Through my open window,
Darth Vadar breathes from nearby—
the death-rattle of a voyager,
guttural gasps,
marking journey’s end.  

We’ve watched their silent descent
from our window looking east,
progenitors of zeppelins long gone,
making landfall,
seeking empty desert—
spaces now fewer
as the city encroaches.  

Six old guys
marveling like children:
the highlight of our day.

I, try, I do.
I’m not perfect, same dances come up
if ignored you push even more
foul venom spewed from your mouth over a space for a car? what for?
I try, I do, but why?
you can’t be pleased
the toddler in your brain, 
rips me to shreds and i just sigh…………….
 

me to shreds and blame me for more  

In Covington, back in the day
Everything made perfect sense
The rules were clear, the work was fun
Now we worry about what to call the
Female adaptation of the “groin grab”
(safety harness jargon)
The only helmet you ever saw was the welder’s 
We’d get right to it, bear it. grin it, demolish it

Now I retreat from it, can’t understand it
Can’t keep up the pace
But something is coming in the back door for me
I can hear it if I don’t listen too hard
I can see it but only in the periferal
I can begin to understand if it’s kept simple
And so I listen for it; a crow, a truck on the road
A bug bongs on the screen door, silence

I’m tempered by years of fire
Now I’m sanguine, can let it all go
Light rain pitter pats on the tin roof
I feel its cool breeze at the window
Now it comes to an abrupt end
Silent again this evening of the present
What is that though, coming in the back door
It’s for me I know, something more

I mingle with friends of all sorts
and folks I’ve never known. But
carefree under a broad and loving
roof we engage in healthy ruckus,
exchange more than a cliché. We dig
fingers into pockets we thought
empty, bring out a common 
thread or two, binding these
unrelated lives, making
from flour’s tasteless powder
a moist and wholesome bread.

my father’s heart / my grandfather’s brain / the corpse of a dead bird crushed under my shoes / nuclear war / dead car battery / credit card payment / tariffs / fascism / what will I wear to the bar tonight / do I have enough money for the bar tonight / should I really be going to the bar tonight? / my father’s lungs / my mothers lungs / my lungs / why am I still single / should I be on anxiety meds? / should I be on depression meds? / gotta clean the room / gotta go to work / get some sleep / my father’s heart / my grandfather’s brain / the corpse of a dead bird crushed underneath my shoes like cheap plastic

my therapist tells me 
in an era where conservative ideas of womanhood 
take hold
they want you weak, vulnerable, and small 

continuing to eat is an act of resistance,
fueling my body is an act of resistance,
taking up space is an act of resistance 

and so i fight. 

We pull up to three tables ready to learn
Mah Jong from a patient teacher.  Ten white women,
my husband and I put our hands on 166 tiles–
slide them around the center of the table–0
mix bams, cracks, flowers and more.  Position
a rack and the pusher.  So many terms to process,
sleepy parts of my brain iagnited.
I hope inherited skill will kick in from all those nights
I heard the music of tiles colliding, pushed by Daddy
and friends after restaurant hours
You first build a wall, we’re instructed
with clicks and clacks.

My hands assemble a strong wall,
touch a legacy and the music of a game.

Transform my body

through sweat and tears

Bring to the surface

what I cannot bear to face

alone

They say that there are ghosts within the house
This old one, built over a century past
Home to three families and, so it is said,
A secret treasure buried in the back.
My father thinks what’s there are naught but bones
And people should leave such rumors alone.

Solid advice, to leave the ghosts alone
If ghosts, indeed, still dwell within the house
And guard those possibly existent bones,
The only remnants of their lives, long past.
The heavy memories that they can’t get back
The echoes of their words, still left unsaid.

“I saw the widow” our new neighbor said
“There, in the window, standing all alone”
The one who once eloped, and ne’er thought back
Upon her old name, or her father’s house
The life she left behind, far in the past,
Even when forced to bury stillborn bones.

But such was commonplace, to bury bones
And worry not of hauntings, it is said,
Since death was commonplace, then, in the past
And ghosts would leave the living ones alone
And never think to stay and haunt the house
Just because they were buried in the back.

The ghost Gran claimed she saw was in the back
And had nothing to do with ancient bones.
It was, instead, the builder of the house
Mad that he had to sell. The one that said
“They’ll soon wish that they’d left my house alone!
Those ones who can’t let debts stay in the past!”

And it was true that in the distant past
‘Twas hard to prove that debts had been paid back
With records prone to burn, if left alone,
Or rot among detritus, twigs, and bones
In heavy storms, leaving “he said, she said”
As only way to see who owned the house.

For me, I’ve said the past is not the past
When living bones still walk throughout a house
Alone. Unearthing history beats ghosts back.

when we were falling,
your notes were filled
with longing and
declarations

later, they showcased
your humor and
reinforced your commitment

over time, they became
less frequent, less verbose,
less personal:

   don’t forget the toilet paper 
   what time is dinner?
   did you feed the dog?

and then, this morning:
 
   do you still love me?