protect us from fated future
 protect us from the kiss of another vehicle
protect us from debt and poverty
 protect us from illusions of friendship
protect us from bloodthirsty killers in the night
 protect us from irritated bigots in the day
protect us from wanting
 protect us from being most wanted
protect us from distraction by public relations politics
 protect us from hatred of our very own siblings
protect us from bugs that will make us sick
 protect us from hot strikes of gambled lightning

protect us from common death
protect us from unfulfilled life

A blow out on I-64 on the way home

from our last trip out

nixed that decision.

Pulls into parking lot,
Adjust mirror to check face,
Realizing, I again forgot to do so BEFORE leaving the house… at ANY point this morning.
No boogers, but a flake of skin that LOOKS like a booger…
Must. Remove. Darting eyes. Oh Lord, whose watching?
Was that perfect cute little 20-year-old girl watching me? Great, Now she thinks I am picking my nose.
Smile awkwardly, trying to think of clever words to throw in case needed. She is looking beyond me… I mean duh. Shit, of course she is walking in at the same time as me…
Me, in the same “dress” pants I wear at least once per week from H & M mind you… with the beltloop that came unthreaded, not held by a bobbi pen… Looking nice and frumpy, rockin’ my upper 30s, lookin’ like I have lived life as hard as Mick effing Jagger.
Dang. This little heifer wouldn’t even know who he is.
ALLL the Self-awareness kicking in…
Ugh, I didn’t shave… not to mention done my hair… in… God… two years? Shit. Did I forget to put on deodorant? (Sniffs armpits, attempting to look like wiping nose, I mean hell she already thinks I am a public nose picker.) Okay, shew. Fresh scent of natural, aluminum-free coconut-based deodorant… I will smell like onions in an hour. Bet she didn’t forget to shave.  
Okay, stalled enough to not walk in awkwardly at the same time as perfect girl. Getting out, slam car door a little too hard. Birds scatter in response to the jolting sound.
Okay, use hand or wrap shirt around hand to open the door…? Oh, use elbow to push automatic opener.
Oh, elderly ladies walking out. Do I wait? Let them out first, yes. But they’re behind the other set of doors still. Wait. Oh my god. I think they want me to go. I will look like an ass hole…
Okay, go in and make sure I press the automatic button again
and again
and oh my gosh again, because what if the other set of doors close on them as they creep along at their gradual rate.
Smile. Loudly chant “GOOD MORNING!” As if I have just made their day or something.

Oh. There is perfect girl. Of course, she’s in the same suite as me. Guess all vagi-nuh need gy-nuhs.
Chuckle to myself, amused with my little rhyme, while she completes her check-in, as I walk up behind her at a safe distance to wait in line,
still with the dumb smile on my face, she turns to face me.
Insert self for no reason, no reason except to fill a silence that needs not be filled, and would not otherwise have even been awkward, stating, “Yayyy, everyone’s favorite appointment!”
Oh Gawd, why do I insist on talking. She looks at me, I swear I see pity in her eyeballs…
Forces a grin, steps around me, because my dumbass steps to the right instead of left, and she takes a seat. Like a normal human.
Now it’s my turn, I have already fumbled around in my purse repeatedly for “the cards”… and I rehearse in my head, my doctor’s name, my name, my appointment time, and date of birth… All information I have had memorized for, ya know, most of my life.
Instead, I walk up to the counter and… drop my insurance card on the ground.
When leaning down to pick up the card, naturally my glasses slide off my face and onto the ground.
I wonder what my ass looks like as I bend over, panty lines?, and if perfect girl is assessing how inept this 36 year old divorcee is.
Make a joke. “Well, guess I needed that second cup of coffee, huh?” Desk girl is amused. She actually chuckled. Aw, she looks frazzled too, and replies, “Gosh, you and me both.”
Sighhh. Success. Moment done.

Now, don’t sit near perfect girl.

with beady red eyes, pus in their teeth, trickles of spittle from their lips, like rabid wombats in the trees along the street or the rocky hills of the park, everything tinted in low light, perpetual dusk, they love it here in the gloaming with just enough sight to make out their deformed shapes in the windows of skyscrapers, they stink of static and whiskey and old cigarette ashes and fights with wives and children, stink of dog shit and awkward conversations and missing friends and granite, all the things I stuff into a dumpster in my head until I have to rest and oh they love that dreamscape, they own the night.

Heat shimmers on concrete
           
                     Dogs pant open-mouthed
                                     
          Birds drink from tiny holes
                      In the hot pavement

Tree leaves brown early
         Drifting
                to
                   the
                           sidewalk

Children run through fountains
                  Adults stifling in suits look on
                           Wishing they could be so free

Philistine

Perfumed

Liposuctioned 

Half-baked Christian

You deduced me, reduced me

For fat on bended knees

And tears for loss from overdose, addiction

My indignation is futile

Judge lest ye be judged

For you know not what you do

Hey, I can be a little high maintenance too

A meretricious role model

I didn’t need the lesson in what not to do

When my children bring home their person

I’ll love them too

Like a small rodent, I scurry through narrow
passageways between walls of academia  

land in a classroom teaching everything
proud of how I do it, distill it,
condense it to a scattering of North Stars  

When maturity melts
my students’ faces
I’m done
I run
to a table for two atop a fire engine  

That’s where I notice
a baby without a body
just a spotlight
a black circle
a shadow of nothing
a little me
a shadow of nothing  

and I wonder how nothing casts a shadow

Fly the Buzzard, flop, flop, flop, sings woman to child absent from her knee.

Tell me this means something.
It doesn’t have to be true, not entirely.
Just enough to feel like it could be.

Speak to me in the language of bodies crashing against each other,
of roaming hands and greedy lips.

Let me know you.

Let me want you.

Let me bask in this delirium of possibility but a while longer…

Dad   daddy    Sergeant Zabielski    what do you think I am made of money?   money doesn’t grow on trees   close the door you’re letting the heat in    close the door you’re letting the heat out  &  besides we haven’t got the money   a litany heard many times   rants   all seven of us kids eventually tuned them out    we went our separate ways   only in hindsight can I imagine the struggle he had to earn enough    his jobs never had real potential    he chose to re-enlist for the health insurance   he tried his own businesses   bought a huge copier in a small west Texas town before Kinko’s existed    but never charged enough because people didn’t have much money   he retired there because that was where my mother was born  &  raised  &  they wanted to be 1973 back-to-the-landers   he sold Amway at cost   same results   he never made money   became the janitor  &  drove the school bus   all the kids saluted Sergeant Zabielski when they got on the bus   there was TV    the La-Z-Boy   &   popcorn at the end of each day    I called as often as I could   &   daddy said it was always good to hear my voice   he cried when Kennedy was shot    protested at the TV  when garbage workers weren’t paid enough   he stood for Polish solidarity   a good Catholic he had seven kids    went to mass every Sunday when the traveling priest came to town  &  during the last years of her life his Polish mother came from Chicago to live with him   sat in a rocking chair every day   during the night she raided the refrigerator eating food calculated for specific recipes planned for the next day   she died sitting in that chair   dad died in the ER years later   Ray, can you hear me?   the nurse asked    No   dad answered  &  then he was gone.