Poems July 2011

Two night in a row
Spent
Restless yet dreaming
A small room in my aunt's house
A small room at my mother's apartment
My own wide bed
And on the sidewalk at thirteen
You're leggy in green shorts
And your glasses
A striped shirt

Years later at your brother's wedding
You were divorced and angry
Red-faced and loud from drinking
And no one I knew
And you didn't know me

And why would you
We never had even a single bungled kiss
When we stood there, you quiet, me knowing nothing to say

Thinking of you once every million years
On nights of a certain timbre

There is a beauty to all people
To which we must cling
In ugly moments
When our hearts hijack our mouths
And we speak symbolically but hear literally

Later, he was powerless on the street
Without even the words to beg
And wanting arson or intervention
Someone on his exact and only side
His side, not ours, or family, or humanity
His.
To be listened to and hear in return
As soft voices work a compromise
The shouting reserved for moments of depth and passion

Remember that day? I walked down the street, and cried when she came along
who said nothing, but was both pond and bridge

He crossed over that day
For a few seconds

Regardless of mule-ish work
And mutual angry silence
beauty must be found

The deals we make
with ourselves
just to get through
things we don't even want to get through
We're like salmon homing to spawn
Aware we are to die
To end
Ah, there's the rub
Perchance to dream
That what is could be wiped as easily
As waking up

Musket guns and rifles
Electric fans and ex-husbands
Kids and barbecue sauce
Summer plods on
And on into the 90's
Try as I might
To wish to build it all over
With endless power tools
I drive nails by hand into my own head

Melted cloud anger
Seething on the tennis court
and practicing the
Way of the Clenched Fist

You're right.
You're always always right.

I'd have to fly like that gull up there,
a speck against that cloud
Far enough away to win in
silent thoughts of moons at night
Unbroken by the harsh righteous victory

Tonight we're underwater
with electric fans and civil war folk
And we dream of retirement to
a redecorated bathroom

My feet search around for your feet
My hands search for the spot that itches on your back

But ever my mind wanders alone
A twelve year old in muddy boots on the ridge of the hills