A time comes when one begins
To wonder
Which of your things
Your kids will someday want.
Should I keep this
For the kids
Someday
Or pitch it?
Sometimes they tell you.
“Dad, don’t sell that painting,I want it.”
Or “I’ll never want that rocker,
You can pitch it.”
I did not know how often
The question crossed my mind,
Until my daughter was gone.
And the question,
When it came,
Had an answer.
black mold grows
in an old notebook…
abandoned
lost women bag
ladies carry bundles
of grief and broken
baubles
magic
women in ballet shoes
and boots
psychopaths in cemeteries
suicidal mothers lured by
blue bottles of
lye leaving orphans
on the street begging
mitochondrial DNA
dripping
indigo
over the moon’s wrinkled
face
Revenge
Let it Go
Rains gushed out
of the darkened sky
heavy in its pour, not
like the stream of a watering can,
not like the dousing of holy water,
the drip of a rotted hose.
The torrential drenching created
streams and creeks, angry rivers
cresting as the moon hung low,
moving beyond the
edge of comfort.
Downpours cascaded
as if the captains cried deep
tears of remorse,
submerging the earth
forcing rockslides, mudslides,
erasing roads to nowhere
creating sinkholes under the
floods.
Sins and sinners soaked in
the rebellious nature of the
downpour while others
prepared for
the change, the aftermath,
clouds promise to dissipate
with warmth, the earth
dries her wounds,
mothers scrub kitchen floors,
old soldiers find their way home,
writers and artists typeset
the skies with magical discourse,
the magnolia trees bloom
in unison.
The cards have been all over the table for two weeks now.
We’ve certainly felt their presence as we’ve carefully navigated each other
and have picked up a few, shuffled them, here and there.
The kids have knocked them onto the floor, mixed them up. A few might be under the couch now.
But the box is lost; there’s no longer a neat way to pack them all away
something must be done with them.
I approached it as I do everything – by writing.
In our younger years
I used to write you letters to explain how I was feeling
rather than take the risk of talking
Now I have said it all
I write to clarify, confirm, document
To stop you from recoiling into denial
To cover my ass
To propel us
forward.
Where? Damned if I know
some space between married and divorced
until another path appears
but we can’t just leave this stuff laying all over the place.
That’s what we always tell the kids.
And we both know
I’m the one
who always picks it up.
Here’s to the Catalysts,
To those who keep the embers
of our souls burning when they
almost
fall
to
ash
or rather, set the forest aflame
with their unforgettable flint
Trashing, violent,
roiling beneath.
I am the ocean in that way.
Unforgiving of the wants
of men,
home to a ruthless rage.
But you are the rock against
which I break.
Sending me back into myself
with a quietness,
stark against
my nature.
Subdued gentleness,
though we both know that
lurks below.
You are unwavering anyway.
what happens
when a dry, quiet mouth
spits sawdust into decaying air?
words struggle: tangled, ensnared in dysfunctioning larynx
scared stiff & stifling screams for salivation
parched, never quenched when thirsty smiths whet blades
to cut thin and thinner slices of storied selves lulled to sleep in hushed harmonies lost
who will rescue those lips
when they are drowning
in seas of sand that couldn’t hold on to passing time?
the arid, muted tongue
unfurled to taste rotting truth
on scattered wood shavings swirling in brackish breeze
