Posts for June 25, 2025 (page 10)

that
                                  soothes
                                           by unspooling words: I
         mouth an                                                     incantation

                                                   to
                           dissolve on my tongue,
        breathy
                                             meaning
                                          that

             spills

                   over you.

                            I hoard
                                                                                     names
and language,                                        an allegiance
extended                                                        to

      stories                                              I
                                                                  construct

                                                                                         with
what I knew of  
           
  an
arbor,
lying in bed at night,
gauging the                                                     hollow

        of        time                          by the
hum

in the room.     

~  An erasure of pages 10-11 of Lia Purpura’s book of essays, Rough Likeness 

Cancer is a cardinal sign
heralding the arrival of a new season
But unlike the forceful direction of its counterparts Libra, Capricorn, Aries
the watery nature
              of summer
       slips through my fingers
and Cancer’s emo-moody mooniness
is like sliding into the depths
of the unknown.

Summer is both alluring and foreboding in its unboundedness
This summer
the siren song is amplified
as we un-couple
I vacillate between
cutting a course through the waves to a glittering port of call
and losing my self
           in the tides.
A New Moon says, “Begin again.”
only she knows
what that means. 

Forgive me, Father,
for I’ve moved in.

By day, I wear trainers and a canvas tote,
admire the fresco fragments.
But when the bells go still
and the guard bolts the north door,
I slide behind the unicorn tapestries
and sigh
like a secret.

I live here now.
You may have heard me
treading the Fuentidueña apse,
sweeping the limestone with my hem,
drawing water from the courtyard fountain
in a chipped twelfth-century bowl.
The sound of quill on vellum?
Also me.

I levitate by St. Margaret
during evening meditations,
catnap in the millefleurs,
nibble on stale wafers and docent’s alms.
Sometimes I steep mugwort in holy water.
I dream better that way.

Each night I visit one of you —
last night, the Bishop
with the falcon stare and missing hand —
tonight, the Father of the Broken Nose.
You seem understanding.

I tell you this because
the stones here listen better
than the living ever did,
because you don’t interrupt,
because you’ve seen centuries of women
wishing for peace
and settling for quiet corners.

Mind if I stay?

There is a team named the Savannah Bananas.
Pitcher’s on stilts sporting yellow pajamas,
cather does back flips
fans swing their hips.
The game, like life, is farce and hosannas.

Funny how no one calls it by its name.
Instead we say the Fourth of July & celebrate
on the Second & Third & the Fourth & the Fifth,
the fireworks starting early & ending late
as the neighborhood boys learn their first lessons
on how to wage careless little wars
with the enemy out of sight & out of mind. 
No one warns them of collateral damage,
the poor cats & dogs running for cover under the bed.
How they shiver in those dusty foxholes,
how we wish we could tell them the bombs aren’t real,
not yet.

It’s a rough thing, losing your parents.
Lots going on.

Emails. Texts. Phone calls.
Siblings asking why.
Discussions of the will.
Memories, good and bad. Often simultaneous.
Tears of grief mixed with joy that the suffering is over.
Childhood home drive-bys, someone else’s family there now.
Old recipes since changed, but still reminiscent.
Mannerisms inadvertently inherited, stirring recollection.
Learning to be alone in the world.
Jumping at the doorbell, thinking for a second it might be them.
Going to work, no one knows.

All that, plus the fact they’re not actually dead.

Only dead to me.

they 
whoever they is
always say it’s not the heat
it’s the humidity

in the midst of a world 
so fraught with hot-headed 
hang-gliding    jumping  off 
cliffs 

i’m hoping the thermals 
keep us aloft for long enough
to find a clear place to
land

-for B. C.

that time I cried
in a meeting
during the pandemic
single mom
scared
of losing my job
& while everyone
sat socially
distanced in chairs
& turned their heads
to offer
sympathetic stares
you got up
afraid
you had cancer
& crossed six feet
of empty space
to bring me a box
of tissues

3/4 beef 1/4 pork cut in cubes

brown in skillet on stove

chop up good size onion in there.

Salt and pepper.

Continue to brown till there is brown on the bottom of the pan

when you pour in a little water and it makes a brown color.

Add more water.

Cover and simmer 1 ½ hours

more or less.

Add more water as needed

Add chopped celery.

Cook 30 more minutes

Translation. I got beef stew meat & cut each chunk into 1 inch cubes or less. Cut the onions in 1 inch pieces, added 2 cups of water to begin with then add more later, sprinkled lots of salt & pepper. You should be able to smell the pepper when cooking. Cut the celery into ¼ inch slices & cook 30 more minutes. Served with brown basmati rice instead of the white rice Mom cooked. Use tamari instead of soy sauce.

I spent cloud-reigned days
praying for sun on my skin.
The rain insisted,
while barreling through my door,
bright blue sky is not my friend.