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Beebalm and honewort,
the garden a fever —
wrists bitten for love,
pulse drunk on dusk,
red-lidded nectar,
half-lipped prayers —
still as sonograms,
we wait for wings —
the soft-lantern kind,
the ones that mistake
light for warmth.
Super freaky smart brick walls. I don’t have much to say anymore-
I’m trying to get back into the practice of throwing up on paper.
Heat in your face like you’re wine drunk.
Grudges held so long you can’t remember what you’re being spiteful about.
If I go far enough away I can turn you into a tv character-
forget you were ever really in my life.
Flowers a color that flowers shouldn’t be.
Raspberries acting as hats for particularly stylish fingers.
Please- more childish questions:
Let’s talk about something other than sports and weight loss.
They’re repaving my city- it’s the season for trailer hitches.
Leave me alone.
Let me lay you down and unhinge my snake jaw.
I’m a working girl- let me provide for you.
It’s shame or it’s curiosity but at least it’s different than before.
Or,
I’m a glass bottle.
Or,
I’m not really sure where my attitude is coming from.
Or,
I’m going to chew a hole through your midsection.
In
the tattoo
parlor we talk about
seahorses. Who
knows how
we got there,
but I tell him
its the male who
gives birth. We find
a video on my phone,
watch one shoot hundreds
of nameless, aimless babies
out to sea. When he first came
home to reconcile, he said, Let’s go
get our wedding rings inked. Swore
the rumored affair never happened.
Foolish, how badly I wanted to believe
him, how I could almost convince myself
if I tried not to ask too many questions.
When he called to make appointments,
he booked his own, claimed to forget
about mine, then changed designs
and rode the impulse to festoon
all his knuckles instead. Just
turned the entire plan
on its head. But
I’m tired and
afraid to
needle core.
him at his
again, hole
so I sit gaping
there, from the
numb, of himself
and watch versions
him deliver divergent
endless
After Vesuvius
Sometimes before the alarm,
sometimes after,
I turn and see the blue,
a wedge between wall and tree,
and know the world
will be alright.
No matter
its red dawns of anguish,
its weary gray suffocating skies,
its long orange and heavy sighs,
it will be
blue
again,
and blue is Creator’s kiss
and pledge of cool breath
that follows morning’s glimpse.
Road Trip
My friend, David, called me.
He asked me to go to Atlanta.
Of course, he
has seats at Atlanta
Braves.
He told me to pack for
the night. Braves
are his favorite team.
I love baseball: Braves,
Cubs. Yankees, it may seem
that I am fickle, but baseball
has heroes
and I have met some
of the great ones,
Pee Wee, Mantle,
Rose and Minnie
would cook me
chicken strips at Sluggers
and give me bottles of
his favorite beer,
non-alcohol,
I was never to tell
on him for his,
keeping up
appearances.
He was awarded
inclusion to the
Hall of Fame,
for his accomplish–
ments.
Christ secured to a cross
for somebody’s sins
Odin strung from a gnarled tree
nine days seeking rune knowledge
Osiris bound in a chest & Nile drowned
dismembered, gathered, resurrected
Mithras, dying & reborn from a rock
Tammuz of vegetation
Dionysis drunk & dead
Morrigan, Cernunnos, Cerridwen
So many dead gods.
So many rebirths.
Obviously, mortals need
better killing strategies.
I don’t want to ask for help
I can do it my damn self.
A well traveled path
cut deep in the dirt
by years of my wagon wheels.
I’m not sure that it’s pride
I think it’s more of a self preservation instinct.
Most people leave
they aren’t available for help for too long anyway.
To recognize I need help
have to admit that I can’t do it alone
and that arrives with failure, and with shame.
Two partners, on the case.
Arriving with shiny black shoes
wide-brim hats
looking for the sign that bears my name.
I don’t want to ask for help.
I can do it my damn self.
Trial and error is part of any process;
learning any skill.
Not every process is meant to be completed alone
I’ve been picking up “team lift” boxes
before I was fully grown.
I can mess it up and push through anyway.
I can take twice as long to do it
than with an extra set of hands.
I can drop my motorcycle on my thigh
cut it deep
and have to ask for help anyway.
That’s the way it goes sometimes.
Asking for help clicks in
like a familiar sad song on the jukebox
when I’ve exhausted my options
faced with no paths forward, solid smooth rock
and two broken axles.
Sometimes I can’t stand up on only my two feet.
I can’t pick up the burdens
reverse-grip dead lift until my back screams.
I need to ask for help.
I can’t do it alone, I can’t only rely on myself.
As a child, I did not know how my grandfather died.
I grip knowledge in part and prophesy in part —
life appears in pieces, a massive Venn diagram.
Birth in Massachusetts inscribed my first circle.
Swan boats in Public Garden,
ancestry an anchor preventing my longed-for drift,
Priscilla Mullins’ house still stands.
Then New York City, Puerto Rico, Buffalo, Gulfport in the mid ‘60s sketched interlocking circles – indivisible.
What did I learn and where?
Knowledge exceeds books, chalk-decked blackboards or classrooms though their circles appear on my page. I learned the hard way,
a victim of an unconventional brain.
The genetic circle sketched inside the circle of my birth evaded sight, until I woke with a friend’s husband, his face against mine, the spasms of his body a violation.
The switch in my genes flipped to “on.”
Everything changed. Everything.
My grandfather died by his own bullet.
