Patron Saint of One Way Trips
I read somewhere
that Sputnik 2
along with Laikas body
circled the Earth
2,570 times
before disintegrating
in our atmosphere
How can that be true?
I saw her pulling
Helios’s chariot
just this morning
I read somewhere
that Sputnik 2
along with Laikas body
circled the Earth
2,570 times
before disintegrating
in our atmosphere
How can that be true?
I saw her pulling
Helios’s chariot
just this morning
In my waders I feel big, rehearse what I’ll say
to you while fishing trash out of the marsh,
and after, sitting in the cordgrass, turning pods
until the seeds pop out, waiting for a sign
while garter snakes slip over our shoes.
Despite the gloves, you splintered your
hands with Japanese rose. You hold them
close to your face, mumble something
about your grandparents’ cattle and living
fences, then place them palm-up on my knees.
Houses are for birds and homes
are the places from which we run away.
We can paint them as many pretty colors as we want-
but there’s no guarantee the inhabitants will stay.
Spaces shrink, and the memories seep into the walls.
You can outgrow the structure and fill all the space-
move from one house or home to another,
and still feel stuck in the same place.
Home is a never ending reckless hope,
that pulls at our soul.
An unfulfilled promise
that eventually takes its toll.
Do not roll your eyes.
A woman lives beneath this armor.
Look at me.
When rain comes, my only want is to dry your shoulders.
Look at me.
When winter approaches,
my summer wants to warm your limbs.
Look at me.
When the fight in our words will not quiet,
my love cries for a slow kiss.
Please,
I like your color, my beautiful cardinal.
Look at me.
In the haze of a lucid dream,
I sit in an auditorium filled with faces
not quite familiar.
On stage my best friend is graduating
wearing a dress of pinks and purples
looking down my eye examines what I’m wearing.
It’s an ugly suit a size too big with fabric
that scratches my skin
I wore men’s clothes to this past thanksgiving
but to Passover I wore a floral skirt
In the deep recesses of the part of my brain
that evolved when my ancestors were lizards
I fear that my identity will bring others shame
happy pride
Sticky notes scrawled with cryptic
misgivings, paranoid missives
hinting at a bygone brain
missed it this year, the scent
unbelievable
sweetness unlike
simple flowers or roses or a dozen
dainties in fields
it’s an aroma borne
of deep earth, roots sunk
in life eternal sending out
tendrils to touch
souls
Today my heart hurt too much to function
but I did. I managed to put one foot in front
of the other and did my job,
and went walking with a friend
Life seems to be moving on
without a huge part of my family
and I find myself without words
to express the gaping hole in my heart and life
How do I express the pain that I feel just
thinking about a future without my son?
How can I describe the desolate state of my
heart and mind right now, as pain pulses through my being?
How can I be who I am, without the part of me that
made up my beloved son?
I have no words for once. There is no way to describe
a world without him.
is not the click of a clock,
nor the caw of a rooster,
nor the melody of your snoozed alarm,
nor the chime of the school bell,
nor the droning of traffic,
nor the thud of embracing your bed,
nor the clink of cutlery at dinner,
nor the tick of light switches flicked off.
It is silence,
the burn of nothingness
that encapsulates minutes
like a fruit stretching
to surround its pit,
the inaudible hum of days
slipping into oblivion
like that same fruit falling,
opening, merging with grass,
with earth, with the foundation.
