Poems, page 14

Seated in the same seat
squirming 
working to make the stiff
straight wooden
back rest
mold to my spine.

The purple-haired pourer
situated 
behind the bar, per usual,
the sweet older (potential) couple
propped up in their 
booth–
neither of their yellow-hooded 
raincoats leave their screens
as they sip the steaming
mugs in front of them,

the no bigger
than a step ladder
kiddo
glued to the pastry glass
drooling 
as his grandma–

clothed in the most
perkiest pink 
with a shimmering clip 
clasping the hair 
out of her rich
swampy green eyes–

pulls the clunkiest handful 
of dusty quarters 
from her beaded coin purse,
and your hand 
graces the crevice 
between my shoulder blades,

pulling me back 
to your gaze.

Our
boy
Patrick,
grandson, that
is, spent time today
on his potty, asked for a book:
All Aboard (a most appropriate title). Despite
the three-year-old’s sound effects, we
set the book aside
and had to 
conclude:
no
go.

                    It is Monday

            beneath the bridge.
            

The morning after surgery,
everything tilts,
fluorescent light needling my eyes,
a monitor chirping out of time,
carts rattling past my door,
paper cuff tightening, releasing.
I drift between dream and interruption
as a nurse pricks my finger,
another counts my pulse;
the surgeon edges into view,
half-framed, already speaking:
you did great, all is well.
Words that hover then thin out,
like breath on glass.
I am only this:
present, alive.
The long, depthless quiet
let go its hold;
fear loosens
as morning gathers
in the corner of the room.

EMERGENCY

I watch you panic
over something small
you didn’t care about
yesterday.

OPEN SEATBELTS

Abandon your seat.
Run for the exit.
You don’t know
where it is, though.

GET OUT

When the alarm stops,
you realize…
The instruments failing.
And the alarms sounding.

Were your own.

In Texas,
outside the city limits
you had to get okay
with the taste of dirt
swirling upwards
from the ground,
where it had been
scorching slow…
baking in the sun

I used to squint
while out in the glare
extracting color
from the air
making high contrast
like film noir movies
that will always last
so stylish
black and white
Because
when the sun moves over Texas
there is always great drama

Once I had a beautiful voice, rising

to the height of angels where its allure

summoned mystery and wanderlust.

I believed in myself then

Life can be cruel; it can cut you down,

shred you into pieces that no longer

remember where you belong, with

only a trail of memory left behind

You become a husk cracking as it

dries, your broken spirit withering

while those who have used you gloat

that what was yours is theirs

I only sing in the woods now where

trees dance to my songs and sprites

with no voice to call their own giggle

that they know my secret

The old escape 
of psychedelic bliss
sings its siren song

the last time was at his place. 
His cats were playing with eachother
the floor was spiraling. 

He had nothing but a silk robe on
He called me to the bed

Even with the greatest effort
no words could be formed.

As his hand brushed against 
the tits that had just grown that year
he commented how this was only
my 21st lap around the sun,
how in his own seasoned perspective 
he saw me as just a child. 

At three am
he wakes me up and ushers me out
citing the moon and his need for isolation

in that moment the spiraling
of the world around me
clerified into the cycles I had repeated
since the choice was mine. 

By the grace of something greater
I made it to my friends, 
went to work the next day,
and blocked him. 

Yet I can’t help but retread
and long for the temporary enlightenment
those chemicals bring. 

Please forgive me
but I cannot
not devour the earth,
cannot not pry
open my jaw
like a tear in
space-time and take
the universe in,
the stars and comets,
the moons and green
men screaming,
I cannot not
lie on my back
and open a hole
in my head so wide
the laws of physics
fall in, I cannot
keep myself closed,
cannot sit with
my own blood and sinews
and the fingers
wrapped in my fingers
and let that be everything,
cannot not chew up
all that matters
into gristle.

You butter my bones  

Sense me silly with your riot
    of lemony limbs  

Your canary wings taking flight            
    that wildness of freedom  

What a heavy burden to carry
    the sun’s yellow lust