I am blood, flesh, intestine, bone
on the underside of a wax figure.
I am not human, but I bleed all the same.
Lick my skin, let the paraffin melt on your tongue.
Sweet peach scent, the flavor nothing like it.
The dry skin of your lips has impressed it’s texture onto mine,
I cannot forget you.
Until the wax is re-sculpted.
Every bite taken out of me has impressed the peaks of your teeth into my body.
There is an underlying heartbreak in violation,
in the permanence of your hands.
In other years I might have been
at Churchill Downs, screaming in the infield
with the rest of the slobs, tearing up betting slips
as most of my picks come in dead last
& doing my best not to think about the horses
who didn’t make it to the gate—broken fetlock,
broken down. This year I’m broken down myself,
one way or another, so it’s too close to the bone.
The coronation bores me but my eye
keeps landing on all the king’s horses
impatiently bobbing their heads while waiting
to haul the Cinderella carriage home. They know
what happens at the stroke of midnight.
Folks in Kentucky say it’s safe to plant a garden
after Derby Day, so I scatter a handful of seeds
from a friend in a bucket of potting soil
on the porch, cover them up with another
layer of earth. Funny how planting something
& burying it is the same motion of the hands.
On the street, mounted police horses
clip-clop by. It comes to me that Lincoln’s cortège
must’ve sounded like this.
Night’s coming on, a chill setting in.
I shower the seeds with half a glass of water,
toast them with the other half,
& say a short prayer under my breath.
Who knows if we can handle another late frost.
Ten years ago this week
the bottom fell out
of the box.
Let this poem be
a quiet candle
remembering.
I don’t cry at endings anymore. Instead,
it’s the beginnings where I pause,
eyes welling, the hardness rising in my chest–
like when a relationship restarts
after a distance,
or when the first redbuds and dogwoods flower
in Spring–I’ve waited so long for some kind
of catharsis. Who knew it would come
from resetting the day? I woke in the dark
to the sound of rain hitting hard–a roil
and rumble from thunder. There’s an edge
in this gloaming, a feeling of coming–
I embrace it. I rise my head for tomorrow,
a new way of being, again.
___
It’s always such a joy to be doing this with y’all in June. Thanks to everyone who does this thing we do together, for all your poems and inspiration, for every comment. Already looking forward to 2024!
It’s cherries to have been born
into the most powerful country,
white and male, comfortably
middle class, never made
to work the fields
at five years old picking the ready crop,
scrub clothes along the riverside,
or put our tender hearts
through the meat grinder of war,
to have pissed in the stream,
cooked the crawdad alive,
pulled our compadres
from the top of the hill —
storm clouds roiling
the blunt horizon —
to have claimed the summit
as if we owned the thing.
more about your
common heart-
easy below
blocked by emotions
in case you learn
can’t get enough
blood from the body
can live only a few-
easier in narrow supply
cut off too much inside
exceeded my expectations
yet not in a positive way
this did not pan out like I imagined
or rather, hoped
rains pours from a thunder filled sky
today
this last day of June
I’m reminded the second half begins tomorrow
I smile after shedding a few tears
and muster some self encouragement
nothing is awful and I will remain
I am that stable
though I feel numb
disappointed more than anything
I am ready, or so I thought
the Universe though, has other plans
I despise self-pity
so I pledge not to stay in this state long
tomorrow is a new day
new month, etcetera
this day, I choose to allow the rain and wind have their way
mainly because I apparently cannot have mine
