American sentence for Nancy

Farewell dear friend, if only I could change your ending, sweet  sorrowful.

Death feels like a broken promise, holding a beating heart in my hand.

Death feels like a letting go of all the pain, handfuls of pills tossed away.

The morphine took it all, took you from me, finally closing the shades.

Sleep under sweet dreamless waves  of morphine until the moon’s high tide rises.

Goodnight, Goodnight my dear friend, this time your dreams will all be in color.

funny, we’ve heard some fantastic phrases
turns of words with vast meaning, and yet
here we are counting down the hours and
nothing comes to mind
watching Oppenheimer we discussed
so much from labor to Prometheus to
latent political theory of the last century
now we’re listening to the rain and rumbles
see lightning flash moments into stark relief
open our mouths to speak sudden truth and
nothing comes to mind

Heat, “hell can’t be hotter” kinda heat

Pavement that scorches the soles

Ripping curses from grimaces

And wholesome hallelujahs

After feet find grassy relief

Even the squirrels stayed sedentary today

The birds mum

Morning glories sealed shut

No worship for the weary

Lest they wilt away

For my Grandma, Lillian Harvey Lewis

Drat that quarry!
Every time they blast,
they shake the dust right
out of the air, rain it down
on my tables, my china
figurines, my cut-glass bowls
that shine so pretty 
in my bay window,or would
if they weren’t constantly 
covered in quarry dust.

That quarry pays my husband’s
salary, our mortgage, buys 
our groceries. But each time
the blast rattles our windows
the dust falls like dirty snow.
Out comes the rags and Pledge
and Windex, and once again
I gather up the dust, shoo
it out the back door. 

Sometimes I wonder why I bother
dusting, dusting, dusting.
Sometimes I think I should pack
away my treasures, my pretties.
But oh, we worked so hard
to get out of Scranton, where
dust was black with coal, out 
of my father’s house, narrow
and dark, full of uncles and cousins
who slept on our sofas, ate our food
when they couldn’t find find work.

This little house is ours alone,
where we can give our grandchildren
what our daughters never had.
Grass beneath their feet,
windows that let in light. 

          I met a poem on the way to

is patient and kind

is submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known

is to trust them to choose to stay with you no matter what you have to offer

is to rest

is the stack of biographies on my nightstand with a bookmark near the end

is my sister painting ladybugs and hanging them on my door

is my brother sharing his last m&m

“You just dropped it” a teenager wearing 

I lost a friend on the Pacific Coast Highway. 
Intended as a vacation, 
we drove from L.A. to Big Sur, 
a winding drive, 
mountains on one side
the ocean and crashing waves on the other. 
I got a phone call
about my dying aunt.
Some rubber band inside me snapped,
the friendship between us broken
but only for me. 
I tried to rationalize it later; 
I was the one doing all the giving
and all she did was take. 

I don’t guess I lost a friend. 
I excised her with a knife, 
cruel as the waves
being dashed upon the cliffs.

Of which link have you made between the dreamer’s past, present, and future heartaches are you most proud?

So small on the full bed, he naps. I hope he learns names of countless once and living things: limestone sandstone black bits of shale–a little marvel to see each day–a little kid and me because I ache too much now witnessing Wonder when I’m alone. Sometimes I just need to lie down in the rain, for someone to swallow me whole. I am all husk, hollowed out, peeking into empty rain spouts, scratching chitan. The grackles cack and complain summer is not lonely.

Which gives you the most trouble: altering settings, drowning, blurred vision, or overlapping faces?

I still see Dad in his chair
listening to his favorite music
with his eyes half-closed.
It was my arms that knew him
and the ways we carry each other:
nightly phone calls grew into lists
of meals, music, naps.
Dad needed to know
I was okay
        (How long could you carry him?                 You takin’ him home?                   
                                                             Yes, home.)

Rank yourself in terms of prolonged daytime reverberation.

The boat is sinking.
There’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat.
A lot of shark attacks lately,
their surgical steel practicality camouflage[s] tiny knives.

Other people, they can no longer see them.
The dumb, too distracted to collect words,
spit out the first dribble–
white shit spangles on the cement

We’ll never know what it was we saw
out of the corner of our eyes as we drove
down McKinley. She thought
it was the mythical creature Pan.
I thought it was an Easter Bunny. 
What it was – a broken statue,
missing its head,
in the middle of the sidewalk.