She rose at 3:15 from her plastic chair,
the wooden desk carved with curses.
Her bones began to sing.
She ran home to unwed shoes,
lost socks, and blue shadows,
chores to complete until dark,
criticism swallowed like bites of tough meat.
She focused on the bright stars,
the winter air, crisp as a white shirt,
and soup.
I was the woman going home
after a hard day.
I took the long way
across the soccer field,
no one was playing,
the clouds tasseled.
If there were still good things
in this world
I wanted to feel it in the ground
that holds me up,
catches me when I fall.
Read more "Summer Ended Long Ago"I asked for four potatoes.
I got four bags of them.
I asked for a pound of chicken
and got a box of breaded dinosaur shapes.
I got bean sprouts and kiwi I didn’t order.
A man once did a perfect job.
He knew where to find the refrigerated pickles,
and that chicken broth with beef added
is not what I ordered.
Some personal shoppers, I gather,
have never shopped before.
They don’t know what turbinado sugar is
and give up without trying.
A bowl of just picked tomatoes.
Deep green basil growing in a pot.
Yellow sun on yellow plates.
Showered body in a crisp shirt.
Shiny shoes.
Pants other than sweats.
Cello proficiency.
Window overlooking the sea.
Twelve devilled eggs waiting.
A friend request from Bob Dylan.
Pink vintage rose blooms all year.
No haircut needed.
No dust.
Loved by everyone.
Peak of health.
Rosy future.
No self-deception.
Orion’s slow tumble from winter’s black
announces our day’s sunup meal, the birds and me;
finches are first to pick-peck fall’s bounty.
Sagging branched apples offer their exposed flanks
to the songbirds’ mixed tape this December morn’.
Flap-flitting from appled branch to next sweet tidbit.
A furtive dance of
jab, glance, nibble, glimpse.
My icy fingers remember
the lime twins,
fused side by side,
creased down the middle.
Our young bodies too—
their mysterious creases and folds.
The least I could do for you,
my Double Buddy,
was break the popsicle apart,
give you half.
I snap the book shut,
try to erase his grim words,
but I can’t escape.
Even a trip to the store
is horrifying. I watch
as a lady thumps
a melon, caresses it,
lowers an ear to
its veiny flesh, and heaves it
into her cart with a grunt.
Banana bunches
hanging down the length
of a frosted chain
outside a snow-swept market
curl with cozy ease
into each other,
as if still
on a tree somewhere tropical,
their yellowness
dawning from their green
I stumble over oak roots
on my fat trek down to the lake,
ignore jingling ice cream vendors,
Dunkin’ Donuts shops, Krispy
Kreme allure.
Rorschach patterns on my back,
I stop for water at a tactile
stone bubbler, not distracted
by the lemonade fountains,
root beer floats or sugared
hyacinth teas and I avoid
I-HOP for lunch.
“Another milkshake please.”
The waitress eyes her with disbelief. Catalogues her stained-through hoodie and greasy hair. Not that the waitress has room to judge with her own issues: a slight hunchback and blisters covered by her platform flats that she most certainly did not purchase in the 90’s and definitely do not smell with age.
“Another one, girly? Don’t you want some food?”
Read more "Milkshake"
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