Always Noon

Gramma kept a clock that counted time aloud--

Grandfather Clock, because he’d been lost to us.

The face was ice.

With a child’s might, I saved snowflakes in my fist--
fury-faced that they would not cooperate.
And the clock kept count.

When Gramma died, my baby brother took her pain--
I must have got her heart.
The one that beats here 
now 
was never beating here before.

What happened to the counting clock is no concern of mine.

Now

Woman
unpossessed
is the river
swept
with
Current

To my seventh grade self

Little girl
I do not possess you
We are made of matching molecules
but my reverie is no more relevant
than your flimsy photograph.
I may as well be floating,
as we always are.
I do not possess you.
And yet,
our small lives
will forever
belong
to one another.

On the train

It is city transit.
River, rather.

The woman in the blue dress is actually wearing slacks and a blouse; shoulder-slung banjo glimpses as she strolls past high school snugglers and a mama with a bike.
Five red-nosed circus clowns wade the stream; Meryl Streep, and Ghandi,
while an elderly gentleman gives birth to a banana split through his belly-button, a puppy dives into a one armed handstand by the handicapped seats, and a small stroller child silently chokes to death on a red lozenge.

No one in the water sees.
Wide-eyed helping hands 
too full of the wonder
in our telephones.

The Revolution, or Monday Night Lovers

We will be

Monday night lovers.

To leave space

for the promises you want to make

to someone else

someday.

Fall into my arms

with your week,

and your weak,

and your woe.

And I will love you well.

For a moment,

if that is all you have.

Your people;

they will cry,

harlot!

wanton!

no!

But my people; 

they hear me.

Hear us.

Cheer for love.

No matter that it changes,

that it ends,

that it is reborn again in the spring

as the sun begins to shine.

In Chicago,

where the seasons change,

we know these rhythms.

Here, 

where we embrace this Revolution,

I am home in who I am.

Shame Less

For shame.

You are everything 

I have been afraid of.

Your distracted debit card is stolen,

your frantic misplaced wallet was right here,

you are red wine reckless with a date’s new sweater,

you are everywhichwayhereandthere.

You are everything

I have always been ashamed of.

And you

are

Wonderful.

If I can love 

you,

how much more 

shame 

less 

might 

I

get to be.

The one who tied the silence to her hair

It was me

who

who what

who tied the silence to her hair

Three decades and one year of it all

braided in like ribbons

tiny strands 

silver and glitter flecked

it cascaded down my nape, my neck, down into the small of my back

The silence

it swung shoulder to shoulder with every step I took

left

right

left

right

A ready reminder of the steady sound

the quiet 

it was binder bound 

with a single pound.

There I had it.

Hinged and three-ringed.

Life’s Little Instruction Book.

but then the silence was too strong

the silence was a scream, a shout, a

what-is-this-about

mantra 

dancing from my brain and seeping through my braids

the silence starved 

it shrieked

there’s nothing left to eat

the silence said

I have no taste for tenderness

It took eleven thousand three hundred ninety-five days

and the entirety of Chicago

before I discovered

at a restaurant on the northside

Lincoln Square

there is an unadvertised menu

Chef’s Specials of the day

They don’t bring it to your table  

unless you make a special request

You have to go up to the hostess and tap her on the shoulder, three quick successions, and say, in ig-pay atin-lay, “ef-chay ecial-spay” before they even admit that it exists

They don’t want the customers to know

They’re afraid of a stampede

I guess

of silhouetted figurines

I guess

night-rioting for righteousness

that if we knew what we might otherwise be eating we’d never ask for standard American fare again

and that our country cannot exist if we don’t all order Family Style, monogamous hamburgers and “freedom fries”, whenever we go out to dinner

I’ve seen the secret menu and

Oh, 

it 

is 

everything.

Liver, rabbit, goose, pâté

it is steaming seared steak, bloody and rare

curry roasted cauliflower

it is herb crusted pork ribs

and fresh mint leaves from a hidden garden on the roof

It is duck confit and crispy ginger chicken

it is brussel sprouts with bacon

green beans with sage and lemon rinds

it is his hands, my hips, 

his lips, my wrists, at midnight

seven separate styles of laughter

exhilarated, annotated, and decidedly not abbreviated

it is a glance, a glimpse from the iris of your eye to the pupil of mine that flashes

Me.

And who wouldn’t love to love themself that way

The silence does not even know itself

It never did

There are three hundred sixty-five days in a year

right now

Each day is long

and loud

And I can hear them all

The line "the one who tied silence to his hair" is from one of Rafael Alberti's "El Ángel Bueno" poems, translated by Mark Strand.

Late Night Phone Call

he is twelve years old
a white boy from Schaumburg, Illinois
with a sloppy barber’s buzz cut

somewhere
in his surveillance-skunked skin
he’s been soaked in enough small screen and YouTube
to know he will tell this story on a date one day
knows the date will understand and maybe laugh along, by then, and even share his own
and once again, perhaps
and then he will not need to announce it anymore
Somewhere
furrowed in his frame, his fortitude
he knows he is, in fact, allowed
he even apprehends that no one has authority to grant permission anyway

But he is only twelve
he’s only twenty-four
he’s only nine years old
He just had his 50th birthday
His retirement party
His bar mitzvah
Just went away to college
Celebrated two decades of marriage
a year of sobriety last Saturday
Watched the birth of his nephew
his granddaughter
his sons
Mourned his mother’s death
his father’s
his lover’s
had a sexual encounter with a woman
and enjoyed himself
Fell in love with two men at the same time
and didn’t tell anyone
He wrote it on his flesh

Inside, his organs are stopped with oratory
prose
he digests a manuscript
written in blotted ink
cursive
careful calligraphy
carvings etched into his esophagus
helvetica and andale mono
american typewriter inserting impression after impression in the walls of his intestines
a, s, d, f
j, k, l, semicolon
a, s, d, f
j, k, l, semicolon
over and over, up and down the 5-9 meters, indenting the folds and furrows of his GI tract
The whole of his endoskeleton is transparent text
if you turned him inside out we could read everything real about him up on the powerpoint screen if only I had a projector handy
and it was the size of a football field

It’s three in the morning
middle of October somewhere in Ohio
and he sits on the gravel in the parking lot of an elementary school
tailbone tight against the ground
doubled-over
arms arched across his torso to hold the inside in
barbershop broomstick by his feet, bloody
above him is the hollowed shell of a pay phone
just a pole stuck into an empty shoe box
he stares at it, maybe he can wish it into being again
because all he wants to do is make a late night phone call
and go back home


The prompt "write about a late night phone call" comes from A Writer's Book of Days 

Behind Lace Curtains

I do not take the gauze.
At the hospital, the nurse offers bandages; 
bleached translucent revolutions, particles of protection
and wants my patient permission to position each unwind 
over everything.  
All of me.
Well, to be fair, she started with the wound.  A tender intention.  After all, it was bleeding out, droplets down to the linoleum.
But I’d been there before.  Recalled the way she’d shrouded me back then, beginning at the gash, then wrapping
up
and
down 
my arms,
my legs,
my feet,
my head,
hands,
fingers 
and toes.
My torso.
Until I was mummified, inhaling through the bleach 
and peeking from beneath a brow of
what--
Before I knew, she’d covered all that too.
And while it sure was true, just like she said, yes, I did no longer bleed,
I also did not see, nor hear, nor eat.
There was no air for breath to sing.  I could not touch nor taste.
Wiggling was hard.
I couldn’t bathe.
It smelled in there.
So now I do not take the gauze.
I accept the nurse, of course.  Her voice is soft 
and it seems she does not fake the grace. 
But I do not take the gauze.
She brings it in (it's still her job) 
and I squint my gaze with gentleness,
unroll the spools and hold the gauzy frost before my eyes.
Turn to face the window 
without a word.
Then we sit, as one,
and watch the sun shine in
behind lace curtains.


The prompt "behind lace curtains" comes from A Writer's Book of Days.

[hohm] (n.)

She
is weeping willow branches
hanging lazy loose.
She is climbing ivy vines
stretching to the shingled roof.
And though she musters single flutters in the wind;
a furtive flip, one lone leaf overturned
it is nowhere near the birds
and bees
and brutes,
it is nothing next to flight.
The big mistake her human body makes
is growing roots.

Patience

My fingers sound like typewriters
each a click-i-ty-clack across the glass
filing down my nails to nubs of what once was.
And I am waiting patiently.
Screaming with my patience.
Twisting hair and chewing cheeks with all that is my patience.

It was one small fingernail that made me pause;
lying on the countertop
one pristine fingertip
a piece of me that came undone
in the midst of my accommodating, uncomplaining, patient click and clack.
It lie there as a gem, glistening in the light, spinning ever so.
It was then I told the rest of my small hand to just hold tight;
do not go the way of that stray bit,
there is reason still for staying on
and clicking with the rest.
It was then I learned what patience meant:
When there is more to type.

Atheist

Lover
you tell me
the world does not exist in such a sunlight.
Open up those crystal eyes
you whisper in my hair.

I balk
but it has taken all my life
to walk into the basement dark
and see the daylight there.
We live in such a glow
not because we do
but because we must!
All I have discovered will not be in error.  Take care 
to watch the morning with me once
without the inquisition.
Information is not all we have.

And even as I say it
I am sorry for the lie.

Synthesize

The body in me was screaming, crying out with rage.
All it ached for was one run, one sprint, one jog across the land.
I couldn’t give it that. Couldn’t trust my knees not to buckle from the weight,
that my thighs were strong enough to keep me standing.
I couldn’t play
and so my body starved, and sobbed and pleaded;
just one tiny jaunt, a walk, a step.
I couldn’t give it that.
Not one toe.
And so the body left;
put together pieces in a case, took flight away.
What was left is what you see.
In perfect order.
Well-thought out.
Decisive.
Intellectual.
Sound in mind
and lacking in what’s real;
what once had been the very essence, the awful everything of me.

Now

Once the day retreats
there is no more
awake
for you;
the traveler
following the light that falls
forever
simply over the next hill.
The evening stars are naught but pebbles in your dancing shoes.
The moon is just another handsome face undone.
The night sky can no longer be your guide.
Because at last
my dear
you
are wisely seeking sun.

(understood)

Once the brow has furrowed
in a forehead question mark
there is no
before.
Whatever smooth and silent found its home between the eyes
never has been
now.
You will remember
nothing
of your old life.
You will know too much.

(until
the late life morning
when the sidelong mirror near the bathroom door
paints craters in the early eyelids
and draws margins down the cheek,
freckles mildew in the cream.
then,
calamities erase
into the sheets)

But
for now at least
you are young
and so alive with what will be discovered.

Travel Blog

The sky no longer made much sense.
Now it was all grass
and green
and ground.
There, in the soil
where
stepping
lent itself quite well to leaving
footprints
in the leaves,
was me.
Very much alone
and scared of bears.

Overhead
within the wind
I searched forgotten patterns-
the migration of the birds
and clouds,
the memory of lightning bolts
and snow.
Now I had denied the weather
and the flight of sun across the sky,
the trajectory of starry nights.
I lived on Earth
on land
on an Ikea chair with my feet propped up,
the television on.

The sky no longer made much sense.
I had piled aspirations
one
on top of
the other
up
through the clouds
jumped atop, hands on hips, and
proudly
looked
around.
Oh! I had seen inside the sky!
and while it was really rather beautiful,
never, never was it
Blue.
I needed something new
to lie upon my back
and look up to.

Flatten hemispheres.
Bring the clouds down to earth, eye level.
Spread them out across the states:
the Red Rocks of Sedona,
the Wisconsin trails,
the eastern seaboard beaches.
No coordinates, no compass tip,
no northern star,
just a starting point.
I'll begin at home
with what's familiar,
with the facts.
The wonderful wanting of more.
A delicious desire
for flavor and taste,
and for the dearest words I know-
to explore.

Stretching canvas

I have surely struggled with prime colors
in a watercolor painter's way.
Too much moisture on the brush
and yellow yields to tear,
green grows in as a weathered lawn,
diluted hearts bleed pink.

My palette forgets
pastels are colors, too.
Pale
can paint with (shhh) enduring novelty
on the big bright world.
Love
can be light blue.

Hyphenate

Every question ends in semi-colon;
or comma,
or pair of ellipses... ...
They wrap themselves around my arms
tattooed into restless fickle freckled skin
shoulders to wrists
two sleeves of impaled and imperfect punctuation
period.
I fear the question mark
fly from it
leave the hyphenates to fend for themselves
flattened horizontal pebbles left a stone's throw away
abbreviated dashes---
they don't ask why



?

written on the mirror

No. I will not run.

even though my jogging shorts are all laid out,
sports bra on the bed,
gym shoes at the door.
Even though
outside
the pavement would be smooth
and cool
beneath my feet,
and I am inside
knee deep in volcanic fire overflow.
No. I will not run.

Anchor my ankles to the water pipe,
wrap my wrists with wire,
bind the belt about my waist.
Hold me still.
Push the inhalation through my lungs.
Breathe.
I will not move my legs
at all.
No. I will not run!

even though the running pulses through my blood.
Even though I used to speed on the adrenaline,
impromptu marathons at four a.m.,
exhilarating
down the open road
long before the lava could have even reached my pinkie toe,
approaching
hot against the heels,
and I'd have fled
to everyone's dismay.
My trademark unexpected race away.

But no.
I won't.
I will not run today.

Because my will

Because my will is weak,
tired as a Tuesday afternoon,
I stare, not with my eyes, but with my toes,
my feet outstretched, craving the ability of sight.

Because my will is weak
I gather mustaches and turtleneck sweaters,
tackle them to the corkboard with hair pins,
glitter them with glue and ground up birth control,
hoard baseball hats and sunglass cases, college football t-shirts,
other things that smell of strength
and are made of muscle.

Because my will is weak
I do not bake my bread with yeast,
I do not double lock my door,
I do not lace my shoes.
I am go ahead and run along and hurry up.
I am leave behind and straight away.
I am no more time to spare.

I am the collector.
I pile, build
and stand upon the mountain side I've made.
Because my will is weak.
And I want so very badly to be strong.