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.

“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.

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.

 

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.

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.