You barely stomached
the meal I prepared,
but you scarfed it down.
Intimately,
conspiratorially united
before children's aversions,
my response to our collusion
expressed in a nod--
television's on.
Shut the bedroom door.
We sat at tables in the gymnasium
on wooden folding chairs,
made at the chair factory
where some of our classmates worked.
People stared when you walked in
wearing a day-glo pink lace dress,
a girl on your arm.
You sat next to me and said,
"Been five years, what you been up to?"
I stammered, "Well, this is my boyfriend.
In the fall I'll be in graduate school."
Smile. "How about you?"
"This is my cousin Sherry. I'm a dancer."
You must have been able to read my mind:
you had been the toughest girl in school.
If anyone suggested you wear a dress
or called you by your given name,
they'd get a bruising.
I could see you, jumping on a trampoline
eating a raw potato
at your house on that dirt road by the crick.
You winked, "In bars, honey." I blinked back.
After Salisbury steak and cheesecake,
awards and presentations, plenty of applause
and a few guffaws, we stood to leave.
You elbowed me. "See you at the after-party?
Rick has a hot tub."
Blinking again. "Yeah, see you there."
I went home.
Strategy for drowning out
Johnny Carson, upstairs,
who competed with HBO, downstairs:
my teenage boombox.
Bedtime? Click play.
Let the wind wash, let the bells chime,
it's Funeral for a Friend.
Love Lies Bleeding, Candle in the Wind.
If I lay awake long enough, I was treated to
B- B- B- B- B- B- Bennie! Bennie and the Jets.
But I had to time it just right.
If I got to Grey Seal and Jamaica Jerk-Off,
wide awake again.
If I had to get up to flip the tape,
it was all over. May as well stay up all night.
Grousing
about rising
before the morning breaks,
shivering, I witness the sun
cresting
above
soot-smudged mountain,
pallid sky fades flesh-pink,
kitchen awash in reflected
snowlight.
I've been trying to write
something that can't be written.
About how words I read
in black & white on a screen,
I heard slapping sounds
and I went to investigate,
have lodged themselves firmly
and absolutely in my brain,
reverberating, shrieking,
unstoppable and unbearable.
About how a child's body
is not meant to accommodate
the thrusts of an adult man
that would cause such a sound.
About how a child must have died
that day in that shower,
thrown away like so much trash,
when he should have been running
out in the yard, playing games
like the child that he was.
About how a child must have been
literally torn apart, then discarded.
About how small and fragile
my children's bodies and hearts are.
About how I know that children
are raped every day,
a child is being raped right now
as I write this, and
a child will be raped as you read it,
no matter how many times you do.
About how adults with power,
men, and probably women, too--
and by the way all adults have power
over all children in our world--
about how adults could have stopped it,
saving a child from being ravaged
and more children after that.
About how they did not.
About the reasons why that might be.
About how the eulogies
for the man who could have stopped it
washed over me, and I had to hide.
About that sound. That fucking sound.
About how someone reading this
will find it arousing.
About how someone really needs to write about that.
There she was, a girl of the Atlantic, facing a problem as big and wide as the Pacific. How to get from one to the other?
Build a bridge. Go to him know, that's the first thing. Just because you haven't seen the Pacific doesn't mean you can't feel the tides in you.
She opened the door and slid in next to him.
Look at him, he's right there.
She reached her arms all the way across the great Pacific and collected him, like a big wave pulling beach rocks out to sea, gathered him in close, not letting go.
"All I wanted was a refund." The words fell from her mouth, inert, like a sidewalk bird under a plate glass window. "The show was cancelled in the snowstorm, remember?"
Remember? What are you asking him about, memories of prom night? Jesus.
"Well, I could help you with this problem if you'd just do as I say." His voice dripped with pretension, bordering on malice.
"Do as you say? And what's that?" Yeah, what? Fucker.
His gesture said it. On your knees.
"Are you kidding me?" She spat. Fuck you. "Gimme my refund."
I'm no good at naming trees,
bikeriding for the sake of the ride,
or identifying tracks in the snow.
My view of nature is best
flat on my back, counting clouds,
or watching the whisper of stars,
my fingers entwined in yours.
Infuriated, I slam doors,
unable to think, freezing him out,
refusing to discuss it.
You take a leave of absence
to be with your dying love, holding
fast, refusing even to eat.
What can I learn from you?
You have 35 years, we have ten.
I want twenty-five more
and at least a hundred after that.
What if my love lay dying? I'd wail,
scream, die myself, without a doubt.
I am so sorry for your loss.
Going to be with him now.
SevenlingsThis was challenging for me to write, and I'm sure it will go through more revisions, but I figured I'd post it now as maybe some of you would like to write one. Please let me know if you do. Good luck!
How quickly
a sunny day turns
to being shaken awake
from a dream
you can't recall,
a ferocity you imagine
based on reports
of your screaming.
How easily
a crack opens up,
like the ones
riddling your fingers,
swaddled in band-aids,
burning
and threatening
to swallow you whole.
1.
The golden arches beckon.
Hungry travelers reckon,
"Just once." No condemnation,
I understand temptation.
2.
Ride me like a ferris wheel.
Let's rock the carriage and steal
a kiss when we reach the top.
The top! Oh! Please! Never stop.
3.
Alone is the saddest word,
E minor is the bluest chord.
Your guitar laments the end,
solo, grieving for your friend.
RUNAWAY SENTENCE HAS BEEN BLOCKED FOR VIOLATING PROTECT-IP (S. 968) AND SOPA (HR. 3261).
Actually, runaway sentence is participating in a national online blackout on January 18, 2012, in opposition to both the Protect-IP and SOPA bills.
If these bills pass, the U.S. government will have the ability to block any website, including this blog and your blog, based on an ACCUSATION ALONE from a copyright holder.
Go to AmericanCensorship.org to learn more about these bills and how your internet freedoms are at risk.
No pretty words today.
Please do not read and/or comment today. See you on Thursday. DO SOMETHING in the meantime.
I heard him whisper it. I figured he'd say he didn't mean for me to hear it, but of course he did. He was starting something.
After a difficult evening at that charity auction, smiling and schmoozing and looking good, small-talking all night with assholes half my age, I felt entitled to peace and quiet when we got home. I knew I didn't have even one more conversation in me, not about the dry cleaning or the Mariners game or the kids or, well, anything. I was talked out. But I heard what he whispered at my back, loud and clear.
"I wonder if you meant it." That pissed me off.
"What did you say?" I flipped over to face him but rolled inside the bedclothes, wrapping myself like a cocoon, stealing any possibility of duvet or flannel sheet for anyone but myself, and surely not for him. "If I meant what, Michael? What is it that you doubt I meant?" It wasn't really a question. It came out icy, an accusation.
But Michael took the bait. I nudged back instinctively, dangerously close to the edge of the bed, as he leaned in closer. I didn't mean to be so hostile, but he was pushing at me. Hadn't I just performed for him all evening long?
"Well, it seems we are on auto-pilot these days, doesn't it?" He sounded less hostile than resigned. "I mean, I was just wondering whether you meant it, when we got married. Whether I was worth it, whether I'm worth it still, what you have to put up with."
"Oh, Michael, come on. Are we really gonna have this conversation right now?" I was honestly confounded by his questions, but at least they kept my irritation at bay, at least for a moment. Why was he saying this? He had even turned off the television, like he meant business. I mean, he knew I had made my choices, and this is what I had signed up for, wasn't it? "What do you want me to say here?"
"Christ, I don't want you to say anything. I'm just asking you a question." He sighed and pushed back his hair, his signature move. It was cute and always worked. It was working now, I realized, as I felt myself calm a little. "I know you hate those events and I appreciate you doing it. I really do. I just feel like, well, I feel bad. You know, I just feel guilty, like you're being squandered or something."
"Well, Michael, that's ridiculous. Guilt is stupid. Knock it off." I couldn't help freeing my arm from the blankets so I could brush that errant long hair from his forehead. I intended it as a gentle move, indicating a shift, a truce, maybe. He responded with a kiss to my cheek, and I saw the brief twinkle before he turned his eyes back down to study the stitching in the duvet.
"I can't help it. I'm watching you all night, doing your thing, you look fantastic, you're smart and charming. Then you come home, you're spent, you hate it, you hate me. I did that to you."
I knew it. I knew he felt guilty. From my perspective, he provided. He worked hard and was so talented that his firm was now the premiere ad agency in all of Seattle. It took a lot of effort on his part, and on my part, in keeping appearances, in looking just right. Which sucked. But it paid for everything we had, for us being able to provide for our boys. More than provide for them, really.
It was obvious how it ate away at Michael, though. The firm life, the concessions, it was huge. He felt guilty about what I had to put up with, but I had some guilt of my own.
"No artist should feel guilty, Michael. Like, if you start a painting and you don't like it, you don't finish it." I said it with confidence, such certainty, even though I just pulled that right out of my ass. Where did I get that? No matter, I could see Michael thinking it over, trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to say to him. "Right?"
"Ah. Yeah, right." He sat, still up on that elbow, lanky hair flopped sideways across his head. The way I liked him, a little messy and rough at the edges. I just let him sit and think. I wasn't sure what we were talking about, and apparently he didn't know, either. At least that leveled the playing field.
After several long minutes, Michael swallowed in that way he did when I knew he was about to say something. That sound meant he was being careful with his words. "So what are you saying? I feel like you're telling me maybe I should quit the firm, go back to my own design work. Am I right, baby?" He looked up, right into my eyes, and I could feel that look shooting down through my limbs and back, landing in my abdomen. "Tell me, baby. You mean that?"
"Yeah. That is what I mean, Michael. Why are we still doing this?" Wanting him to hear me, and wanting him to want me, too, I pushed off the covers and cuddled close, nestling in his arm, throwing my leg over him. When was the last time we lay together like this? He shifted to accommodate me, his arms wrapping around me, squeezing me so tight I lost my breath for a moment.
"I mean, fuck the firm, Michael. We are fine, you've worked so hard, we are gonna be fine. Don't you think it's time to throw off those chains and get back to art? Your art?"
He grabbed me hard, pulling me up on top of him. "Yeah, baby?"
"Yeah." I shifted, hitching my hips to connect with him, seeing in his eyes that he felt it, too. I leaned down to kiss him and it was all over. "Don't finish it, baby. Start over. No guilt."
Massachusetts, I came to you,
wide open, seeking adventure,
throwing myself at you, whorishly,
with heady expectations.
On my first night here,
Mary McCaslin played and sang
to ten patrons at the Black Sheep.
I considered myself welcomed.
It was easy to fall in love
with your ice-cold swimming holes,
your flannel and organic coffee,
tag sales, package stores,
vegetarian options,
your "thickly settled" cautions
and gay pride parades.
No matter how long I live
in your towns, I'm no townie,
and I like that about you, too,
Massachusetts.
I'm grateful for your politics,
but even more, your mountains.
Oh, your bards and crooners.
I love your farms, your irises,
clapboard houses, and your libraries.
I even love the crappy bar
where last night I heard the song
that inspired this poem about you.
Don't listen to my bitching.
Finally, thank you for presenting me
with one of your beloved sons.
I promise to love him well.
I've given you a son of my own,
and my daughter, too, Massachusetts.
In the light of tomorrow,
when the angst haze
has dissipated
like steamed milk in cappuccino
or rising from scorched pavement,
once it's habituated
and commonplace,
we will look back at today
and recognize its bounty,
seeing that it exceeds all others.
Maybe we should embrace it now.
Gas light tripping
on the Coolidge Bridge,
she traverses a river of grief,
rushing to beat empty.
you owe me none,
& if it's true now, why not then?
you owe me none
of anything that's left undone.
let's dance to the jig forgotten,
obligations be verboten.
you owe me none.
All The World Is Green
We bought wedding bands
from a Russian antiques dealer
whose window display was cleared
against thieves each night.
The bands were simple gold,
plus one carved with flowers,
presented in pink paper boxes,
all tied with a gold ribbon.
We sold the platinum ones
from the marriage that failed,
tarnished, for cheap, enjoying
a fine lunch on the proceeds.
He wished us the best of luck.
Better luck next time, we agreed.
