Hummer
a pause
before the next
decision
I wrote a poem
It was a good one
They couldn’t stop me, though they tried to, hard
They didn’t know how hard they tried to stop me
that it’s a good one
or that I wrote it
things were already busy
the plate full
overflowing
like the gutters during that storm on Monday
or the blossoms in that daisy flowerbed
redolent
effusive
lavish
exuberant
gushing
okay really just too much
but who is to decide when much is too
I awake to a new day after all so this much mustn’t yet be too
much
so go ahead universe
throw in that broken hvac and dad in an ambulance and the meeting with words uncomprehensible and immenent delivery of prebuilt and can’t do it yet sorry and can we have just one more day plans changed and unavailable until july * and mom
so sad so sad so sad and scared
and me here so far so far so far away
I can take it
Indulge in this skin
reinvigorate your senses
crave fullness
defying protection
strengthen gentle hands
THANK ME LATER
Common grace embraced
her on a summer morning
drenched in promise.
Walking along the path
saturated in pebbles
searching for fossils
I remember the day the motor in my mother’s 1970s era Waring 3-speed hand mixer died. She was making butter cookie dough from scratch. A Christmas tradition. On the third batch, the almond colored appliance stopped suddenly, mid-mix. My mother took a short pause, unplugged it, and inspected it carefully. She turned to me and said that it owed her nothing. I remarked that appliances she had from when she married my father were built to last. She slipped off rings that adorned all but her ring finger and quietly began mixing the dough by hand.
It must be nice to be a person who isn’t aware of their body
to fast without thinking
to be a physiological man
and have only one dominant hormone to navigate
when you try a new regimen
it must be nice to know how to process protein every day of the year
to lift a gallon of waterwithout tearing muscles
to not need to wait for someone passing by the window
to be able to unload your car
it must be nice to not feel your heart pounding out of your chest
even though your blood pressure is “fine”
to not have it wake you up
or vibrate your eyeglasses
as your face moves
to its ancietn rhythm
it must be nice to stay at a temperature where you can burn germs
where hypothermia isn’t your norm
where you don’t notice the difference
or impossibleness of half a degree variance on a thermostat
not nice in a way you’d ever ever notice,
if having only lived in that body
but sure nice from over here,
where three dominant hormones change the calculus and danger and safety of every intervention
every few days
where the body doesn’t adhere to any studies
mostly because the studies weren’t done on biological women
or plant eaters
or meditators
or anyone else who’s like me
There’s a woman who walks
the block with her greyhound —
she strolls; he struts, a sinewed
supermodel sure to stun
passersby with his falcon’s
gaze and sculpted-marble body
built to spot, outsprint, and seize
small prey. One snatch and shake
is all it would take to kill
an unlucky rabbit or squirrel.
Yet, on a sun-drenched morning
in the middle of June, he stops
before a neighbor who kneels
in her garden, her cheeks smudged
with dirt and tears. She looks up,
grateful, eager to take his head
in her hands. As she rubs his ears,
the dog emits a gentle whine,
offering some measure of animal
comfort, the softness of leaning in.
