Poetry
Birthday Fugue
Forthcoming in thesmokingpoet.tripod.com, June 2008.
Disturbed clouds wing the sky, my stomach
roils with migraine.
Yesterday, a wet drive up the coast
from a class I didn’t need.
These past two months living alone
in a house my husband wishes I’d never found.
Meanwhile, two voices, one called Stay, the other Go.
Stay is heavy, angry, strong, weighing in at three hundred pounds.
Go is the one with the wicked migraine. She doesn’t
sleep. She drives clutching the steering wheel as if there’s always a storm.
Go appears to be conscious, but Stay often has no
recollection of her, forgetting Go for days at a time.
Stay liked the class, asked questions, walked without an umbrella.
Go slumped in the corner, turned from the teacher, stared out the gray window.
Go wanted to leave early, cried in the bathroom.
Stay yanked her by her scruff, hissed, You’re forty-three.
Leave me alone, Go says every night to Stay.
You’re ruining my life, Stay says to Go.
Go rubs her forehead, moans, asks for help.
Stay rubs her round belly, demands more cake, more ice cream.
The wind throws acorns at the house, the car
slicks up the road. The class is bad. The candles burn out.
Stay calls her husband. Go hangs up the phone
No one remembers anything.
Dream of Drowning
Forthcoming in thesmokingpoet.tripod.com, June 2008.
Not knowing what to grab, I grabbed a man
and then another, their bodies
turning to handles on a sinking boat.
Under water, the fish swam
by. My hair a drift of brown
in the night sea, the moon
a wavery slash of white on my puckered skin.
Can you imagine how sorry I felt for myself, drowning
by no fault of my own—not my storm, not my journey,
not my idea this salt and water and wind--
clutching the handles, the wet wood pulling me under.
Even the moon faded.
Remember the Indian wives, stars of flame
flickering on their husbands burning bodies,
suttees of failure?
Or what about this? Remember the time when there was no boat,
no water, just you on that shore you cast
away from?
Finally, one hand slipped—oh how I missed
the wood against my palm. And no, but no, not the other, and
then it was gone, too.
Did you know a blue whale’s heart is as big
as a Volkswagen?
Did you know that it can submerge for an
hour before needing a breath?
The last of my air bubbles burbled past my eyes.
I hung, wide-eyed, miserable,
so alive even as the bottom feeders
nibbled my shins, even as the whole
of the ocean closed over me, dark and full of stories.
When We Almost Drowned
Published in Death and Donuts, 1998, Manfit Press. First Place, Griggs Achievement Awards.
In the three o'clock afternoon
sun, we jumped
through Mexican waves.
Toward the horizon,
nothing but Pacific
and bands of light arcing
out of the bay like memory.
We held hands at first,
but the ocean was rough, the waves
twisted with salt and recent storm.
So we treaded water, the beach
bobbing up and down
in our view.
I don't know at what point we
realized
we were in danger, when the water,
unrelenting, hit our heads too often, too quick.
There was this look between us, an idea
that it was time to go to shore now,
that one second later would be too late.
Even though we were together,
and I knew he could save us both,
I kicked my legs to the beat of my long ago
swimmer's body, the muscle memory
rekindled by adrenaline.
I pulled after him, breathing toward land.
Now in bed, one of us will say,
"Do you remember
when we almost drowned?"
And I am never quite sure
which time we mean, our marriage
stretching fifteen years since Mexico,
pulling us away from land and each other
a hundred times or more.
But the other will nod, silent
for that second, then saying, "Oh, yes."
And maybe, we will touch
because we know we've saved
each other since.
Mexico was only the first time
we had to pull hard, one after the other,
desperate for shore.
Julien at Three
Appeared in the Rockhurst Review, 2001.
When you heard the jangle
of my particular key chain,
you kicked through playground
tan bark, jump-landed
on hot asphalt, your elbows
swinging, your hair curled wild
as you swung your head
side-to-side, your denim jacket
flying behind you like a magic cape.
No one ever came to me like that,
wanted me that much, pounding
into my arms, your dirt-soap-boy
smell, your clothes streaked
with paint, crayon, glue, your knees
rough and ashy from hours
of outside play.
You pressed your wet open mouth,
tangy with afternoon fruit snacks,
on my own, and I could understand
how monsters ate their young, gobbled
down all the goodness because
it was almost unbearable to watch
such amazing beauty in the world,
in my arms, your wet sand skin
on my shoulder, your black eyes
full of my reflection,
your sticky fingers in my hair, pulling me,
pulling me into the moment
so I'd know
it would end.
Zaftig Means Juicy
Appeared in The Peralta Press, Spring 2001.
Ripe and round,
I slip my finger
against the slim
band of my underwear,
slide the skin
of my dress
over my head,
plunge the fruit
of my body into a hot
tub of water that stretches
out toward ocean.
In this water,
I am Aphrodite,
simmering in her shell,
radiant, resplendent,
luscious as summer plums
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