The Blue Hour

I once
somewhere read
that the vast majority of people
regardless of torments
of insomnia
or night shifts
or anxieties
or miserable colds
or heartaches
are sound asleep
at 4am.

Not before
or much after
but just
right then.

There is
your comfort.
4am
always comes. You
and all your
fellow sufferers
turn over
on your left side pull the
blankets
to your liking stretch
your legs and slide
your hand
under your pillow or
your cheek
and prepare
to dream
of each other

relief
now somehow
and inevitably
come to all.

Untitled

To appease it
I made a little place
on the wood floor
near to where
someone
had carved
a little heart
in one of the
honey-colored boards.
Laid down
on my back.
Closed my eyes.
Pictured the air
coming in my lungs
dissolving
into my blood
and circulating. A
transfusion
of god knows what. An
exchange
of this
for something else. A
vulnerable
offering
to be prostrate
and doing nothing.
Beyond all
known treatments
the experimental trials
placebo
or the real thing
last ditch efforts
oh do not
give up
on me.

Not yet appeased.
I can always
find my way back to
that little heart
lay down
try again.

Analysis

The thing about the shipwreck
is that it was not a shipwreck.

An old dhow, the Indian Ocean
warm and gentle waters
the Tanzanian coast
a thin green line
in the distance.

Sun beating the
old wood decks. We
went below
and curled up
in the hollow
of the hull. This
false hideaway
and this
false construct. Can you
see that
about it? I tapped out
all the nails
one by one
with an old red-handled hammer
and a countersink.
Out they came
boards loosening
ocean
pouring in
til we were adrift
just floating
in the greenish sea
amidst the boards
the canvas sail
the nails
in my fist
I let go
and down they went.

We were washed
to the sandy shore
and laid
side by side
in the sun
the little crabs
come to see us
and we idly
felt the kelp
and seagrass
within our reach. No hurry
for the interior.

I gathered up
my thick and soaking hair
in one fist
and gave you the
long shiny scissors
I had saved.
Turned my back
and bent my head.
This offering.
I could not read
the exact nature
of your hesitation
only this
such a very long time
at the edge of the sea
here
on this shore.
Finally,
the see-sawing cut.
Mine
and
yours.

Survivors
of shipwrecks
never tell the truth.
It was never
a perfect storm
poor craftsmanship
a drunken captain
at the helm.
Nails
a hammer
a countersink
at the bottom
scissors
buried forever
deep in the sand.

The implements
of our own
undoing.

Untitled

It was time
to pack up
and put away
the old house
and all its rooms. I saved
what I could
from the
secret pantry
that I found
a few pretty old jars
a large brown bottle
for keeping ale
some iron implements
for what purpose
I didn't know
and the lone jar of
ancient greenbeans
the only
possible nourishment
of the lot
I let it go
not willing
to risk it
but I did first
hold it up to the window
and admire the light through it
like a pale watery green gem
and thought with fondness
of all the care
of the growing
and the saving
that went into it
some nameless woman
picking fast
under an August sky
so long ago
thunderheads piling up
crickets louder
filling her basket
and looking forward to
the satisfaction
of canning in her kitchen
for the afternoon
with the storm come
and rain beating the roof
and spilling down the gutters

humming to herself
busy with the
task at hand
and contented
to be
inside.

Epilogue

I stopped both cars to yell turkey vulture! and point at a lone oak tree up a hill near where we were driving.

It was not a turkey vulture. It was a burl of wood on the oak tree. I also yelled out that I saw a king eider when in fact it was a buoy with king eider coloration.

I did, however, discover a bag of tiny snickers bars in the back of the car I was riding in with my teammates, and I cannot believe how good they were, and how much I enjoyed them. I also enjoyed being outside most of the day, and riding all over Cape Ann and Essex County, which is an exceedingly beautiful place, and seeing so much of the ocean, and seeing the day begin from pitch dark in a field listening for owls to pitch dark on Plum Island straining to see a harrier or snow owl in the last orange glow across the hard icy snow, in a howling frigid gale of a wind. I love epic adventures, especially when spiced up with a little adversity, and competition, and this was one. And I saw a lot of very cute little birds and I do love them. Nuthatches and chickadees and juncos and wrens and the like. They're my favorite.

I loved watching the light change all day. I loved all the subtle colors and textures and shapes of the winter shrubs and trees. And the shipyards and fishing piers. The bright blues and greens of the undersides of the boats up out of the water for the winter, and their names. And the trawlers coming in swarmed with gulls. I love the Atlantic. I love searching for things through a pair of binoculars. The beach in winter. Sitting in the backseat not having to drive, or navigate. Just getting to look out the window, scanning the sky and trees, and eating little delicious snickers bars, and closing my eyes to just feel and thoroughly enjoy the warmth of the sun on my face through the windows and the gentle sway of the car. It was almost a sensual experience. And I love hanging out with people who are very good at what they do and kind of serious about it and getting to be a part of it. And I loved that nasty cold wind and having to be serious about dressing warm enough and thinking it through enough to be able to tolerate being out in it for 12 hours. The self-sufficiency of that. I loved getting little messages from home here and there that all was well.

A day well spent.

Dead of Winter

How it really is
me
standing by the bed
backlit by the moonlight
a long decadent stretch
a smile
at you
I will put the brief
and sweet
June roses
in my hair
or this
you and I
by the creek
shoes off
feet in
I'll slide my foot
over to yours
underwater
while the breeze
lifts the skirts
of the willow
not a word
just the
moving water
or this
we will lay
in the tall grasses
and daisies
back to back
the back of my hand
will fall
and rest
lightly
in the curve of your neck
look up
at the sun
coming down
through the leaves

How it really is
right now
how it really is
all the time.

True North

He said this:

know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy

And that sums up the core of it, to me. Apply that to the nations for whom he meant to address it, or apply it to every single large and small time in your individual life when you have to check your internal compass to figure out which way to go. That's the direction. Always.

I thought my head and heart were going to explode with joy when he said that.

Where Were You

Where were you? You know.

You have already rehearsed the words
edited details
written
and re-written. You know
this is a story
worth the telling. Get it
to your satisfaction. Find its
essence and be able
to paint it
at a moment's notice. Go on and
get old. Sit on
a general store porch
in a windblown desert crossroads
and tell it
to the tourists
and the motorists
coming by
and tell it again
to the old gang
sitting by you
who were there too. Its a
goddamn good story.

Where was I?
I was driving fast
with my kids
flashers on get the
hell out of my way past
the snow dunes
at 11:51am
and she was singing
and we turned it way way up
and got to the house
with the other moms
who ran to us
here he comes
pulling off our boots and coats and
we were kissing and hugging and crying
and running to see him
and all the kids
and there was wine to
steady nerves
and we clasped our hands
over our mouths
and under our chins and
kept looking at the kids
who were being themselves
and the future
at the same time
and then this bliss and I
saw two bluejays
come right up to the window looking
expectantly
in at us
all the animals
come to gather too
and then
it was
real
and the phone ringing
and just the joy
of a moment of
the best of
all of us the
moment and I was
there and you were
there and
where were you pull
up your chair its a
goddamn good story
worth the telling so
tell it
and tell it
and tell it again.

The Midline

From sleep
and warmth
always comes
the borrowed space. Don't encourage
or resist.
One more time then
to this place of
soft breath
a sigh
a witness tree
and the branding
of the truth.

This is my space. A blue dawn,
a half moon, what
was melted
now frozen to the
uncleared streets. The pleasures
of the predawn. I expand into
the space that is mine. Don't
ask
or expect
anything to get easier.
Lesson
relentlessly
learned:
instead ask
and hope
for courage. Courage, my dear.
Onward. The birds are
awake and
getting busy.

This is my space
intruded on
by all these signs
and little meanings
that try as I do
to diminish them
flash and shine at me
like this quarter here
and these two bluejays
watching me
through the windows. Why
did they come? All
deliberately
unbidden
but here you are.
I do not call you omens. Just
be yourselves.

I will say
the better prayer
and not bother
with the why. Come
and walk with me
if you will
or if you must.

I will show you
the fading half moon and
the coming dawn.

Lament

for RPW


Gather together
and shutter the windows.
Pull the blinds
for good measure.
Incredulous
disbelief.
Down, now,
to your knees.
Head meets
floor. You know
what to do.
The long exhale.
One hand
to hold your head
and one hand
to pound the floor.
An unintelligible
and anguished utterance
of
your own making.
Bread and drink and blanket
left for you
at the door. They
know better
than to enter
speak
or touch.

Pass the night.
In the morning
chinks of dawn
graying
then yellowing
and warming
the barren room.

The five-year-old novice
sitting in my lap
number 36
last chance gone
(why did no one
for the love of god
call pass interference):

Mom
I'm wearing
their jersey
he'll do it
the next time

Innocence, wisdom
a simple truth.

A page
from my own team:

Hope
springs
eternal.

Untitled

I understood
something new
right at the moment
I merged onto the upward side
of the bridge
and towards the top
got the first possible look
at the river
the sky
the boats
the far island
and the mouth
out to the sea
rising up
you have done this
a thousand times
go up
and over
you will always turn your head
to try to see
what there is to see
and you will always know
all
or at least something
without uncertainty
lays
yet before you

go ahead
you can feel
the relief
and the joy of that

this is
your year
that was
you rising
this is
lightness
I understand
the truth of
those boats
and the sea
and the sky

what it is
to be happy.

Guest House

The black half-moon
at the base of my thumbnail
I was watching baseball
while hammering
one full season
to grow out
and be fully gone

The funny ache
deep in my right hip
that I felt constantly
except
when walking uphill
never diagnosed
or treated
stayed for two years
then one March day
left me
never to return

The little chip
in my front tooth
for eighteen years
never noticed by me
at a routine cleaning
the dentist offered to fix it
and ten minutes later
my whole face
changed

how long, this visitor?
I cannot predict.
take up your residence and
make yourself
at home.

all
are welcome
here.

Take 2

Laurie calls James, late enough in the afternoon that he knows she is mostly calling because she feels suddenly lonely, and wanting company, and not because she has been thinking of him or craving him in particular all day. He doesn't care. He accepts the invitation to go over and watch the movie with her and John. She is eight months pregnant now, and it is snowing and icy, and she doesn't want to go out. He has noticed this in other women, wives of his friends, during the ends of their pregnancies, though it surprises him in her, because he knows her and she never likes to do at home what she can do somewhere else.

She gives him a glass of red wine at the door and though he much prefers to smoke he knows she's doing neither now, and John does not approve of either of them smoking - he is straight-laced, and Christian, and doesn't like to lose control, or anyone else to either. So James drinks his wine and they watch the movie together, he and Laurie on opposite ends of the couch, and John in the big chair, with a fire going. Its cozy and John can never finish a movie, and he excuses himself, kisses Laurie, and goes on up to bed. It always feels different and better to James when John isn't around, and he knows Laurie feels the same way, although neither of them would say so, not because of any real betrayal but because of how it would sound no matter how you explained it.

James gets up to go to the bathroom, pleasantly warm and buzzy, and when he comes back the movie is still going - they've seen it before - and Laurie has her eyes closed and looks asleep. He sits in the middle of the couch, and suddenly she reaches over to him, without opening her eyes, and makes a little pillow in her lap out of a cable-knit throw blanket - he hates her weakness for these little Pottery Barnish suburban touches. She pulls his head down into her lap, and he is very surprised, but lets her guide him, and she runs her fingers through his hair a couple of times, aimlessly but fondly, and then rests her hand on his shoulder, and then really does seem to go to sleep. And he is not sure what to do for a little while, and not sure why she's done this - it is companionable in feel, not flirty, or seductive, but unexpected and of course he can't help but think about John, upstairs, and John, coming downstairs.

He stays where he is. He can see the movie fine, and the pressure of her hand on his shoulder is warm and comforting, and reminds him of some childhood feeling - a hand on his shoulder at the curb, keeping him from stepping into the street before its time, maybe. Her breathing is deeper now, and she snores just a little. The back of his head meets her belly and he is surprised that it is so hard and firm, and he realizes that he has never felt a pregnant woman's belly before. Just at this moment he feels a tap tap tap, and a sensation like someone running their finger over his skull through a thick comforter, and he realizes this is the baby moving, Laurie's baby, and he is awed and uncomfortable at the same time with this odd comunication from the inside of her body, from this thing in her, and he feels chastised and, if he is to really admit it, a little possessive and competitive as well.

gotta go. playgroup.

Untitled

James found the Resotron in front of a little yellow house with a gravel driveway at the corner of Kent and Ash late on a Sunday afternoon, just before heading home to tend to the weekend's chores he hadn't yet bothered with - laundry, groceries, and sorting through the week's accumulation of mail. He'd been steered to it by the hand-printed yard sale signs nailed to the telephone poles all along Kent St., the main drag and where he'd been taking a longish walk. Someone had altered the signs with a big thick black marker - everything, free! - presumably sometime after the 8am-12pm timeframe had elapsed, and the salers had shifted gears into the real purpose of any good yard sale: nothing that goes out, can come back in.

The Resotron was in a small picked-over pile of freebies, and James always loved these little piles - partly for the thrill of finding something that appealed and had hidden value - and for free! - and partly for the archaeological curiosity of mining through the tell-tailings of any particular family's or individual's cast-offs. He was disciplined and discerning in what he took home, usually able to content himself with admiring the black pair of never-worn mens figure skates or old John Denver records without actually needing to bring them home.

The Resotron, however, held his attention. It sat on the grass amidst a cheap flaking gold-painted sconce with a shade buckling along the seam, and a small cardboard box of holiday-themed stuffed animals and some rained-on-looking baby board books. It was a smooth dark gray metal, rectangular, and inclined higher at the back end, so that the singular dial on it would be sloped toward the viewer if placed on a table top. It was surprisingly heavy, though only the size of his palm, and he figured it to be from the 1940's or 50's, given the fact that the red dome over the little light above the dial was glass, not plastic, and given the retro look of the font etched into the metal just under the dial.

The etching of the word XRAY under the dial pushed James to err on the side of bringing the Resotron back to his apartment. He was curious, and he liked the juxtaposition of something now as complicated as xray technology distilled onto such a simple but serious-looking device. He carried it the two blocks back to his apartment and put it down on the cluttered and crumby kitchen table, hurrying to answer the phone, which he'd heard ringing from the sidewalk outside.

It was Laurie calling to invite him over for a Sunday afternoon cookout with just her, John and the kids, to take advantage of the particularly warm late September afternoon, more like summer than fall really, and precious to any native New Englander who understood just how long the winter to come would really be. Laurie was James' best friend from college, and though they'd lived at least one time zone apart for the twenty years since then, John's job had brought them to the area four years ago and Laurie and James now saw each other regularly. James had wondered if John would on some level object to Laurie picking back up her friendship with him, but he seemed unbothered by it. He was not a jealous type, and he liked James, and he seemed glad that Laurie had a friend that she seemed to enjoy so much.

James and Laurie had met in a geology class in college. She'd sat next to him in the first lecture, and he'd immediately appreciated the details of her: long twin dark braids, brown eyes so dark you could not distinguish the pupil from the coro

oh my god I am boring myself. This is so not what was in my head. I had something much more immediate in mind and instead its taking ten years to describe the resotron which is not even the point.

Pffffffffffft.

Briefly

Seven things
now lost.
Hug the midline
she says.
I am reaching
as far as I can
over the side
of the canoe.
It gets
tippy this way.

Hug the midline
she says.
I get it
and don't do it.

Get up.
Get back up. You know
how to walk
all the way to the back
holding a cushion
and a paddle
without having to hold
onto the sides. You could
do it
with your eyes closed.
So familiar. The feel of that.

Seven things lost.
Six things found.
Twenty six. Twenty seven. Twenty eight.
Its just counting.
Out loud
its actually
a pleasing sound.

Hug the midline
she says.
I will. I will again.

One more thing

There was a fourth thought. I don't want to write anything preachy. The things on BSD that I like the least are the ones where its a thinly veiled attempt at telling the reader some bigger point. That Visit poem, I can hardly stand it and a few others like it but I learned from it. People can figure it out for themselves. Telling your point of view is different than trying to instruct someone. Preachy is bad. Bad. Its one of my particular pitfalls, unfortunately. But I can see it a little better and more quickly when I'm doing it. It makes me tell myself to PLEASE shut up when I do it. Seriously. Please. Shut UP.

Comment

Owen went down in flames with a particularly violent stomach bug on Sunday so there wasn't time to write, but there was time to work on thinking. We were spooning on the gurney in the ER for four hours or so while he got some IV fluid and medication and in addition to many other thoughts I had these three:

I know I don't want to write an awful-childhood searing redemptive Bastard-out-of-Carolina or White-Oleander book. Ten years ago I might have. It would have been relatively easy to do and probably not terrible. I have enough first-hand experience to give it a semi-autobiographical ring of authenticity and a knack for disturbing imagery (not too much on BSD but it was a trademark in college). But you know what? I don't want to write that book. Its not what I want to create or put out into the world. Too bad in one sense because there is a good market for it and if I wanted to recoup some money for my time that might be statistically speaking my best chance. But I don't want to invite that in as the relative who is going to stay with us for a couple of years. I don't want to spend time with those kind of people anymore. It was what was. It had its airtime. Done. I have better things to do.

I am not working hard at this or trying so much to be diligent. I'm relaxing into it. Its becoming like a chronic condition. Something I live with. I always feel and miss the days I don't get anything down, but its usually for a good or worthy trade-off. So I don't agonize. I just do what I can when I can. I do think I will try to arrange bigger pieces of time to do longer stories and more in-depth work. Nitty-grittiness. I'm getting pretty comfortable with the two-mile run. I'm working up to the five-mile outing and maybe by spring or summer a half-marathon. Not worrying about the marathon, or book. If its meant to be I won't be able but to keep going towards it. It would be a huge amount of work but I don't mind that. I like to work.

I can't imagine doing anything public under my own name. I think that's a little funny and I don't have any insight into why. Nothing obvious, like I'm afraid of criticism, or commentary, or stagefright, or whatever. I like the idea of people getting to interact with what I make. Cupcakes, to delight you, and all. Why I can't imagine letting anyone know I baked them, why I feel I need to leave them on the end of your porch under the cover of dark - ? Can't say.

Inquiry

I am on fire
to ask you
and receive some kind of
incredible
catch my breath
pound my heart
break into a sweat
a slick shining sweat
answer
to this

what did you do
with the gifts given to you
in the loving season?

They were gifts!
you
and I
and you
were not entitled
or due
or overdue.
You're an idiot.
And I am worse.
And you're an idiot.

Right now
we are sleeping
and waking
and walking on
a pile
four feet thick
of fat blooming gorgeous sweet-scented
heirloom soft dewy red ROSES
in our bare feet. Naked. Glorious.
None of us
have ever looked
so good. So perfect. You
and I
and you
are positively glowing. Rangy-limbed
long and
lean and with these
beautiful lines. Clear-eyed. Luminous.
A bright goddess. An earthly god. A magic man
behind a magic curtain.
And it is warm
and just enough humid
and its all
silky soft
and heavenly. Stop pretending. Who cares
what your day was like?

This is
what you were given. I want
to know
what you did with it.
Wake up and
get up.
Break into bloom
furiously
over and over
in time-lapsed
photography.
Get up
and get up and
slap yourself
and get up and wake up
and answer
the damn question.

Unclaimed

These three things:

Assigned at random
to a double room
at the Nairobi YWCA
with a woman
my own young age
the only survivor
of her family
from Rwanda
I awoke
past midnight
so sick
and waited hours
to vomit
finally sticking
my finger down my throat
to find relief
her, awake
and listening
but silent
in the morning
took her picture with me
and called me sister
my address
I never heard
from her again

another time
six? or seven?
swimming out
to the float
I don't know why
but I went under
the neighbor saw
from shore
and rowed out
and dove in
and pulled me up
by my hair
I never
closed my eyes
underwater
I remember
calm
and green
and silt
in shafts of light and
two perch
watching me

and then
on a lark
the Outer Banks
friends of friends
with a friend
hurricane waves
so huge
and fun to dive through
timing everything
the friend
got rolled
and disoriented
swam for bottom
frantically
and stopped moving
and I could not
believe it
or remember
what to do
I punched
his belly
three times
and he retched
seawater
and sand
over both of us
we held each other so tightly
like lovers
trembling
and cold
in the sun
and not one other person
ever took notice
or knew
and we never
spoke of it again

slipped down
back behind the drawers

you won't find them
until the next move.

Winter

I am coming home
though I am home
already.
Bitterest cold
but the squirrels
are so fat
and playing
entirely
unserious
about the mean business
of survival.
One friend
no, two
feeling forces
and making plans
to satisfy.
One friend
making friends
with everyone
on the train
and becoming, herself,
formidable.
One friend
winnowing it down
towards
something
more true.
And the last one
hoping
and preparing
both
in equal measure.
The details of each
irrelevant. Don't
strain your eyes.
Optimism
like that bright bluejay
in the snow.

Wait

Today
we went sledding
the two of them
and me.
The basin
crusted in ice
the wind
having its way
with the trees
an oddly
thundery sky
sending fat flurries
through the split sun
and
tiny juncos
threading
and looping
tree to tree.

Up we climbed.
Down we slid
without sleds
the ice
refusing purchase
to our stomping feet
trying to crack and
break
the shell
to something softer
underneath.

All moving
but nothing yet
hatched
this day.

Pickled

Some say
your whole story
might only be
the longest series of choices
what you decided for
what you decided against.

I once decided
to drive around Lake Ontario
one summer night
all night
with a good
and fundamentally mismatched
and therefore platonic
friend
in his enormous car. Dashboard lights.
Mix tapes. Canada, by dark.
We stopped at 2am
past Toronto
in a field
a million stars
I closed my eyes
and sat on the bumper
and of course
being twenty
at the time
exuded

just kiss me

he chose
not to.
He decided
against it.
A good decision. A sensible
choice.

This is
always the problem
for me:
What happened
to your heart's desires
even
when not chosen
even
when decided against
all the times
you had no choice but to
give it up to someone
when it would have been
a little more sensible
and proper
and safe
to not shipwreck yourself
in that
particular way?

Where is
your other story
Where is
your other life
Do they write you
Do they call
and send you letters
with pictures
about what they're
doing now?

3:12

Nothing at all
tries my patience so much
as having
to be patient.
I wait
for you to catch up.
I wait
for the moment
you wake up
and stay awake.
I wait
for you
to remember.

Once,
when I was twelve
I was waist deep in the lake.
I went under
and held my breath
as long
as I could.
3:12
by my brother's
Timex waterproof watch.
My best effort
but that
was not
patience.

Its still
the same old thing.
Right now, I am burning down
Christmas, and right now
I am just having
to do this.

Good things come to those who wait.
The early bird gets the worm.
Just breathe.
Carpe diem.

I can make no sense of this advice.

Nothing makes me so empty
as a cold, windy,
sunny
day
from a white-painted room and
nothing makes me so lonely
as a certain music
in an ugly blue-carpeted room
in winter
with the icicles dripping.

I have to run to it.
I have to have
the first warm spring breeze
on my skin and
I have to sink my fingers
in the dirt
planting things
dirt up under my nails, in the creases
in the pores where
it won't likely wash clean
I have to plant things
and push on them hard
to tuck them in
then
the lovely waiting
the unpatient waiting
to see what grows
to see what comes next
that
is the thing that
I can do.

End of Show

I pulled the curtain. I pulled it
not you.
And here we are. Its thick
and dark
a damask enclosure. Old wood floor. An
old sweet smell
of powders, and
sweat
from a long time ago.

I don't mind this dark. If I stare into
it, look at it, rather than
trying to see something
I can tell its red, and crimson, and
honeycombed gold. Not just dark.
I still know
where I am
which is the same place
as where I was.

You
on the other hand
are feeling along
for the split
for where
things separate
and you walk through. The other side.

The split is there. Both sides
are already there.

Keep feeling for it
until you
don't need to
anymore.

January

I go up
to that edge
again and again
rarely
at night
usually midday
sometimes
in the morning, at sunrise
always to look
do you see it there?
an edge, a bluff, with a quarry
to make your way around
the ground, the gravel, pinkish
and a bent wind-weathered scrub forest
before coming
to the open sea

usually alone
I never called it
not once
at whom I would find there
and once or twice
who found me
I always think
I'm the better spotter, lookout, seer
its funny to me
and
a curious relief
to be wrong
I suppose
now that I think about it
I love it
to be seen

I love it
to reread
or re-see
my own words
and self
when I was honest
and told the truth
even years later
I can always perceive it
it comes together
in those moments
a cohesion
and a comfort
and a willingness
at that edge.

To Tell You the Truth

You know
it isn't
what I know
it is just the space
where we meet
in the middle
This was the time.

I can't speak
so often
I find us
breathing at the same time
so often
I know when you sleep
and when you wake
I don't try to direct
either one.

I am not you
and it never
escapes me
how much
it is not
about me
for some reason
that alone explodes my heart with a joy
I levitate
to be
so little
so small
so nothing
even to you.

Sometimes
this isn't
anyone's dream
there are hints of it
here and there
but in the end
it is its own thing
no one owns it
no one made it
you could never
if you tried.

Its like this
its like smelling something
to identify it
rather than going
straight for your strongest sense
no I see it clearly
no I know it because I feel it
and, even, no I know it because I
hear my own voice
just
smell it
use your weakest muscle

the total surprise
of where
you didn't know
you could be so sore
the total surprise
of where
you didn't know
you even were.

Untitled

Once
for a whole day
I talked
really slow
at first
because I was
so hung over
champagne
when sitting down
for long stretches
seems so innocuous
but I came to
kind of like it
so I kept at it
on purpose
I became
very slow
at everything
all day
my husband
by afternoon
wondered out loud if
I was missing
an essential vitamin
or something
and the lady at CVS
I was pretty sure
thought I was retarded
she was so
super friendly
and congratulatory
at my independent shopping success

We attended
a party
later that night
and by then
the effect of others
finding me different
was less than
everything becoming different
for me
all the usual people there
to my mind
in slow motion
the details of their dress
their looks, and expressions
flashing, sparkling, echoing, blurring
now not occurring
but captured
and reverenced
I saw them more
and truly
liked them more
a simple effect
of pacing.

The Visit

Holding my friend's
inky-eyed newborn
gliding back-forth, back-forth
in their hospital room
all their loved ones around
remarking on the wonder
of him
who he looks like
all that hair!
how quiet, how alert, how good
I didn't really care
I looked at him
he at me
and I whispered
those are not the things
that excite me about you
the truth is
you thrill me
because
you remind me
of these things:

I can do it myself
I graduated
I got in
I passed
I took it
I quit
I took it
She said yes
They accepted the offer
I did it myself
Its a boy
Its a girl
Its a Labradoodle
They caught it early
They got it all
I was with her
I was with him
I made it just in time
I never
I always
I know now
I understand
I believe
I will
I have
I am

He gazed
unimpressed and
unblinking
at me
the way newborns do
Fine
I said
as quietly
as I could
so his
very earnest parents
would not overhear
do your own thing
and skip some of
or all of
the first parts
if you must
but just
trust me
you little thrill-seeker
not the last ones.

Untitled

I stumbled
right out of the blocks
all ramped up on
promise, clarity, lessons learned
now I know!
where I'm going!
and ringing in praise
I ended up
ungloriously
picking the little
rocks out of my palms
and hoping for at least a
little bit of blood
behind the tear
in the fabric
at my knee
to justify
this idiotic moment
I just get so drunk on
fresh starts
this is that part
if you believe in a god
where you get to say something about
a sick sense of humor
for right now I
will leave it to
you to summarize, philosophize,
make any meaning of it
I am too busy
reacquainting myself
with the pavement.

Hard Times

I'm not there
you see
to do the things that should be done

a chicken soup, from scratch
for your dinner
and your breakfast
as you sometimes
like to do
perhaps a pie to follow
if you have the appetite
sit across the room
looking busy
with my book
though in fact
I would just be very quietly
and secretly
radiating my warmest self
at you
if there are dishes to be done
they'd be done
and you might not notice
the sweet smell of something
I rubbed on your pillowcase
to infuse you
with comfort
as you dream

be with you
leave you be
both together
as you need

There I am.