Posts for June 20, 2024

I saw your face in the clouds
all your faces in a row
looking down at me
in my yoga flow

You’re all gone now
and it’s only my dna left
they say you never die
if you leave someone

The only one with kids
from my maternal line
It looks like I’m the
last one standing

I thought about all your
bad habits like smoking
clearly none of you
thought about dying

I ride my bike 8 miles
Swim and lift weights
for thirty minutes each
Yoga or Pilates for 1 hour

This is me 5 days of week
It’s just the way I’m made
You once said I was a breed apart
I think it’s undiagnosed ADHD

Who knows how long I’ll be here
I don’t have any health issues
but my word recall is pretty bad
I might live long but won’t remember

Flush out
silence with last
week’s anecdotes.  Plastered
smile, scripted laugh.  Stare at gum tins
’til it’s over.

this is not
your typical poem
it is the opposite of today
a short stab of light,
free of warmth
then getting uncomfortably dark
and where the sun sets
as early as this
ends

Among the livin
are dead men
walkin

still talkin
sayin’ nothin
to the masses

Stacked upon
blood and
money

and money 
and blood

dead men rulin” 
from the souls
of the families

they eat

even their own
relentless
repetitive
ruin

lies on loop

generation
after
generation

these dead men
believe they are
alive 

and most days
it seems the
livin are eager

to oblige

Pink fire opal aura
A smear of milky mica
Lifting an eyebrow

Pink fire opal aura
A smear of milky mica
She glides up the stairs

Her angle is steep
The street stretches on tip toes
She lifts an eyebrow

Untethered balloon
On tip toes, over chimneys
Painting a sidewalk

Glow of gorgeous light
How playful you are bouncing
Toddling up stairs

Half guard
full guard
closed guard
Butterfly guard
spider guard
X guard ,
don’t be scarred

Top mount
side mount
Back mount ,
reach around

If I catch you in my Imanari Roll ,
I’m sorry.

Would you prefer my ko-uchi- gari?

That’s my stripe!

That’s my stripe!

Whatcha gonna do when that leg is locked?

Or I’m on top,

And there ain’t no bell and I won’t stop.

Jiu-jitsu

Can save you

Jiu-jitsu- 

Where’s my stripe!?

Whiskers stored in drawers
clear claw sheaths stuck in pillows—
sharp points in goodbye

I ramble through my old town, missing you,
even though these were never streets we knew  

together. I pick up things. Then, I buy them. Now,
everything’s spread on the bed at the home  

where I’m staying. & it’s all purple. It’s all you. Every
last bit of it & I don’t know what to do. My hands  

stained just another envy I still own. I pick up
three postcards, the photographer an old friend.  

Her expert eye fades through fields of overshot
chrysanthemums. On another, a bulb show, various  

stages of collapsed anemones. What’s not purple
is yellow—day lilies, mums’ stubborn centers,  

& a sweet double tulip. It, then, double exposed.
Beyond this, a book from the bargain bin—  

a resource on plants from Maryland to Maine.
On the cover, two tentative crocuses striate purple  

& white. Their yolk-yellow stamens break open
as they bloom. Then, the crocus takes a turn  

to double on a vintage handkerchief. Embroidered
two-toned petals with a matching scalloped edge,  

one pass of perfect mid-purple thread. I’m drenched
in you. I try to cleanse my palette with a slim  

book of poems. Local poet, a dollar to read her
two-decade-removed authority on heartbreak—  

the divorce & I don’t know what else. On the bed,
I absent-mindedly flip through muted pages flicked  

with words I don’t read until bright purple endsheets
appear unexpectedly like sudden, saturated grief.

the neighbors finally knocked

I smile into the camera and
attempt to make eye contact
during Zoom meetings,
even though I’m not sure
it’s possible, and
I tell corny childhood stories
revealing too much information
about myself.

Sometimes, I laugh or cry or
get too invested in feelings
because empathy isn’t something
I know how to turn off,
so I show up with books and
jars of homemade jam and
odd little treasures to make
someone else smile.

I send messages and memes and
heart all the posts celebrating
delights and joys because
we all need more of those, and
even though sometimes texts
get buried, I eventually uncover
them and respond thanking you
for your patience.

I could never run for office.
I’m not good at hiding my face,
so it’s always easy to see
my thoughts during conversations,
and I can’t disguise a reaction
no matter how hard I try.

But that’s okay.
I wouldn’t want to anyway.