Days slip by faster than the
kids going down the waterslides
these days. These days the
summer heat creeps upon me
too quickly to run away. Run
away is what the runners and
bikers try to do from the
humidity in the mornings. In
the mornings coffee is freshly
brewed in an attempt to wake
up the people. The people lose
time too fast to overthinking
and realize the days are slipping
away from us like grains of sand.

Kids who are abused
are often confused.
They think
that they
are to blame,
blurring
the reason  
to gripe
or complain,
they continue
to suffer in silence.

    After Jane Hirshfield’s “I am asked a question.”  

What have I done with my life, my one wild and precious life?  

There is no better question.
I love the sound of this one,
the way wild balances precious.   

My life has an answer.
But my life speaks a strange tongue.  

There is much I don’t know.  

I do know how to hang on, and how to think.
Perhaps I can learn to hear what my life says.  

Perhaps I won’t need to choose  

or to understand.
I go out into the misty rain.  

Fine droplets on my face don’t slow me down.  

I can dry off back home.      

(italicized phrase is from Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”)

When the boys aren’t home,
I can come down for coffee
without strapping down these old dugs,
or finding a huge shirt.

When the boys aren’t home,
I watch horrifying news
without worrying about them
having some hard questions.

When the boys aren’t home,
I savor the solitude
without feeling a lot of guilt,
and have another cup.

When the boys aren’t home
I worry about those two
without any good reason to
and listen for the door.

(after a postcard from Emily)

Cleaning out his bedroom closet
she worked her way
through his wool suits
to the top shelf 
where she found the shed skin
of some long ago squatter,
a black snake must have once
made its home here
behind a shaky stack 
of  his leather-bound journals

Without looking
at the date on the cover
she pulled one out
and opened to a random page:
All day I watch the nest
under the eaves of the kitchen porch 
where five fledgling swallows
flit about tryng to achieve flight,
though old I feel like one of them
as if they and I are of the same nature
and as if that nature
were nothing but love

She had been here in December
to nurse a cut on his leg 
from a minor fall.  She left
with no plan of return.
He died the first day of spring
in his sleep
alone
and on his own — his way
Age 97

When she finished 
cleaning his house
she couldn’t remember 
how to lock the door
 

It’s so humid that you can chew the air. 
Fireflies graze my shoulder whispering “it’s 87 degrees in the shade, go inside where the bought air is.”  
As the sweat sloshes in my undergarments, I make my way inside only to see my papa covered in blankets with his heater turned toward him. 
I can’t tell if it’s the menopause or the weather but I may sleep in the swimming pool tonight. 

Let’s be honest, I always say it first,
and with a not small amount of fear in my throat. 
Usually a gamble, a manuever, a Hail Mary to get them (well, all the hers)
to stay a little longer —
still, always true, in a bipolar sort of way.
A “We’re all God’s children” sorta way.
A “Don’t you love me?” sorta way.
A “Cuz I don’t love me” sorta way.

This time though, to you (only you)
I said it in a “Did you see the news?” sorta way,
cuz it was true and trending, and could be useful
information to have, at some point, perhaps at trivia.
And you said it back in a “I did see that” sorta way
that made me burst into tears, hot happy tears.
And you called me a silly goose. 

I don’t complete you, because you are whole.
And, I suppose, I am whole too.
But our wholes press together,
swelling into a greater, grander, always growing,
whole.

The world needs to breathe
in for five, hold for
five, exhale for five.
Repeat. 

Then, perhaps, we won’t 
need to lob bombs, shoot
people we don’t like,
don’t agree with. 

Breathe in, hold, breath out.
Wait. Repeat. The world
becomes less clear,
more nuanced. 

Things are better now. 
Not better in the way of solved,
more like modifying your expectations
so that you don’t end up angry.

I’m sorry that I was angry.
The pills weren’t doing enough
in the wrong combination
to work.  I now have

a direct line to my psychologist
and can get refills by text.
I’m sorry that nothing else changed.
I still wear T-shirts, still

work the same job, the same
fast food restaurants for lunch,
the same wife to come home to.
I’m sorry that I’m still angry.

That you and I used to be friends
but aren’t anymore.  That you changed
and I didn’t grow right with you.
That when I opened up to you,

you ran.  I’m sorry that I dumped
all that on you, but you were
my friend, and who are you supposed
to tell these things to?

The December night she died
she sang all the verses of “Silent Night”
and then told us to go home and leave her alone,
and just like that
she left.
No good-byes, no hugs, no nothing
but that had always been
her solitary way.
Like the rest of us,
she had had precious little control
over the circumstances of her life,
and we always said if it hadn’t been for that feisty streak,
she would never have made it
through all those hard years.
She used to sayto hell with those old men down at the church,
bringing their sack of sardines and spinach, as though
their handouts gave them the right
to pass judgment on her poor soul
and if it wasn’t for us kids, she’d have told them
exactly what she thought.  

And then one day, she made a list
of all the things she thought she needed: 

some good bread, a little cool water, a small
patch of forget-me-nots, 
and the music—
oh, yes! the music!