I never let anything go
easy.

There is dirt caked between my toes
and orange peel nestled under my fingernails
from everything I’ve gripped too tightly,
scraping and clawing at every surface
as I leave.

I leave a bit of myself behind too,
each time.
Blood, sweat, and tears,
body, mind, and soul.

A submariner in World War II
They volunteered to work on a sub
If it took a hit, all went down together

Married his high school sweetheart
During the war, on shore leave
How could he leave her?

As babies, in their small New England town
Their respective mothers had put their babies in the same crib
When separated, the babies cried for want to be together

After VJ day, they settle down
He built a small house, in-law size
Where they started, now a family of four

Carpentry, his father’s calling
He had a knack for all things electric
Moved to California and began his trade

Master electrician, corporations soon found him
How long will it take? to fix huge machines
“If you listen the machines talk to you.”

Alaska called for cannery repairs
He liked it so he bought a fishing boat
Never straying too long from wife and family

Enjoyed the community of religion
Volunteer electrical work at the local church
Appreciated, honored, all for free

Outlived everyone – brothers, wife, friends
If you’re lucky you can visit
Though he may be busy, walking the driveway

At 102, still clear as a bell
Enjoy his lifelong stories
He asked on our last visit,
“What can I do for you?”

i

A book isn’t a body
because it can be returned.

Pages of rooms
we never entered:
moloko milk bars,
goblin fruit markets,
ships bearing four-armed poets,
flat countries where lines
can’t imagine being lifted.

In the hallways,
the cemeteries,
the parking lots,
in the labyrinthine elevator system,
we traveled without arriving.

At the airport lactation station,
you said you wanted me to have it
when you were finished,
and then you were finished,
and then I had it.

Exchange means
one person keeps one thing,
one person keeps something else,
and neither can prove
who has borrowed what.

ii

“We can’t see the whole thing,”
because if you’re standing in Flatland,
looking at a circle,
you can be correct about the circle
and wrong about the object.

The circle is real,
just not the whole shape.

The wound is real,
the longing and the absence are real –-
the story you’re currently
telling yourself may even be real.

But none of these things
guarantees that you’ve 
apprehended the entire
geometry.

The possibility exists
that there are corners,
that there are dimensions
you haven’t yet perceived –-

that “otherwise”
might be a direction.

my eyes tell me stories of the Asian elder woman
leaning on the Avenue wall
the one who greets my image as i go breezing by
. . . Good Afternoon . . . God Bless you . . .

my eyes wondering ask . . . is she wealthy . . .
does she beg because she thinks she needs more . . .
my eyes tell me stories about others . . . adrift on the Avenue Sea
other sentient beings . . . eye averters . . . some well dressed . . . paper cups in hand . . . Rolex wrists . . . wearing a cell phone shield
they don’t greet my image as i go breezing by

but the elder beggar she’s different
she reaches out for nectar . . . drags three stuffed dirty bags at her feet
somedays she softens her cry . . . simply looks into my eye 
i don’t want to believe my own story . . . doubting her telling the truth
i want to believe she has no need to ever beg at all
she’s just wishing me a good day ~ as she plans her blessed day to come
. . . Good Afternoon . . . God Bless you . . .

Her’s are snowflakes 
starting again. I don’t like my good spirits. 
Hibachi beef and veggies with 
yum-yum sauce occupy the counter 
growing cold. The can of Dr. Pepper 
grows warm. Pickles offers me ass 
to wake me from my sudden nap—
purr running like a furry angel.  
This is all. I plan to shovel. 

It’s a soft plan.  Even with 
sealed alpaca lined gloves, 
the wind 
off the Connecticut River 
drops cold, lower than 
a witch’s left teat in a brass bra—
and the webbing between 
my blistered thumb and forefinger erodes 
as certain as my Kentucky memories. 

In ’78 we cut coupons to save money during the blizzard.  
Going out, 
Papi’s black Camaro ate my hand 
in the door. Today, I am sure to shed skin 
long before loosening my parka. 
There is day-old ice to shove side-to-side on the drive, 
and this work is the only path to domestic bliss.  

It’s dark before 5 p.m.—I’ll clear the way tonight 
before she’s back, or time will find me back 
at Dunkin’, just as lonesome 
as those years when we met. I will flirt 
with the oldest register clerk, order an iced coffee 
with cream and four Splenda, and imagine myself 
at her flop in her lap.  Don’t fail.  

Homeless, I’d ask my brother for space on his couch, 
mock gratitude and sip dumbly from a blood orange 
San Pellegrino bottle.  
I’d pretend. I’d pretend to enjoy 
my sister’s Southern-fusion cooking, 
her cheesy-chili pepper fried grits 
and honey, 
despairing 
to ever find safety again.

You, oh winged one,
you many-veined transparency,
feather light, long-tailed, thin,  
hanging by a thread, you cling
to every bright surface: my car,
the white-trimmed, lakeside inn,
the overhang above this café,
where I gaze up and wonder
if you’ll drop, drop, drop–
you and your innumerable friends
(what some call an infestation,
I call a congregation)–upon my plate
and become one
ephemeral topping
on my avocado toast.

You are prehistoric, they say;
a microcosm of evolution, I say:
an egg, a nymph,
a water-dweller,
always molting into yourself
below the surface of things,
of lakes and streams,
sometimes eaten,
but otherwise waiting
for that final stage
that never seems to come,
until it does.

Oh, the glory of adulthood,
for then you rise!
Thousands upon thousands,
tracked by Dopler, reported as news—
you rise! A reverse baptism,
a glorious sign,
out of life-giving water,
you rise and fly!
And (if you’re not eaten),
you mate on that rise, and then
you spawn, seek light, and die.

Oh, to be a nymph again, I think—
quiet, hidden, molting without change—
but no! You die, but still you come!
In May or June, for eons you’ve come.
Your life cycle–out of water, into air–
shall never be denied!

* I tried to upload the photo, which would’ve been 100X more interesting, but I couldn’t get the image to upload.

                                         blue   kiss
                                          salt    sky
                                                fire 
                                             woman
 explore                 
           joy
picture        window
wild             women
        perfuming
               the cloud

concrete     angel
sister           tree
      our      almost
          secret    cup
    lingering  voices

The mountains never learned to read,
Yet somehow speak in flawless rhyme;
They carve their verses into stone
And measure truth instead of time.

Each winding creek recalls a tale
The oldest sycamores still know,
Where every ripple hums a line
That only patient hearts can sow.

A widow’s song on weathered steps,
A miner’s prayer before first light,
The fiddle dancing through the dusk,
The whip-poor-will that greets the night—

These are the books the ridges keep,
Bound not in leather, ink, or glue,
But stitched with calloused working hands
And skies forever washed in blue.

Here poems rise like chimney smoke,
They drift from porches after rain;
They gather where the beans are strung
And settle softly in the grain.

A Granny’s tales, a Papaw’s laugh,
The gospel sung in country keys,
The hush before a thunderstorm,
The whispered names among the trees—

Each moment finds a waiting page,
Though none may ever hold a pen;
For poetry has always lived
Within the voices of these glens.

It hides inside the blackbird’s call,
The coal dust clinging to a sleeve,
The crimson blaze of maple hills,
The frost that crowns October’s eve.

It blooms where wild trilliums grow,
Where faith outlives the hardest years,
Where hope keeps mending broken roads
With equal measures sweat and tears.

So if you seek Appalachian verse,
Don’t search the shelves alone one day;
Stand still where ancient mountains breathe
And let the silence have its say.

For every ridge’s weathered face,
Each hollow wrapped in morning dew,
Has spent a thousand patient years
Composing poems older than you.

And every soul who calls it home—
Whether they write or simply live—
Adds one more stanza to the song
These steadfast mountains always give.

Impossible, the words you want
to hear. That we can read each other’s
minds  – despite my disbelief.  You want
me to say that our hearts hurt when
we are apart, that my daughter
is your daughter, and yours mine.

You still are dumbfounded that I ran off
to college, left you in our two-of-everything
bedroom with only a made bed and silence
on my side.  Freshman year, new friends
baked me a birthday cake, my first without
an ampersand, without your name next to mine.