Friday, November 28, 2008

Fuckin Lucky

On the airplane with my squeezed-out heart
and hanging smile,
secret
between gallows pals.

You are so fucking lucky it’s me.

I press my hot forehead to the window.
The pressure will leak through the crack,
there must be a crack
if I apply the right pressure
everything will deflate.

The airplane will disappear from the sky
with an inglorious snicker
and waft to the earth,
a sardine can.

It’s a criminal sadness for a bad girl,
cresting in waves
of nausea and triumph.

No phone calls, no notes but you must know

Those moments were mine
pressed against the brick
your hands clutched
in my punk hair
grasping and breathless
both of us fuckin lucky

under pressure
leaking through the crack
high in the air suspended
by a premise.



Monday, July 14, 2008

“Possum”

Friday 10:16PM
I’m not in the mood. I mention how tired I am. I pull on my thickest flannel
pajamas. Pants. Socks. Shirt. Underwear. I keep my hair twisted up.

Friday 10:31PM
He’s talking to me from his chair. I can’t understand what he says. I burrow deep
into blankets, and breathe with my eyes shut.

Friday 10:42PM
He climbs into bed and pulls at the blankets. He cannot be hot in bed, he
sweats. I use the warmest flannel quilt, and he has the summer blanket. He
can’t figure out how the blankets work. I turn over, giving him my back.

Friday 10:45PM
He moves his hand slowly down my belly, over my hip, back up to my belly. I pat his hand, friendly, and clasp it. I bring it up to my breast as consolation. We are still.

Friday 10:47PM
He’s moving both hands now. Trying to get between my legs.
He pulls my pajamas down around my knees and I am trapped. I lay inert. He rests his right hand on my rear. His left hand is missing. He stops moving.

Saturday 12:09AM
I am awake. He is nuzzling my neck. The hands are seeking entry. I
hold my breath. I am a board.

Saturday 12:10AM
Impatient, he rolls me over. I move to roll back. He rolls me again, on to my
back. We are wordless. His hands, soft, small, find everything.

Saturday 12:12AM
While he is inside me, I calculate how much sleep I might get. I think about field
trip forms, financial aid forms, laundry. I find his rhythm and move into it. Flannel is all
around you, when you have no place to go. He is soft and hard in the wrong places.

Saturday 12:17AM
There was once a place where we said “I love you”. Now, I ask, “Better?” as if
kissing a paper cut.

Saturday 12:18AM
He shudders twice and twitches into sleep. His arms are flung above his head, a
pale equal sign under the clock. I saw them next to me, far away.




Monday, January 14, 2008

Grave Matters

What surname will be on my headstone?

I bore my maiden name when I was no longer a maiden.

When I married the first time, I kept my maiden name and attached
my  husband's name with a hyphen, like a rope attached to a secret; a line
tied to a tree as I tread into the dark and narrow cave of matrimony.
When we divorced, I kept the last name, hyphenated, so I would not be mistaken
for an unwed mother. These little roped names were often doubted because
of my youth. My children bear my first husand's dark blonde hair,
crooked teeth, and last name.

The twins came: a surprise. A pregnancy surprise; a two-for-one deal. My
boyfriend and I, from a great distance, casually bantered about the idea of marriage.
I went to confession. I wallowed with child. With children. Kneeling
was difficult. The confession was difficult, hurried, and furtive, choked in remorse and
incense. My penance: to marry the father of the twins. I laughed into tears at this
cosmic joke, and understood, as I stood outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the ticking snow, that a marriage between us would be a gulf too great to cross, even if I invoked
the safety of the hyphen-rope. When the twins were born, their father came to claim
them with a grunt. That was the last I saw of him, except in the knowing grin of our daughter and the bullet-proof stance of our son.  I gave these children my maiden name.

I married my second husband in a flurry of hope and promise. I took his name. I grabbed
it with both hands, flourishing it as a mantle of love and legitimacy. This was it for me, 
no more new names. I would grow into this person as "wife". I didn't use any rope. I was free
falling without a flashlight.  In his dark and narrow hours he cast me out. 
He raised the bottom of the valley up to meet me. I am stunned and 
wide-eyed at the end of this journey. I gave myself no rope.

I carry his last name like a blank tattered Bible. My four children bear two different last
names, neither of which is the one I have now engraved on all of my affairs. 

All these names, shuffled like playing cards, a deck stacked for tricks with the 
Queen of Hearts and a Suicidal King. What name will my great-grandchildren read
on my gravestone? What ropes and hyphens will they climb to find me?

Perhaps I will invent a new name. One that does not blur the limits of me with
legalized love, authorized sex. Something moving and ridiculous: loud, and hard to spell. Something people have to trip over twice in order to pronounce. A new password, the key writ thick upon my headstone.


 

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Chinese New Year

   I'm not Chinese, but I was born in the Year of the Rat. I'm considered a "Rat on the Mountain", specifically, which pretty much means that my life will be mostly uphill toil and financial difficulty. I think that's an accurate enough assessment from the stars.
    Since this is a new Rat Year, and they come only every 12 years or so, I've decided to mark the occasion by listing a few achievements I'd like to attain within the coming year.  Small goals. I might as well publish them here in the hopes that I may pursue them 
more diligently.

(1) Fry a Twinkie. (I have no idea how this is done, and it sounds slightly dangerous)
(2) Get back to New York for a visit. (I need to be reminded why I left it in the first place.)
(3) Buy a house. (Of my own, one that doesnt suck, or have my husband in it).
(4) Get a job. (A real job that will pay me something, hopefully doing something I like.)
(5) Blog at least once a week.
(6) Publish one poem.
(6A) Publish one short story.
(7)Write a really great flash fiction piece.
(8) Make a collage. (Like my artist friends can do. I don't 
have their years of training or even 
any fabulous paint, but I do have a few clips, 
some gold leaf paint, and an 11x14 blank canvas.)
(9) Get the oil changed right AT 3,000 miles (not a mile more, not a mile less).
(10) Pay for a Starbucks treat entirely with dimes.
(11) Find out how to get in to the Notre Dame Cathedral. (I don't even know where to park).
(12)Go in to the Notre Dame Cathedral.
(13) Divorce someone.
(14) Make the bed.
(15) Stay awake for one whole movie.

I'll report on any triumphs or travesties, maybe. I'll certainly have to revisit this post in December 2008. I'm off to buy some Twinkies.


Sunday, December 30, 2007

Red Dawn

You both woke wicked with your faces red
screaming brick red deep
clown circles on yours;
yours, with dark malignant streaks
by your ears.

What IS this i wonder softly
in fear of awakening the beast they've swallowed
rubbing gently with one thumb
both cheeks.

No grease no softening
what IS this i wonder in silence
as you stare wide at my wonderment
silent in your aspirations
and deep red reflections

both sets of eyes grow large as mine narrow
makeup?
lip gloss! you declare, delighted at this first guess

no lip gloss, children, too red, too red
lipstick! i cry and you cringe
and frown
it's black, you say, it's black and red and you pull out
the bleak empty tube of Rouge Romance
and grin
since it's all on your faces and bellies and arms
tribal twin markings like twins, you are twins

giggling and aghast at the knowledge that
art can be smeared and altered
with cold cream
interpreted as sacred ritual
or sacrifice
or mere inconvience, depending
upon the viewer and the hour
of the viewing.


Friday, December 28, 2007

Stone

This doubt I would heft as a stone
from the other side of heaven
I waffle in my aim
and again weigh,
glimmer at the mooring
of faith
with narrow gaze sidelong
and sit
lone
upon a hill of beans.

A rock rough with the
intimate carvings
of an alien failure

testing the weight
a flicker, a breath
my wrist sore with indecision
palm rusting into iron flakes
as again i weigh

the space between us.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Portrait

What is his portrait of me? Who is the person he tells tales about, when he is speaking with his lonely friends, his understanding family? Who am I, in his eyes? What textured brushstrokes paint me purple? Or am I orange, with blue streaks?

I feel somehow flat, thinking of him, and how he thinks of me.