Tag Archives: poem

Night of the Curtain

31 Monday Oct 2022

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The balcony rail is cold and damp
I lean on it anyway.
There is one cricket singing
weet
weet
weet
with long pauses in between.

It could be one of those early spring mornings
I rose in the Catskills, Grandma’s trailer
grass not green but grey, coated in condensation
silver
Many crickets singing
weet
weet
weet
with long pauses in between.

It’s autumn now and I am shirtsleeves
rolled up on my shoulders like Fonzie,
flip flops, toes not cold.
All the cars in the lot are
coated in condensation
and my child’s heart wants to run down there and
fingerpaint hearts and smiley faces on all the windshields.

“Are you seeing the same moon I am?”

“I love you more.”

Weet
weet
weet
With long pauses in between.

For Evelyn

08 Tuesday Feb 2022

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I don’t want to write in the kitchen with the light on

It’s too bright

Sunrise soon in my bedroom

but it’s still dark too dark in this other room to write.

Candles 50 solve the problem

but the soot and the scent overpower

nothankyou

So I’ll just keep getting up to check on the

black sky

indigo sky

blue sky

just the right sky

Like a child,

Now? Now? Now? How ’bout now?

Can I turn off the light

see ink on the page

legible

legit

Yeah now it’s time,

and I will spend the rest of the day

complaining

It isn’t dark enough to rain–

or to write.

Bedtime Story

30 Friday Jul 2021

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I made a nest of her hair beneath the couch,
circled soft gray strands into a bed
Wove black threads and sock pills,
sea green that smell of aloe into the place I lay my head.
Because she is naughty there are bread crumbs
and cheese crumbs on the floor beside my bed,
what she brushes off becomes a feast.
It is never too warm or too cold beneath the couch,
though sometimes I fear she might squish me when she sits
but she stays on that end and I on this,
and we watch The Sopranos again.

One night late, before she wakes at three for a
swig of cold milk from the fridge to stave off the pain
I crept into her bedroom and a sneeze came upon me
unannounced, incidentally, nowhere to hide.   
She sat up wide awake and said, “Hello?”
I froze, astonished she could hear, annoyed I let myself be known.
She said again “Hello?” asking of the dark
and I think she wanted someone to be there.

First Heat

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

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my feet are not cold on the floor though I left all the windows open
all night

no clouds in sight
no humidity, only heat is imminent
first morning after a pink moon

it would be a good day to drink more water, I think, as I water a red dahlia

one puff of breeze enters the kitchen and I smell the heat
the heat of sun on the leaves, the pine needles,
paint on the wood of the balcony
Heat on a black birds back
rising up from the sand, damp beneath
heat from the roof tiles wafting away
like the garlic she uses to make food with her hands
and all is quiet again

until the heat knocks, a loud fist on the steel door
expansion says science but my body startles anyway
and it’s time for the sun to magnify its rays in my eyes
though I’ve closed the blinds
and all I can think is what sweat tastes like
on the first day of heat after a pink moon
and the red dahlia laughs at me.

dreamsong

30 Friday Oct 2020

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Standing at the kitchen sink
in a tiny log cabin
cold orange light slanting in
Washing washing washing
Bruce Springsteen behind
watching me
wash with a rag in the big white sink
singing an old bride’s song

It’s a song about rain on one side of the day
blue skies in the morning and waking cold
middle of the night
unsure if I did all the washing
The blankets you made are heavy and tell me
everything’s all right.

I’ve got rain on my mind
fog in my eye
Lavender in every breath that happens
Mom said she loves me
I already know
because it’s about to rain on the other side of the sky.

“A Small Needful Fact

17 Friday Jul 2020

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Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.”

—- Ross Gay

Perfect Black Shoes

21 Saturday Mar 2020

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I sneak downstairs to dispose my trash in purple twilight
before the morning rush
before the sun is too bright
and I am stunned by what lay on the damp asphalt
two perfect black shoes, velvet
empty
abandoned before the belching dumpster

I stopped short and wondered
could someone bring chalk and make this an invisible
crime scene
for a woman lay here and all that remains are her perfect black shoes
sideways

When I returned from inspecting potatoes in an empty grocery store
I discovered the shoes upright, side by side
pretty as the day they came from the shoe store.

On my midday inspection of the balcony, I saw a man carrying
a pair of perfect black velvet shoes.
Halloo there I hailed.
I inquired.
He replied, they are perfect size for his wife,
they just need a little dusting…

Seaman, you of all should know better than to bring
discarded clothing into your life?

Bonfire for E.

14 Saturday Mar 2020

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welcome enter
how did we find each other
doesn’t matter
our candles burn the same

i am crone in the cave naming
sea life remains
one long tide at a time.

the mother of me sees the mother of you
i have balm for that.
you are still spring and fight
where I am retreat and ruminate

the world is blind at night,
but for a little moon
we are unsafe on the waters
and deepest african shores
still we prowl, seeking danger

we are eating and drinking and laughing
when we should be
writing
writing
writing

when next you see me, darling
bring your book and your pen
refuse all distraction
enter the cave hungry and wet
and longing

bring basil and pepper and vinegar
ghost pepper
empty cask
bring your longing and prepare to
dash it on the rocks
fearless woman, rise up
stain your fingers with woe
and love and find liberty.

Isn’t All Poetry Confessional?

30 Wednesday Oct 2019

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They had to call it something.  Everything has a label, has to have a label otherwise it cannot be understood?
Things cannot be as they are, they must be classified and microfisched for further review by busybodies who write the law.

I wanted an MFA tag, but that’s fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of)  
I refused to pay the price.
‘stead I carry pomegranates in my apron
I never share them because that would be truth-telling, that would be
the real deal.
Who wants to hear more sylvia plath confessionals
yet another unhappy woeman
writing names in the sand
counting down?

I would rather have been Mary Oliver in the end
some kind of smooth stone you keep in a mason jar
or a sassy fawn named for a childhood friend
the one who still carries the North star

or better,
a body carved with hieroglyphs of the sea
wrapped in a Robert E. Howard shroud, epically 

or simply

e e cummings
      free

10 Saturday Aug 2019

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She Lay Curled In An Animal’s Trench

She lay curled in an animal’s trench
Soft shed hair helped keep her warm.
She patted the ground hoping for lion
but most likely flighty hyena lay here.
She pulled in handfuls of dust and chaff,
plucked shallow weeds.
They smelled of old blood and broken loyalty.

Obsidian sky dripped malachite meteors,
low slow and long.
Chandeliers of stars once reflected in the pond
that lay east of her chin
But the water was gone
consumed by tongue and air.

Rested, she rose and twisted tufts of weed and hyena
into her hair.
She spat into the sandy earth and ground it in her palms,
painting the four points on her face.
She continued her long walk west back to the sorting place
determined to be a mirthless, disobedient beast
until the sun came back to retrieve her.

(Persephone’s Staircase)