On Contact
don’t watch stitches spin
break fast for first and through it
hustle for safety
Maybe we have just reached that point in our story
The part everyone hates
“2 years later”
“8 years later”
“20 years later”
The point where there is nothing to tell
Except pain and loneliness
And who wants to just read that?
The point where we don’t speak,
Our memories will fade as time goes on
I’ll forget how your hair fell when it was wet,
And you’ll forget to tell me happy birthday
Everyone left wondering what happened
Our story always unfinished
Until we meet again,
Whether that’s for one page
Or a thousand
I went to Rural King to buy bird seed,
eat the free popcorn and look at the 40% off plants.
Used to have to buy dog and cat food
but the last of our pets are gone
so the birds and wild critters are all we have left —
Brownie, and Two-tone, Big Momma and Little Mama.
Oh, look, there’ s Little Guy in the pine tree.
Am I wrong to want to show off a squirrel
in the yard like people show off their purebred dogs?
But wait until you see Golden Boy…
The only way to miss someone is like crazy,
like full on I’m gonna write it big on a sign crazy,
like I’m gonna get a mallet in the middle of the night
and pound that shit into the ground crazy,
like I’m gonna learn the violin for the next six years
just so I can appear all ethereal under your window
and play you the perfect song that will put lift
into your nightgown and float you down to the ground
where we will let go of the violin and the lessons
and run out into the streets where we will
make the same mess all over again but this time
laughing, this time a new wild in our eyes crazy.
This one goes out to Debra Glenn and Linda Freudenberger, who I don’t know, but with whom I share mutual intrigue about a sign they saw yesterday on the side of the road that read “miss you like crazy.” Being the good poets that they are, they then posted poems in response to the sign’s endless tantalizing mysteries. So, now, here’s mine! Go check out theirs too.
torn from the film envelope
all vivid images
caught by one small
glass eye a segmented shutter
closing like a lid on
the marketplace its
unpronounceable name
tangy bouquet spices & lilies
turquoise ocean laced
white edges
improbable scarlet
birds that pirouette
& jette far above
eddies laying themselves
to dry
on ivory sands
all reduced to glossy
fragments
fading as you watch
unable to keep
their promises
that when you cry in a park,
people care:
the landscaper
tells you about the book
he’s been reading to his daughter
every night before bed,
the park services worker
asks you if they’re happy tears
(they were),
my lover
just holds me,
the children
learn to cry too
i think
there’s something beautiful
here
All the ambitions I have had have had leaks like defective boats.
All the words I have had have had meanings I didn’t mean.
Everyday shadows shadow everyday people every day.
All the dollars I have had have had other places to go,
to oil companies, back to the government that printed them,
to insurance companies that ensured my soul would never be ravaged
by riches, and all the angers I’ve had have had reasons
to grow in my gut like pearls in oysters, but I think my shadow
has had enough of shadowing me. It’s ready to roam alleyways
and haunt coffeeshops without me cramping its style–a teen’s parent–
and I admit my humanity has made me want to hide
from bill collectors, from conversations, even pleasant ones, shit,
from my own shadow. Shadow, the years we’ve had together have
pulled me apart. Though we’re parting, you’ll always be part of me.
I just saw the bottle-brush cat
kill a squirrel in it’s prime
I watched from across the street as it flailed
And wondered what power
must that cat have, as it barely
seemed to notice
just went on blinking slowly in our direction
At the same moment a Blue Jay alit
And commenced to wailing
as they do
-Police birds of the neighborhood-
Murder! Beware! This Black cat is marked!
Don’t trust it!
It takes no prisoners!
Don’t unlock your doors!
A cardinal came to listen
To the fervent sermon
My cat,
who has been hellbent
on banishing old bottle brush all week,
was on the verge of crossing the road
for not the first time
to instill a lesson into that cat
but I wonder if deep down
her pride took a hit
seeing someone else “villain”
so much better than her
