lost, but not lost as long as my memory holds it to its chest, the way I held you so often but never enough, from the beginning while dancing at that party, to the end while I waited for the sirens to come closer, to stop. I swear it was taken from almost the same spot as this one, only on a foggy evening when the birds were resting and the boats’ lights moved slowly on the river below, below the two of us, which is the real difference for me, us walking out of the picture and into the future, what there was of it, me in a suit, hat on my head. And you, yes, clearly beautiful beside me in the mist and night, a car-coat, a calf-length dress that the coat largely hid, making me picture your breasts, the space you shared with me further below, making me picture you holding me close the way you did so often but never enough, certainly never too much.
(after the 2021 photograph, “Porto, Foggy Days IV,” by Nuno Pestana Vasconcelos)
Author’s Note: “Step Thirteen” or “Thirteenth Stepping” refers to when an experienced member of a Twelve-Step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, etc. pursues a vulnerable or new member for sex.
Ana can’t stop crying
as she says, my father…
my father raped me.
Tom sees an opportunity.
I can help you recover, he says.
Meet me at 6 pm.
Ana doesn’t know any better.
She’s a newly recovering debtor.
I will save you, Tom pledges.
But don’t tell anyone else.
They’ll be jealous.
Too many program people are zealous.
So, she turns her will
and her life over to Tom.
He’s her new Higher Power
and won’t even buy her a flower.
After the wedding jubilation: radio silence.
Are they being held by pirates,
or more likely, lost in their bliss?
Helpless, are we, to the tide that pulls us under
It’s not our fault that we can’t fight back
Hopeless, are we, for the future that lies ahead
I can’t be held responsible for the consequences of my actions
Comfortable, are we, with the loss of life
That’s what gives us our freedom, right?
“Give me liberty or give me death”
Songs of a forgotten age
Ghosts of martyrs in our living rooms
Will we ever learn
That history repeats itself
That we cannot sit by
That there is power in our togetherness
Or will we sit and watch
While people die
While cities burn
While the world as we know it
Continues to be
When my neighbor died
they put her kitchen things out
on the street. I now
use her sieve, her spatula,
her light blue cereal bowl.
These streets are safe enough
for my children to ride bikes,
my husband and I to walk the dog
even in the waning light.
But each spring, I find shattered
blue eggshells scattered
along sidewalks, and in the yards
new grass shoots
up around a smattering of dead
rodents, mangled bones of birds.
I wonder what the robin
who sits high on the power
line thinks of this place, rampant
with baby-snatching squirrels,
murderous cats on the prowl,
even of a pair of vultures who appear
to pick apart fresh meat. How long
‘til his song becomes a world-weary
wail, lament for a neighborhood
gone to seed?
I’d gone to the bedroom
All but tucked in to the quilt
Just to realize I’d left the kitchen light on
Reaching for the switch I see the kettle on the stove
Steam rising from the top
I know If you were still here you would’ve chided me for
buying a teapot without a whistle
Because just like you I’m a little bit heedless
Maybe a little bit forgetful
But on nights I make tea and leave the fire still burning
I’ll look and see the kitchen light on
Because you are, still here
The squirrel can’t stay here, rotting in my garden.
So I push the tip of the shovel shallow
into the dirt beneath him,
then scoot him the rest of the way on,
black bean eyes open, lips curled back,
body rigid as if frozen running.
Flies buzz around us both, angry
at having their meal and their nursery disturbed.
The smell of leathery death, I nearly gag.
Only one smell as bad — bleach and decay,
the smell of the room in the nursing home
where my mother wastes away,
waiting for an end
that won’t ever seem to arrive,
the flesh refusing to quit the race,
her children waiting, our grief on ice.
I drop the squirrel into a white plastic trash bag,
tie the open end into a knot.
Set the bag by the empty garbage cans —
pickup day had just passed.
By the time it comes around again,
the bag shimmies, the dance of new life
devouring the old.
