So, I’m sixteen and my parents have hired this kid named Jeff Masso, a known genius at my high school, to tutor me in algebra. I can intuit that he is frustrated with me, not learning and not wanting to learn math, but he persists.
One day, he struts into my house, full of himself (curly black hair, black eyes, freckles,) and stops at the piano. He plays a few chords, looks up and says, “Dave Brubeck.”
Stars swirl on the ceiling.
The sky opens up, spewing fireworks of sound and I know there is a world I have never imagined and somehow, I must open myself up and learn it. 
He might as well have said, “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio…”

my first epiphany…
he touched the
keys and said, “Dave Brubeck”
changing my world in
one second of dissonance

Why is this doctor
chasing me with such fervor?
Oh shit. My apples!

I gaze at the myriad knickknacks mirroring
lands I’ve nuzzled my splintering stakes in,
lands renowned once only for indigo grass
blades pinning a grin in the face of
depression that Johnson would idly war with,
coal cramped into abandoned hills that
all but begged for a glazed hysterectomy,
warts you’d salve with tobacco, suboxone, and
swill that we all now know to call cancer, and
hill folk, hearty and hardy as hiccuping fairykin
whispering Appalachian murder ballads in
ears of a rasping ass; and, of course, that
Bluegrass strumming from guts of a
hare-lipped milk jug strung with rusalki hair
so dulcetly sullen and soulful a suite of sound
it could rattle the chalice of Christ from a
clown ruff ruddled with indigo blood; and the
blue-bloods, both cuts, cloyed and cultured or
nettled, neglected, afeared, and forgotten—though

now, these knickknacks, pillows confessing
Kentucky in phlox-blue comic sans, America
wattle-and-daubed from disfigured license plates, the
pre-shrunk t-shirts scumbled with emblems of
dainty dilettantes dredging mint juleps from
verdigrised horseshit strewn over shuddering tracks,
and, alas, these little gilt tea towels screaming,
Wildcats! and If it ain’t Kentucky, it just ain’t bourbon,
which urges my corn-cowled breastbone mutter,

If it ain’t bourbon then,
is it just not Kentucky—these knickknacks,
goldfish buoying up under garbled glass like
bird shit piled up over a rusted alarm box, shyly
abounding in Crohn’s-prone basements and
gleefully teetering tors of immortal trash that
rival those wiling sandstone scarps that
Muir preserved from becoming a water park.

Disparate thoughts have a way
of coalescing into crumbs of speech

that litter the floor.
I can’t find a way out without

a map and both hands.
Long after we leave,

the air remembers,
our breaths collecting

in corners to sweep up later.
The fan pushes mine

out of the way and it stays there.
I’m afraid to move, disturb

these piles like river mud
before I can make sense of them.

Ester Perel queries “Where shall we begin?”
The counseled couple takes a deep dive
Into the dark of trauma and infidelity.
Ruby-tinged hurt shaded with purple-green unhealed pasts.

“Where did you learn to live on breadcrumbs?
     “I don’t really need very much”

I listen rapt for clues to my own practice or salvation- or both:

Small is safe
Unseen is unjudged.

Suddenly
the sting of tears and recognition.
A familiar cocktail of choice for the solo patron of this not-so-happy-hour of “ah-hah”

It’s all fun and games until a nerve strikes raw.

Dammit Esther.

We had copper-colored tin ceilings with pressed designs                   
    in our family’s restaurant.
Nothing fancy.  Remnants of early 20c. décor—                 
    practical and barely noticed 75 years ago.   

In a 21c small-town diner regulars stop tonight                 
    before closing. 
I watch a plump family of four slide into a booth—                 
    grandmother, child, parents,

take turns going to the restroom                 
    while a teenager scribbles their orders.
Two crisp middle-aged women enter
    before closing, 

pick up their orders and sit outside for privacy,                 
    intense conversation. 
A wiry woman walks in alone,
   dirty blue jeans hang off her skinny frame.

From the counter I hear her say,  “grilled ham                  
    and cheese sandwich.” Then “I have no money.”
An uncomfortable waitress hesitates                  
    just as a customer in work boots and baseball cap

at the counter slides a twenty toward the waitress.
    The hungry woman smiles and nods. 
This restaurant looks like it has greeted customers                 
    for 50 years or more. 

Young staff has no knowledge of the early years,                 
     when the locals gathered and everyone knew one another.
I stare at the tin ceiling in this restaurant, long                  
    for spaces filled with generosity, even for strangers.

Making new friends
is a very sweet part of life
that ebbs and flows with time

But, old friends, that have 
stood the test of time are
a true treasure

They are the ones you call
when something new and
exciting occurs

Old friends are the recipients
of the really tough calls
that stem from disaster

Memories from longterm
friendships are what sustain
you even without contact

Decades long friendships
are truly a priceless
gift from God

The blue atoll lagoon,
sweet salted air
sun warmed sand
my feet cool in the waters
angel fish nibble toes
small swells roll up
then down the shore
a man lounges
under the shade of a palm
a coconut washes up
I reach down
pluck it from the water
fish taste good
cooked over a fire.

You can keep going, but it will only get darker.

hotter, midday, scorched ground
still air to whipping wind in minutes
summers used to be cool here
mother on the phone, telling you the news
at first, she cried when it got worse
her new voice, unmoving

You can keep going, but it will only get darker.

now, moonlighting as the type of girl
who sits on her porch, looks up at the sky, and thinks
when did there get to be so much to think about?
so little room for ephemeral dreams
like, what if there are fairies in the holly trees?

You can keep going, but it will only get darker.

darker, a blot of ink when you hold down a pen
pigment, juice, intensity, soaked through every fiber
darker, like mixing all the paint, like every snow cone flavor
darker, the funeral service you knew was coming

but darker, the friend you used to swing with on the playground
now sitting in your chair-swing outside
knowing every piece of you, impossibly entwined
listening for all it’s worth
in this house you rent
in this world you built

Keep going.

Note: I had a dream that I was walking through my mom’s hometown, and the lights just kept dimming, no sun, no streetlights, just this gradual sense of dark that intensified as we walked. It was almost silent even though we were downtown. People kept handing us notes that I thought were either warnings or invitations to something, but we couldn’t read them because the light was fading so fast. Right before I woke up, I heard a voice behind us say, “You can keep going, but it will only get darker,” and it’s been playing in my head since.