Take Up The Air
with your frigid ass stare
a towering inferno
of fear
run away
run away
run away
Algae grows on stagnant water.
Absentmindedly, you throw sticks into the little pond,
And it seems as if they are the first things to disturb the surface of this water in many years.
You sit on the edge of the pond.
A tree grows beside you.
The sticks were once it’s branches.
When the pieces of wood land in the water,
They make ripples.
The expanding circles form a picture,
A constellation,
And you wonder if the creatures in the pond,
Ever wish on the stars.
A wooden porch, painted white
Sitting criss-cross-applesauce in a creeking rocking chair
The sun is just starting to say hello
My coffee no where near cold
I watch the dogs run about
Through acres, and acres of land
Full of adventure,
The sleepy cat on the swinging bed
A mourning dove singing her song
The smell of wild flowers and dew fill the air
You step out of the screen door
Your bed head is prominent,
You stretch your arms up high
Then lean down and lay a kiss on my head
You say “good morning”
You sit down next to me
Watching the trees sway slowly back and forth
You grab my hand,
And on our little porch, it’s just us,
And nature
Like nothing else matters but here and now
Then you finally say “blueberry or chocolate pancakes?”
And I say “both”
No little league baseball games
I’m trying to attend today.
There is a tournament in Louisville
which is doable
just a commitment
I don’t have the energy for this weekend;
I’ll catch the next one.
Neither is there a maintenance check
to turn free time inside out,
not that the apartment
has gotten messy
since the last unwelcomed visit.
Tidying up today
would only take a few moments.
Haven’t had to work a Saturday in months,
a vast improvement
from last year’s
all Saturdays on deck approach
to a scary audit the warehouse needed to pass.
That same audit was last week;
no one was worried.
In fact,
any errand I can say needs running
is one more opportunity
to do something for myself.
If I get a wild hair
to go get a haircut,
I might see a barber
for the first time in years.
Sometimes you need a drastic change
to shake off yesterday;
facilitate new life chapters.
Might get myself a new outfit,
an attempt to feel fresh.
When’s the last time I shopped for me?
Then I can get a load of laundry done
(guess there is one errand that needs doing)
but there’s always Sunday,
especially if I just decide
to try out that restaurant I’ve been curious about
or order for delivery that comfort food
and never get out of my pajamas.
Beer at noon?
It happens when you work night shift;
today is no different
sitting in the cool summer air.
Anything I could do today
is all somehow for the betterment of me,
so who cares if it’s a slow start Saturday?
It’s nothing but the beginning of a self-care weekend.
reduced to writing about skid marks
no kidding
the part about 2 a.m. teens
boys with girls on their laps
bald on bald charger tires
scratching off on Shannon Creek Bridge
no one lives there
except dropped-strays and skunks
My heart pours to the sidewalk
red-sweet as granité de fraise,
spreading like sun into every scar.
Gather under a foreign tongue,
untouacable as angels, there are
angels here, surging from the woodwork.
We flood a place incomprehensibly beautiful,
made so by more than smog-kissed cathedrals
who crumble leasurly to be reborn as well.
Coming into a world more expansive than the hills
climbing before the Chateau de Caen’s turrets
where I lounge openly on a lesbian flag.
The roses de trémières guard us
as we rush the streets to the fanfare
with palpable love, so much so that it’s terrifying.
Bonded not by birth
or blood
but by how we love.
You listen to me
hear my frusterated
battle cry.
Handle with Care
soft words
arms around my shoulders
You know what I like
gelato with chocolate chips
Starbucks on a Sunday morning
You bought me toys
because you never got them as a kid.
I appreciate that now.
You taught me how to be silly
how peaceful the road is at 2 am
how sucess isn’t the most important thing in the world.
I’ll try to repay you.
To listen to how your day was
to ask the thoughtful questions.
But I don’t know how to repay
loving like I want to be loved.
But with a prayer I’ll try.
She wakes, restless, moans. I lean in to give
another pain pill–my shift now let me out
of this bed! Your Dad will come get me. He rode
in the ambulance with me, all the way!
I wait, weigh whether to play along
“He passed away, Mom, four years ago.”
I didn’t know that. How? In his sleep?
“Had fluid in his lungs. Don’t think he
wanted to go back home to be an invalid.”
I’m sorry to hear. I loved him you know
This, after years of hearing vitriolic rants
about him, spewed from her pinched lips.
“I know. He loved you so much. Truth is,
he never said a bad word about you to me.”
It looks like all my family is just about gone
“You have twelve grandkids and fifteen great-
grandkids. Draw strength from them.” I show her
the onesie I’d knit for my newest grandchild, June,
“Thank you for teaching me to knit, sew, crochet.”
You’re welcome. I like Tom. She always likes my men.
I like big men Her cough pulls phlegm deep from COPD
lungs, spit into tissues. We hand-feed her now
like the new baby girl in our family, sharing her nickname,
June Bug, both spoon fed, decades and miles apart, but
they intersect in cosmic spins, both poised for flight
into vast unknowns–home, a faint memory I don’t know
where I‘ll go after this because I don’t have a home
‘This is your home, Mother, so don’t fret.” Midday
she rests, eats well, says I’m just being a little piggy! Her grin,
a child’s “Eating makes you strong, so you can sit up
in the wheelchair, get out of bed ”But, I’m eating all your food
“We have lots of it, no worries. You can have as much
as you want.” I look closer, see her as the precious girl in the one
studio portrait Grandmother could afford, age five, a black silk
bow hugging her dark, smooth pigtails tight, and her wispy eyelashes,
hand-painted on the sepia photograph in 1938, a smile as full
as a Kentucky moon in August, the month of her birth, the month
her mother died, before the stepmother moved her to the back room
of her father’s house to sleep on a straw tick mattress on the floor,
as frigid, December winds crept through cracks of makeshift walls.
The faucet drip, drips.
The old kitchen clock tick, ticks,
A night beetle clicks.
Each muscle a brick,
negative thoughts racing quick,
my stomach gets sick.
The covers get kicked.
The nearest light switch is flicked.
I’m finally licked.
