the days when summer was a gift
moments seemed endless waking
was a wonder of what could become
long days fireflies sunbaked skin
bleached hair turned green
friends meet up without text or message or social media hook up
now seasons descend with a regularity
anticipation comes in a much different form
will the plants wilt with the air conditioner work will I have to be out in the sun at noon will I finish this task before the melting humidity soaks through my underclothing
there is something that is a gift in this present time I am sure
just at the moment of writing my mind 
no my heart
my body
long for not what was
but what can be now a gentler 
simplicity.

White strips over grey,

what is your raison d’être?  

No oink, no money,

no bacon, no honey.

Book club

I gave my informed consent, so I guess it wasn’t really an invasion,
more like a “Welcome to my heart.”  

I maintained their [sic] own airway and ventilation [and] tolerated sedation well.

Once Le français scrubbed in, they placed 6-French Terumo Slender sheath and 5-French Jacky catheter and a 5-French straight pigtail. Those French! They’re so clever!

After identifying the LAD/D1 bifurcation as the culprit, a 6-French EBU 3.5 guiding catheter was engaged.  Gotta love those French—they know who the culprits are.  

The LAD lesion was crossed with a Rotafloppy wire with some difficulty. Glad I was mildly sedated, I would have suggest that the French handle that Rotafloppy business.  

An Onyx 3.5 x 34 mm drug-eluting stent was then deployed from the proximal to mid vessel jailing the first diagonal branch. The wire that was also jailed in the diagonal was removed and then passed back through the stent struts into the diagonal.   Hooray! The French apprehended and jailed the culprit!  

We celebrated with balloons: an NC Emerge 3.5 x 12 mm balloon, an NC Emerge 4.0 x 15 mm noncompliant balloon (Even those noncompliant balloons can be fun.)  

All the wires and catheters were subsequently removed.  Merci! No wires in the heart, please!  
The patient tolerated the procedure well without any complications and was transferred to the holding area in stable condition.   Doctor, you and your French friends are welcome anytime!

The best day
is the day it all declines

the moment announcing the end
of the reign of brightness,

the tyranny of heat,
the need to do, my goodness,

the urgent productivity
of a forced summer break.

Has anyone loved anything
so much as I love this solstice –

but for a moment, triumphant,
then followed by the year

sliding comfortably back
toward the dark. 

You’re thrilled to see me for the first time.

Beny Moré croons in the background and you take me into your arms.

Borders, both real and imagined have left us tethered, and unmoored.

You’re all bright eyes and toothy smile. The floodgates burst open and words spill from your mouth like sweet penny candy, slipping past your wet, rouged lips. The S’s and D’s sucked clean off.

My heart is unfurling from the death grip of an embargo,
Blood and guts rush up my throat, I open my mouth to meet yours but a waterfall of copper pours forth, each bit pinging loudly on the floor between us.

I am standing before a vending machine filled to the brim with sweetness, but my hands are full of unremarkable coins, not suitable for this transaction.

My mother hoped to prepare me for this moment, enrolling me in Spanish language school where every chilly Ohio Thanksgiving we made turkeys by tracing our sticky tiny hands onto construction paper. We eagerly took turns peering out of the kindergarten window to announce to the class what the weather had in store. 

Hace Sol
Hace lluvia
Está nublado … or is it nublao?

Childhood communications, so terribly imperfect, are now preterite. A distant mother’s tongue. Inaccessible in my adulthood.

The ocean that has separated us originates inside of me, and it threatens a deluge that will drown us all in my inadequacy.

Some say that a country without a language is a country with no soul. I claw away at sinews, desperate to find the words buried behind, but they do not emerge. This vessel is hollow.

There is so much I want to know about you, that I want you to know about me.

Through the emerging tears I steal a glance through the soaring colonial window of your decaying post revolutionary apartment. It’s sunny outside. Maybe I can talk about that.

Locked in a                                                
                                                     painting                                                                 
                                                                        a      balm                       
                    thick as       a dive       in        
        sudden       

    peace 
                                    
blue       
     waves         
                                          to  
                                                      open           the           
       self                                     

I remember the day you left quite vividly

You didn’t say goodbye

You didn’t touch me

I was an open wound

Best to leave it alone.

I remember you burying your head in your hands while you sobbed

As if it hurt you more than it did me.

As if you weren’t the one who made the first cut.

It’s been years now, we haven’t talked

My wound has is more of a scar

But every once and a while, when I see your face in my dreams

I start to bleed again

“Why?”
Begging the question,
for what seems to be the millionth time.
“Why can’t we just catch a break?”

“Why does everything have to fuck up?”
The swing, now pushed feverently. So high, triggering the only appropriate response… Jump. Jumping off the swing, past the dirt and into the grass, to ask,
“What did I do so wrong in this life to deserve this ongoing turmoil? This pain? This stress?”

Landing with bent knees, tips of feet, leaning too far forward… Knees hit the ground, stabilized by weak wrists.
Looking up, hair strands untamed, streaking across face and eyes; eyes that look up, as eyelashes catch the unrulely strands of hair, unbothered, unblinking, above the eyes that burn, burn to land into an answer.
Now stating, in a defeated tone, adding extra dramatics by hanging of the head,
“I am just never good enough.”

Now, a race. A frantic and wild sprint. Flinging arms, smacking into any obstancal. If the answers cannot be found, perhaps they can be outran.

Who wrote the first law
Which said, not
“This land is mine”
But rather,
“This land is wrong,”
And…
What the fuck were they looking at?