two days ago poem

I’ve flossed

The second layer of curtains is hung

The day for

given

What’s left

to do

Two days left

The left

overs are 

in glass

in coldness

What’s left

in two

Left to ex

press

Oh sad 2016 DM 

today

is for

giving

praise

to be 

left

with just

these two

coffee

good

wishes

and

thanks all

round

bit by lint by bit

two pockets

39 years deep

who can remember

what I put in there?

it’s not necessary

to know what it is

I’m holding to

let go

Four Grandmas

1. This one used to be pretty like a movie star she ran away to california she was a homeless person for a while she wrote long poems and put them in birthday cards she divorced she delivered mail in the metal furniture factory she married the son of the owner the owner was mad she baked pies she smoked cigarettes she lived in institutions sometimes when she didn't take her medication she didn't roll down the car windows in the summer she slept in the den she smoked on the porch and dad yelled at her and she left her cheeks were bright pink with the lupus she liked to sit at the bar of the rod n gun and scratch scratch-offs she went to the indian casino too maybe she was friendly she died   in the hospital

2. I was ghosting around the bay, eating chips and a pill to slow the dying, afraid to disagree with anyone who was kind, who might be kind.

3. This one taught third grade and piano the corners of her mouth turned down she wore a wig the doctors gave her the wrong medicine and her hair fell out she prayed the rosary every time she got in the car she loved the teacher who taught her to teach back home when you study music in the university there you learn to play every instrument in the orchestra and she did she grew orchids and the fruits we eat back home she bought so many useful things they couldn't be used they were still in the packages she declared bankruptcy twice she baked biscotti she pointed out faults real and possible she prayed every morning and wrote in her journal every night when she traveled she made collages she traveled with the priest her heart had leg veins in it she was treasured she died   suddenly at home

4. When my hair grew back, I found it harder to smile than to pray. The prayers said: "body, what now?"

snow sorry
                        to blizzard
                                            and let    
                                                          my system
               storm  
                                so
       my eyes                        
                           saw monochrome

clear eyes
                              later i will    
               write a
                                                    poem shovel
       so anyone
                                  can walk    
                     your
                                              sidewalks        
          in
                   any shoes

today's poem, letting it be here

the nightmare that woke me at three

that night’s waking, the nights not waking

one, two, three nights in ten years? still

last night, this night just past, the one that

woke me had to do with a contraption like

a see-through toilet bowl inverted flushing 

into solidity a column of brown clay, which

after I delivered, to the hectic emcee, the

dry arms of the radiator pulled me up in 

the sheets and down, gasping for water.

next in the routine: start running fast away

wild to solve the world woken into, how to

make a life in this world that won’t precipitate 

nightmares in a sleeping one? thoughts and 

thoughts and thoughts, too hectic to pause

for a drink of water. somehow, I fell asleep

again, and woken anachronistically by the 

sound of crickets from my phone, wished

for more time in the sheets and the down,

now bathlike, the dream in which someone

was interrupting me to tell me I belonged.

Air loom

I’m so pretty!

Take care of me.

I’m doing it on my own!

Take care.

I’m happy with or without you!

Never break a way.

demons one

a monster is eating my family

a pack of demons is in charge

a monster is eating my family using my parents eyes

to throw its poisons of hate

a monster is eating my family using my parents words

to say, get out, mind your own business, you think you know so much!

a monster is eating my family and using my love

to keep me raging, shouting to get my parents to hear.

my mother’s inbox is always full

with new messages from her friends

J Crew, Garnet Hill, CB2, Ikea, Macy’s!

to name a few of the ever growing enthusiastic crew

of bright optimists who are always there for her

when she takes a break at the office, when she gets home from work,

when her alarm goes off at 6am in bed.

it’s no wonder she’s happy to hear from them

and glad she can always turn away, from the 

hateful glance of her daughter, an ipad press away.

a monster is eating my family using my mother’s need.

once years and addresses ago I bought a pair 

of fancy underwear online, bottom half of a wedding 

shower gift and through all the moves and unannounced

changes of address, still every few months it greets me

a catalog of bone thin girls, standing by camels and blue-washed walls

looking lost and unhappy 

in the beautiful places where people can go

to wake up and fall in love. 

to set free people, my people or any people, including me,

is something the monster eating my family

loves for me to wish, a tasty thought for

this mouth to eat it: you pretentious entitled fool!

a pack of demons rules my childhood house (the one I live in now)

and here is one of its tricks:

in my heart it installed a thick metal cord and it gave the loop to my mom

so when I start to move away it turns and turns

until a spring is wound so tight

you can let go and I rush right back on my own!

a monster is eating my family and here’s one of its games:

if you’re three and coughing up 

handfuls of yellow phlegm

it’s better to play on mechanical cars at the mall

than stay in bed and rest

and if you dare to say otherwise you’re a terrible bitch!

and see if I ever let you be with my child again!

demons are eating my family and the salt that makes it all taste great

are the smiles and hugs of each beautiful kid

who doesn’t get to choose

to rest.

Wars with the body that bore

me, very unsightly very dull

That one on the sofa

this one on the bed

running a race where the legs are frowning 

and the finish line is: you hurt me most!

The pressure in my forehead

the thin saliva in my mouth

from eating meals via spoon in 

jar scraping at the sludge

Somewhere in this brain there’s a thought

i mean, somewhere in this heart there’s a want

somewhere in this new year there’s my body

and a love that wants it unhurt 

bbbbtdd

Relentlessly the improving self
Blasts the forest
Mines the public lands

Relentlessly the cute self
Manufactures toxins
Poisons the wells

Silently that pretty self
Busts the unions
Gets you into debt for years

my shadow

it loves its wound by scraping on it, 

see? 

it doesn't know the difference

between love and petulance 

between generosity and making messes

it has a poem a day for you to read like the family in the rare campground has a song for you to hear 

and another and another

playing from speakers on the picnic table 

dawn to dusk

they say care, care, care

it feels like you can't help

it you pack the bag drive to the wilderness unpack put the charged battery in turn up the volume

yes, though, what if we went back inside now

and turned the lights off

I like when Elizabeth Barrett browning says something like, "i think of thee, my thoughts do twine about thee like a vine...Shake off these vines like a strong tree should/I do not think of thee/ I am too near thee."
Elizabeth when we were together your trunk was bare to me. Now the thicket is thick. Rarely, a woman, or a man, like a bird in a barren ecosystem breaks through with a song, a flash in the eye, a weight in the weightless air, then vanishes. Dry vines in my mouth green leaves in my eyes.

Rarely a man a woman some body breaks through for a moment like a rare bird
touches down
a branch
then leaves

Elizabeth you sang to me like flocks of birds fed and nesting 
land
in green
leaves

Morning on the frog towel

Adrienne in Austin
long limbed dark eyed
convinces me to bicycle
the covers off my core
while a pigeon skates
the sill's ice marinade
a chick one shrilly fussing
maybe of the drafts
they dilute what's rising
from these oven planks
against the floor
which I press away
with
yes Adrienne
all ten knuckles
and notice how
my wrist
just misses kissing
a pale little croaky
of the terry green

Get in free

And why see I de-
light
in your
eh quit tea

January 2

The year's two days stacked
on a coffee table, browsed.

The waterbug on its back
looked like a little person.

Sitting back on the sofa
letting life struggle on

without me. I feel so tired
of these habits of remove!

Patterns repeat

Cowboy, thank you
for the reminder.

And thank you, as well
for letting me break in
to the snuggle.

To grow gracefully more
articulate, more friendly,
more fascinating, to grow
stones that grow shoots
and backyards of figs,
grow on, cowboy, grow
the way you been growing.

I love these people, my friends
and relatives,
whether they store my boxes
or pile their boxes around me.
We have a lot to unpack.
We have a lot to give.
We have a lot to look at and say,
well, that was then, and thanks.
If a bug's on the floor, me personally,
I'm going to let it live unless
I know for sure it's the one
that won't leave. And also I agree
that wire chair with a foundation undone
can go, home to the street for the
next love, the one who knows
how to weld.

A pattern repeats.
And if it doesn't repeat?
Design. I'd say, will.