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.

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.

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.

Cerberus

I lost a staring contest
with a black dog,
a Cerberus head
taking his ease out the window
of a two door sedan
eyeing me with great contempt
and no little humor
as we pause at a light
for his mistress to don
her mascara.

He rides forward
craning back to keep
me in his sights.
I, loyal subject
of the laws of traffic,
avert my gaze
in the safety of motion.

He seeks me still
in the cold gray noon
panting fire out the window
in polite drops,
waiting for another
change of light
or makeup.

Eavesdrop

She's not listening to you
she's just waiting her turn to speak
she thinks her life far more
extraordinary than yours.
She even ordered
a tea latte,
miles better
than your predictable
frothed coffee.

I listen sideways
hoping for the polite
invitation:
"Will you come over
for a threesome
with my husband?"


Her baby is smarter than yours
her husband more educated than yours
her stove hotter than yours
her laundry pile bigger than yours
her in-laws more tiresome than yours
she will be one step ahead of you always;
you might as well get your fuzzy handcuffs
and get going.

“Sketches of Desk Life, Afternoon”

    The raven perches on my desk, peeking out at me over the tip of my laptop. His
eye is bright and curious in its resin socket. He does not judge me, nor does he mock my
efforts. He looks to see what I’m doing, reading the intensity on my face. He doesn’t
mind that I stare past him out the window; he knows that his outline is present, a sun
spot in negative. The raven is dramatic, bare black against the bright shroud of
muslin curtain. His shoulders are eager, his beak sharp, and his glare unwavering. I used
to love Halloween.

    There is a glass bowl on my desk. It is small, small enough for a tea light to fully
illuminate its etched designs, tossing measured shadows onto the pensive curtain behind
it; shadows that net the urgent pile of papers on my desk. The bowl is Virgin Mary Blue,
a shade so pure in any light that I am humbled to sit before it. I should kneel. It holds a
computer cable, and a penny.

    Half of a purple goblet lingers behind the screen of my computer. I found it at an
antique store. It looked more despondent than its elegant cousins. Empty, dark and
broody; elegant and misunderstood, relegated to the wall at the dance. I took it
home to place it here, where the light can change its moods and unlimber its hues.
Purple, blue, the colors of an oil spill on pavement, slick, noncommittal, and bruised.
It turns giddy in the noon light. It is solemn when it rains. This cup will not
pass before me, no matter how fervent my prayers. Three blue marbles and a key are in
its keeping.

    The gargoyle protects the blue bowl. He is perpetually surprised to discover
himself made of resin. No one has scraped the earth bare for his making. No one has
carved him with vengeful hands. He is plastic, poured into a mold, and he has two
thousand twins. He threatens to hurl his weight at me in the attitude of his half-furled
wings. He does this every day at dawn, whether his backdrop is rain or snow, heaven or
hell. He bides his time, consorting with the blue bowl, disdaining the raven’s
wisdom, ignoring the royal goblet. He should be holding down some of my unruly
papers, but I don’t have the heart to assign him such a menial task. He growls incessantly.


    So many of the people I have loved and hated and used and miss are recorded like
tracks set in limestone a million years ago, bristling out of an address holder I took from
my old job. I can recount a shaft of experience with each name, with each crossed out
number and replacement number and sticky-note appendage. I measure my life not in
coffee spoons, but in the degree of the fading of the ink on these cards. Once placed, a
person is never stricken from this record. The address holder sits on the back of my desk
in front of the window, collecting business cards and dust, its memories sharp teeth,
unfiled. It only holds my past.

Poise

We gossip about children
as though they were people;

Clay mugs among
fluted glasses.

All the cold nuance
burdened by light,
it seems I should
have been able to...

The trouble with drowning
is that it leaves you wet
on the inside.

Holding the Bag

Holding the bag
again
mired in the politics
of love and restitution;
a new house would indeed
be too kind
but not kind enough.

It was a good idea
once
only through stained-glass
horn-rims,
ill fitting on the bridge
of a sweaty nose
of a sweaty idea
obscured by the steam
of revelation.

I bought it
now I hold it
in my blue hands
waiting for the bus
to the house
I never wanted.

Enough

It hurts to know that he does not love me enough. To try counseling,  to be patient, to care. To care because of me, and not because he feels guilty.

He feels closest to me when I am in despair.

We sat in the hot tub last night, talking, as we do. We discussed the mechanics of
divorce. He said, "I've never even been close to divorce before. Never even
considered it."

I was crushed. Such simple words. 

"You do not love me enough," I replied, "and there is nothing I can do to change that."

He said he was sorry. He didn't look it.

As we lay cuddling under the down comforter last night, I wondered why I
would want to stay. I am not cherished here. I am in the way of whatever it
is he has so recently discovered.

I hate to fail, and this is failure. I am an over-achiever who is not often wrong.
Maybe these wounds are not to my heart, as my sorrow leads me to believe.
His rejection is a slash to my pride, a tear in my vanity, a gutting of my 
unrequited loyalty. 

I do not love him enough.

Holidays

 Oddly enough, this year I feel peace for the holidays. It's usually a run-around please-let-this-cup-pass-before-me set of misadventures, but this year, that would be ok. I used to like Christmas. Last year I didn't; I was still adjusting to our new, large family and 
sweating all the small stuff.

Right now, though, it's snowing. The kids are playing. There is peace at my keyboard. I conjure 
up images of warm candle light, slightly crooked Christmas trees, and lasagna. 

I don't know where I'll be next Christmas. I don't know who I'll know.
But I know where I am right now.

Sometimes, that's enough.

Lighter

Lighter

He cast me off like a lead necklace.
He is lighter, you can tell.
He is gentler with his children.
He can smile.
He is horny.
Things are not so bleak.
He sees the end
after crawling through serrated darkness.

I have just dumped
the last chewed corpse
out of the rowboat.
There is one oar left.
It is rusted,
iron married to iron:
oar and lock
will disintegrate
if pulled apart.

Unlike us.

I drift alone with my oar,
watching the clouds conspire
on the horizon.

I am lighter, too.

Clay: A Poem

Clay

I was handed
a wad of clay
in the shape
of a steering wheel.

It was my job
solely
to make thick
beauty
before I lost it.

I tried to fake it
using chop meat
and ketchup
flour and water
salt and sugar
in damp
desperation.

The grey bag
labeled CLAY
in my peripheral
vision fades
into the dark
balcony.

I couldn't ignore
cries for help
or pleas for mercy.
I ate the clay
which seduced me.

I awoke
with wet face
and dry hands.

Making Clay

I had a terrible dream last night.

I dreamed that I was handed a wadded lump of clay. It was taking
the form of something...a squat vase, misshapen, but ready for me
to refine into something beautiful.

Somehow, I lost that clay. It crumbled and broke, no longer malleable,
no longer recognizable. I strove to make new clay. I tried using water
and flour. Then water and flour and salt. Out of the corner of my eye, 
I could see a grey cloth bag labeled
"CLAY", but could not reach it.  It would appear and disappear with 
forced nonchalance.

I tried using chopped, cooked hamburger meat to make the clay.
I tried using ketchup. I tried more salt, more flour. Less water.
What was the secret that I needed to know?

There were many distractions. I was on a platform above and to 
the side of all the action, but was being pled with and begged for
things by people I couldn't ignore. I hastened to help them, and
hastened to turn back to this essential task. To making clay.

I was despondent. If I couldn't even make the clay, I wouldn't
be able to create anything of beauty. 

I awoke with my face wet and my hands dry.

I can't even make the clay.

"The" Question

A colleague from my class asked me how I was doing, and I told him.
He was distressed.
He asked me if I was in love with my husband.

I didn't know what to answer.

I don't know what that means anymore.

There is "love" and there is "in love". There is the painful euphoria of "in love".
There is the self-sacrifice of "love".

When you sacrifice your self for "love", all is lost.
"In love" is propelled by the self, who recognizes an other self and finds joy. When your own self is shed for the sake 
of the other, all the reasons for "in love" are lost. You lose the thread. 
You lose the self. 

I don't know what that means anymore.

For all my reading and all my experience, I don't know what that means.

Shirts

I continue to hold him in the night, more tightly now the clock is ticking.

I fold his shirts the way he likes them, now that there is no need for silent rebellion.

I can't cook anymore though. I just don't care enough. Everyone's pickiness has brought me down
at last. In order to make a
meal, you need some sort of inspiration, or at least some kind of fear of reprisal or resentment. But 
now the fear is gone, the rebellion is gone, lots of things....gone. And I don't think anyone else cares, either.

This is what happens when you get married by a pirate in a mansion.

Free

He casts me off like a lead necklace. He is lighter, you can tell.
He is gentler with his children.
He can smile.
He is horny.
Things are not so bleak for him, after all. He can see the end of the tunnel,
after crawling through serrated darkness for so long.

I am lighter, too. I feel that I have just dumped the last chewed corpse out of the rowboat.
There is one oar only, but it is rusted, iron married to iron:
both oar and lock will disintegrate if pulled apart.
Unlike us.

I am drifting alone with my oar, watching the clouds conspire on the horizon.

I, too, am lighter.

The Flowered Couch

The Flowered Couch

I sit
on a dead woman's couch
beyond recalling
what I made for dinner.

The thumping hum
of homework not done
makes me thinner
but not as thin
as I imagine.

Something's burning
somewhere close
I can't tell for turning
my head,
it slopes
into sleep and rags.

I need to make her husband happy
I need a magic word
a favorite food
a clue.
I protect the children
from his misspent anger,
fear the currency
of this new household.

Unsatisfied
are we all.
A bleak word for a
blacklight situation,
all the wrong things
lit
in ghostly pallor
in this parlor
under the silent noose
of memory.

Statistic

Once again, I find myself in the unenviable role of "statistic". No one wants to feel like anyone
else. Each person, to some degree, wants their soul recognized for the individual achievement
that it is. But life itself is too large to encompass indivual empathy, and the need too presing to
feel special and unique in one's own way. We all dance in this dark carnival, bumping into pier
posts and tripping over crushed cans, searching for meaning and validation. It is much easier
to hustle many individuals to stand under a few neon signs. It is easier to navigate, to cast aside,
to pull apart a person or a group when you think you know what you are getting. This is all a
fallacy, of course. The unkind glow of neon signs light only the darkest highways.

As a child, I was a Catholic schoolgirl, in every way.

I missed the "pregnant teenager" statistic by a mere eight months; I was twenty when I became
pregnant with my first child.

I was a single mom with an infant. Then came another infant. I spent both pregnancies alone.

The father of these children and I did make an effort to stay together. I can't say an effort to
love each other, but I can say to "stay together". I was afraid, for this man always lied
to me. But I ferreted out his goodness and tried to make it stay. We moved to the middle
of the country, devoid of even the smallest sea, and quietly failed.

I moved back to the sea with my two small charges. Two small blonde children, tied to me by
a strange umbilical cord, a pleasant choking. I got a job, found a place to live, and commenced
the art of raising children.

I was a single mom.

My job blossomed into a career, not on a path I would have chosen. One chosen for me by
blonde children and the need for shelter. It was a good career, with a good company.
I grew up. I grew older. Everyone grew.

Then more children came; they came in twos by a man from a faraway place. I could not
marry this man, and he could not marry me. We were too far in distance and temperment.
I had learned my lesson well years ago: finding the goodness in someone does not mean
they are good.

I was a single mom with four children.

The sea rejected me. It wanted people with more time for it, not someone who gloried in
the smell of the morning tide and rode through in the evening in search of scruffed deer.
It needed people with money and music and more money. The sea spit me out.

My career took me to Florida, near a gentler sea. There was only spring and summer there,
with three days of wind to shake dead leaves and live snakes out of the trees, the wind
washing its linens. The sea was indifferent to me and my four children.
But there was someone who was interested.

This person lived in the midwest, devoid of the smallest sea, but his wind leafed through
my branches and shook out the dead. He also sported four children, alone, left in the
wake of his wife's disease. We thought that only we could understand one another.

We were wrong.