember you,

I think

at least I try to remind myself after I drink

I’m not sunk yet, but I sink
admiring the one who drowns themself in ink
as I stare curiously without blinks

I spend so much time thinking about the right questions to ask,

you were here a short forever and gone so fast
memories from a flask, do you also, in bourbon bask?

Whereby I stabbed my palm 

In eighth grade, 
I wasn’t jealous 
of the cheerleader
who sat next to me 
in social studies class. 

I was jealous 
of the girl 
who lay next to me
in the critical care unit.

She’d chosen a razor blade,
while I had picked pills. 

Six months
after we were released 
I found out
she’d tried, tried again
and succeeded. 

All I’d done
was get elected
to the homecoming court.

Though Bonsai twisted
by love, toil and trouble
with joy I go on