Philistine
Perfumed
Liposuctioned
Half-baked Christian
You deduced me, reduced me
For fat on bended knees
And tears for loss from overdose, addiction
My indignation is futile
Judge lest ye be judged
For you know not what you do
Hey, I can be a little high maintenance too
A meretricious role model
I didn’t need the lesson in what not to do
When my children bring home their person
I’ll love them too
Like a small rodent, I scurry through narrow
passageways between walls of academia
land in a classroom teaching everything
proud of how I do it, distill it,
condense it to a scattering of North Stars
When maturity melts
my students’ faces
I’m done
I run
to a table for two atop a fire engine
That’s where I notice
a baby without a body
just a spotlight
a black circle
a shadow of nothing
a little me
a shadow of nothing
and I wonder how nothing casts a shadow
Fly the Buzzard, flop, flop, flop, sings woman to child absent from her knee.
Tell me this means something.
It doesn’t have to be true, not entirely.
Just enough to feel like it could be.
Speak to me in the language of bodies crashing against each other,
of roaming hands and greedy lips.
Let me know you.
Let me want you.
Let me bask in this delirium of possibility but a while longer…
Dad daddy Sergeant Zabielski what do you think I am made of money? money doesn’t grow on trees close the door you’re letting the heat in close the door you’re letting the heat out & besides we haven’t got the money a litany heard many times rants all seven of us kids eventually tuned them out we went our separate ways only in hindsight can I imagine the struggle he had to earn enough his jobs never had real potential he chose to re-enlist for the health insurance he tried his own businesses bought a huge copier in a small west Texas town before Kinko’s existed but never charged enough because people didn’t have much money he retired there because that was where my mother was born & raised & they wanted to be 1973 back-to-the-landers he sold Amway at cost same results he never made money became the janitor & drove the school bus all the kids saluted Sergeant Zabielski when they got on the bus there was TV the La-Z-Boy & popcorn at the end of each day I called as often as I could & daddy said it was always good to hear my voice he cried when Kennedy was shot protested at the TV when garbage workers weren’t paid enough he stood for Polish solidarity a good Catholic he had seven kids went to mass every Sunday when the traveling priest came to town & during the last years of her life his Polish mother came from Chicago to live with him sat in a rocking chair every day during the night she raided the refrigerator eating food calculated for specific recipes planned for the next day she died sitting in that chair dad died in the ER years later Ray, can you hear me? the nurse asked No dad answered & then he was gone.
Box with green ribbon.
Label and disc.
I have never heard such silence.
Small aqua-knit cap.
White fabric with gray elephants.
Some faces will eat you alive with guilt.
Verify information.
Check, sign.
Some things you never unsee.
Ink pad.
Softly pressing
for perfect memory.
Delicate.
Painful.
Tears on a prep-table.
Shaking pen
Disrupted expression.
I have no words.
Same date.
Tears on a prep-table.
Rimed pumpkin puddle
Who knew that our son would turn into the young man
who shopped for us during the pandemic
who plants sunflowers
and cleans the litter box
and invites me to Kentucky Native Café
to widen my circle of friends
and suggests I sit too close to the computer screen
and sang harmony with me at his sister’s wedding
and shows his friends more largesse than he can afford
and cooks for his girlfriend
and practices forbearance toward the elderly
and for whom alone the cat purrs?
about the surface of a lake colored with fragile shadows of sky, trees in wind, an empty canoe knotted to a dock, long-necked geese, how happiness rises when I follow replicas bleach & bloom as sun sails in & out of clouds? And even better if the tree is a weeping willow with arching, drooping branches that sway narrow pale green leaves with dreamy silver undersides. Dreamy as fog on a lake in early morning—the soft fuzz, screen of dampness, veil of mystery.
1
There was a young lady from Berea
who flirted with a salesman from Ikea.
He showed her a bed
& asked, You give head?
She said Dude! You have no idea!
2
There once was a private from Fort Knox
whose tackle hung down to his socks.
He wasn’t the smartest
but his was the hardest
when he and his friends compared cocks!
3
There was an old lady from Harlan
whose name was Myrtle McFarlane.
She loved Conway Twitty—
once flashed him her titty,
to which he responded, Hello darlin…
