A Dangerous Season
After turning by Lucille Clifton
This dangerous season
Grows heavy on the vine
Swelling with potential
Anticipation sweet on the tongue
The urge to pluck unripened fruit looms.
After turning by Lucille Clifton
This dangerous season
Grows heavy on the vine
Swelling with potential
Anticipation sweet on the tongue
The urge to pluck unripened fruit looms.
crawdads snails and striders
in pockets of droughted creek
with Evyn, who has been kind
since childhood, and wanting
to be that kind, the kind
of creature who bursts through
the water and makes grown
women laugh like babies
at Gulf Shores, remembering
their entire lives in full
upon the glance of a dolphin,
to be a knight in shining promises
pilling irises behind the miracle
that wishes you home one more
time before the firing squad
assassinates. turning to feel
the bonfire on the calves.
listening to Ocean talk or Ada
read. the pink bruise of meaning
kiss. understanding the joke.
granny prayed tirelessly for hours on end,
while bakin biscuits and pickin blackberries
always worried, she’d leave out a name
an they’d surely be struck down
if she didn’t drop the dishes right then, gather us all up
to join hands an pray
papaw’s palm sat heavy in my right,
granny’s cold and slender, full up of ruby rings
linked in my left
everyone meant to mumble their prayers aloud
all at once
this part was always easiest if it was just us three,
without the added holdout of chuckles
against my brother and cousin,
as we squeeze each other’s hands, hard as we can,
tryin not to be the first to end our prayers
“Amen”, we’d have to say,
keepin our heads bowed down
as granny kept listin out every person she’d ever met
to be sure they’d not burn in hell
sometimes i’d try to keep up with the names,
see if i knew a Mary Ann Sue, an what relation, almost wantin to ask
at the end of the prayer
knowin the picture books would come out
an she’d be bound to call up somebody, i never did
i’m now prayin i had
Blessed are those who are empty.
Blessed are those with nothing to offer but the aching of their lonely bones and quieted sighs as it hushes past their lips.
Blessed are those whose chasms of the soul have unearthed bedrock, for how much more now are they to be filled?
Blessed are those who grieve, bereaved in the dust of their disappointment.
Blessed are those who mourn through the rising and setting sun like a broken dove, circadian irrhythm.
Blessed are those whose souls know wilderness is meant to unwind the flesh’s talons along their spine, not a place they must spend the rest of time.
Blessed am I as I hit the window, again and again like an asinine cardinal, and blessed am I all the more as I realize I am not meant to stay in the emotional burnout of this disappointment.
Blessed am I as he prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
And blessed am I as I dine.
Do oysters treasure their pearls
or suffer them?
Are the growing gems
a constant annoyance?
an out of place wrinkle?
an incessant itch?
or a comfort,
something to hold on to?
Do they have a mother’s pride in
their luster?
their shape?
their size?
With some species
cultured pearls are harvested
and the oyster is reseeded,
like bitches in a puppy mill.
My rogue is cool with fun,
is able to hide while on the run,
I have to roll to check,
20 side die, what the heck,
Its a natural one.
My next-door neighbor taught her flowers how to talk.
They think I cannot hear them with my human ears,
but I hear them whispering.
They gossip and spread rumors.
I know they hate my cat.
They think the garden gnome is ridiculous.
I learned what terrifies them.
One day I walked over to them and said,
“You better watch what you say.
I’m bigger than you, and
I have access to chemicals.”
I haven’t heard a peep
out of them since.
cigarettes, one after the other, and I miss stepping
alone into the sun or the dark, apart from others
who had better sense than I did.
I admit it: I miss the nicotine, even while telling
myself between puffs that this dependency
would not be bad for me. Look at my father:
He smoked 65 years in a row, from the time
he was 9 years old, and sure, OK, he had some
emphysema in the end, but that’s not what killed
him. My friend Ron used to say a little nicotine was good
for you, but I never got the hang of just a little nicotine.
The blast of that first cigarette after breakfast
with a second cup of black coffee is unparalleled. I miss
smoking in my car. I miss finding the secret smoking places
where smoking is banned. Hospitals are especially tricky.
Once I followed two nurses through the corridors
after I heard one of them say “let’s go smoke.”
We exited by a side door onto a sad alley
with benches and ashcans, a half dozen people in scrubs
studying their phones, cigarettes balanced
between their fingers; their patients languishing
inside. My own mother was dying upstairs
while I was smoking outside with hospital staff.
Still, I miss huddling with others in frigid cold
while the smoke scorches our lungs. I don’t wish to glamorize
it like some old black and white movie filled
with cigarette smoke. Even the stench
of it—I never thought of it as nasty. I miss
the planning: check my pack, where’s my lighter?
Always arranging to burn the next one.
Aestival pause, when breath holds in heat,
