I stepped into dead silence
And stepped in it again
and …
again
Wanted to wiggle out
Definitely squirmed a bit
Told myself
Stop squirming
Be still
Be silent
Be uncomfortable
This shoe might still fit
At the very least
we’ll have a bit of a sit
My knees were hurting from the long walk
So I stopped to browse the yard sale
The old bike was hidden behind a dresser
Worn and dirty, the color of kale on a bad day
I paid the woman the $5
She apologized for the bike’s plainness
I apologized for mine
She smiled unsure how to take my response
Streamers now grey and faded
One speed our only speed
Seat big and lumpy
Tires a bit flabby
I hadn’t ridden a bike in decades
I gave the rusty bell a jangle
Just to let the world know
I was coming through
walk in
to forests deep
welcoming me, my dogs–
soft breezes, rich colors, callings–
delights
My ex-therapist told me to label my moods
on a color wheel of thick wedges and tinier slivers,
to shade them accordingly every day,
then add them to my bullet journal in FuN! shapes
like an old-fashioned bubblegum machine
with a moody ball of gum per day of the month.
I didn’t know how to put it into words at the time,
so I just stopped journaling and started lapsing
a few days, then weeks between chat sessions.
I always did my homework in grade school
but adult homework is called shadow work
and can’t be pinned down to coloring
assorted gumballs in a fat, blank book
when I needed each daily page to reflect me
like a shimmering murky oil spill,
all the colors swimming around in a puddle,
already-chewed gum pasted haphazardly
underneath that damn desk where I sat
to do my shadow work by moonlight
and none of it made a shade of sense.
Your hands on me
awaken my bed of chi
circumvent all rationality.
Energies anesthetize malignence
potent amber eyes baptize soul
as two become one, then something more.
Your smiling eyes disintegrate time itself
I am yours as you are mine
anxieties melt or mold in presence.
Shoulders shrug in a courtsy
bow to my will bowing in yours—
alas always unbroken.
For a yogic student to achieve Samadhi
they may face a disciplined decade or two or more,
but I am no yogi
and how I levitate
with you as my floor.
Just when you think people are nice again, they log back into Facebook.
#AmericanSentence
Sometimes we lock eyes,
And I see the picket fence.
A stone house with
Too many windows–
Yellow walls, yellow rugs, yellow lights,
Golden accents, golden cutlery, golden mirrors,
A black cat
With a white belly,
Cilantro that bloomed
And turned to coriander,
Cold drinks, cold winters, cold tile,
Hot cocoa, hot concrete, hot heads,
Broken china, and make-up sex,
Eating the last Oreo left, and dinner alone.
Sometimes we can’t lock eyes,
And all I see is home.
And the walls come down
pillars dead on pyres of bricks
stained glass pocked with holes
like a blinded man who prayed in brail
All is now lifeless
All is now faithless
pulled down by mechanical pagans
Hose water tamps the dust
the synagogue’s last glass of wine
as the sentence is carried out
Men in hardhats
witness the death
Trucks cart away
the remains
There is no kaddish
for a fallen synagogue
No Jews come to pray
or even to stay the final decree
for these old bricks ceased to be
holy holy holy
so many epochs ago
Still one hardhat wonders
why the Jews didn’t save
the windows
With Thor’s hammer,
the goddess
shattered the sun.
