Good Friday

Good Friday

From 12 to 3 you have to sit on the couch

and not do anything.

Our Lord was suffering from 12 to 3

and usually now it rains because the world is sad

about the suffering of Our Lord.

You can't even jiggle your foot

because God the Father will see

and be very sad that you are jiggling

on the day his Son died.

You can't color or even read,

you have to just sit and think about Jesus

and the nails in his hands and feet

and how the soldiers took his clothes off

and how someone poked him with a sword

to see if he was really really dead

and how the blood came out.

It's okay if the dog plays

but you can't throw the ball for her,

because you are the one made in God's image.

And no matter how much you want to go outside

you can't.

You have to sit and think about how

you have it good in this country

with lots of food and cars

and the freedom to worship Jesus however you want.

June Attic

June Attic

Sisters, not mothers,

we lock the attic against

fathers and brothers

and sweat and shine

amongst the dusty quilts

of sisters of a sadder time.

We bathe, close to the moon,

in the gentle lap and ebb that comes

upon sisters in their room,

being one and being other.

Borrower

Borrower

She stopped using him, but she just wouldn't give him away.

She'd leave him like an extra pair

of reading glasses here or there and not miss him

until he turned up again on the sofa.

Even when the Salvation Army would call

she'd forget to donate him.

Or maybe she just didn't consider him clean

and usable anymore.

So I started borrowing him. For the afternoon at first,

then overnight, then days at a time. He fit me perfectly

and I only had to be careful not to wear him

if I thought she'd be at the same party.

One day she'll realize she hasn't come across him

in a while and wonder where he's gotten to,

but by then I'll be able to shrug and say,

"This old thing? I've had him forever."

Thanking My Parts

Thanking My Parts

Now I lay me down to sleep,

my equilibrium to keep.

I thank the parts that make me me

even when they disagree.

The part that prays,

the part that smokes,

the part that tells the dirty jokes,

the part that eats,

the part that reads,

the part that knows my carnal needs.

All the parts that make me tick

flash by me like a grade-B flick.

And if I die before I wake

I hope I get another take.

Her Tattoo

Her Tattoo

based on a true story

A hand's span beneath her belly button

it read:

EAT ME

with an arrow for clarity.

By her ninth month

it was bilboard big and blurry.

Folding back the clinic sheet

the intern saw it

above the baby's crown.

Winter Sun

Winter Sun

1.

We prayed for this, didn't we?

Days and days and days

of darkness dampened us

and we lay limp,

our blackwatch plaid flannel

covered with dog hair.

Praying.

2.

Thank God

I didn't have to tell him how long I've been sober

because I know what he'd think: Why

aren't you better? Why

aren't you well?

3.

The sun. Finally outside

we pick paper

from the crotch of a fallen branch,

shovel old news

burst from its plastic tubing,

and consider how little's left

of fresh or green.

He Finally Knows Love Will Not Save Him

He Finally Knows Love Will Not Save Him

He opens the package in the parking lot of Mailboxes, Etc.,

tosses the wrapper into the back seat

with the rest of his things.

She has knitted him brown gloves.

They fit him perfectly.

He lights a cigarette and stares

into the dark distance

yawning.

Twenty-four Hours Sober

Twenty-four Hours Sober

She battens her vest over breasts

swollen with beer and lovers,

snakes a chipped fingernail through hard hair

to scratch that distant skull

and talks to her kids

left

sleeping like angels,

sucking linty finger finally

after the screaming day.

Dan

Dan

Dan's a man who looks like a boy

in a Gilligan hat

with penguins marching around the band.

With his eyes closed

he recites poetry he learned by heart

when he was a real boy.

He's a psychiatrist now,

pear-shaped from sitting on

other people's problems,

trying to hatch them

into something that can fly.

Schism

Schism

How glad the fissiparous paramecium!

When she cracks

she fashions full families

out of her fractures.

When she tears herself apart

she produces a happy proliferation

of her own point of view.

How sad for us

having risen above her,

to have pulled ourselves together

to stand so alone.

New England Heart

New England Heart

February and the daffodils are nosing

through my midwestern lawn,

February rain bringing March flowers.

Leaving school the path is daylit and people

warble good byes, arms waving from open cars.

Bicycles are dusted; children lose their hats.

It's all wrong.

My New England heart wants

to return to her own dark kitchen

where yellow light puddles

like warm tallow on the oil cloth;

wants to boil beans, soaked and swollen

to tenderness, until they slip

from their jackets,

smoke and shimmy.

Fixing a Drawer

Fixing a Drawer

Pull the wreckage over the runner.

Unload the corn holders and spatulas,

jar opener and three-to-two adapter.

Take time to remember

the fight you had with your ex.

Attempt to squirt glue into the slot

without pulling the drawer apart.

Pull the drawer apart the rest of the way.

Sit on the floor. Try to cry.

Quickly pour glue into every crevice

while simultaneously realizing that you must

sell the house and move into an apartment

as soon as you get your unemployed brother to move out

and put a couple of the dogs to sleep.

As the glue drips onto the tile,

hold the sides of the drawer together

which will allow you to feel the particle board

disintegrating.

Keep the pressure on while you wipe

at the drips, coating your hands and pants

with a new, swiftly stiffening skin.

This is your life.

Getting the Picture

Getting the Picture

The writer apologizes to the women.

He thinks we don't get the picture.

We sit next to you in class, discussing linguistic properties

without seeing this curve of muscle or that cheekbone;

without imagining your long thigh, hard and haired over;

without watching your penis uncurl

and plump in our palms like warm dough,

your eyes defocusing with pleasure;

without feeling your fingers slide

into the sides of our mouths;

without tensing our tongues

as if licking the last salty drops of you.

Well we do.

We just don't know how to talk about it.

Call

Call

I've got the telephone

cradled against my shoulder

and through the receiver,

soft and pushy like the cat's cheek

or Nat King Cole's voice

you keep saying

It's going to be all right.

I'm going to be all right.

I'm hanging onto the telephone,

a black voice speaking to me from

a black space where the inevitable

might not happen tonight.

Mouse's End

Mouse's End

Mother, farm bred and practiced,

fills the bucket to the very top

while staring in the direction of

the grey green greasy ceramic tile--

too good to replace yet.

The cage is sent for.

My sister returns, sobbing and stumbling,

stepping on the chalky white polish of her own shoes.

My father, the still center of the storm,

sits in gaping cotton boxer shorts

with his head forward, saying

"It's the most humane thing.

Now get your father a beer."

My sister sets the cage down,

delivers the beer, wills herself invisible.

We're ready.

Whitey drops head first

into the cold tap water.

Mother clamps the scratched plate on.

A roiling,

then the gift of silence.

Recognition

Recognition

The sun is the eye of the fish of the sky

that flips its tail in mirth.

The river's the gill of the fish of the hill

that swims within the earth.

Toads that fly,
birds that dive,

horses of the sea,

dogs that climb,

baboons' behinds,

are all I know of me.

And God is the mother of me and the other

connecting the freak with the fair,

so when you hide your eyes inside

I vanish in thin air.

The Therapy Rag

The Therapy Rag

Apologies to Tom Lehrer for stealing the Vatican Rag's skeleton

First you do some primal screams

Kill your mommy in your dreams

Find out who you really hate and

separate, separate, separate

Own your anger, watch the hooks

thrown out by emotion's crooks

Do you resent your daughter?

Well, you know you oughter

Doing the therapy rag

I'm okay and so are you

To your own adult be true

Get rid of guilt, there is no sin, you're

born to win, born to win, born to win

Went to the bank took out a loan

and now my integrated selfs my own

And when she sees me

Oh how she frees me

Doing the therapy

Demand you be fair to me

No one takes care of me

Doing the therapy rag

Not Jumping

Not Jumping

The wanting to die dies hard.

Not that I really want to.

I can be happy -

taking the dog with me to the Post Office,

smelling the first wood fires of the season -

but when I cut back on the viaduct

I freeze.

Well, I make it across,

but I have to talk to the dog

the whole way to keep

from stepping over the rail.

Or I'm driving to work,

singing Birds do it, bees do it

and a semi passes

and I have to clamp my hands tight

to keep from steering into that space under the trailer.

I'm pretty sure my car's small enough to fit.

People think I'm skittish,

afraid of heights and speeds and such,

but I'm telling you

that's not exactly it.

The Former Beauty

I. Ready

The former beauty turns a few greying heads

as she enters the bar.

Her skirt is tight and she's still not wearing underwear

because her mother told her

"always be ready." And she is,

though her husband hasn't touched her in months.

She waits,

folding her hair over and over

with her hand.

II. A Coup

The former beauty is tan again this summer,

blonder and able to get into her thin jeans, too.

At the veterinarian's office

she sits with her golden retriever

absently stroking his head and ears.

The young vet emerges to scan the waiting room.

In her direction his gaze pauses,

a dancer suspended at the apex of his leap,

and moves on.

III. On the Street

A beautiful young man sits on the curb

outside the grocery.

The former beauty thinks for a moment

he might be a boy she dated a few times in college.

Oh, but that was more than twenty year ago,

this could be his son.

Unnoticed, she watches him from her car.

He is waiting for the girl

with the blue tattoo

carelessly pricked onto the flawless skin

of her left shoulder.

IV. Shopping

The former beauty keeps her eyes down as she pushes the cart

so no one knows she is moving her legs around a longing

she no longer believes she deserves.

No one knows she's watching

snapshots of his wrist, his shirt sleeve rolled back,

exposing a scrape from something in his life,

about which she knows nothing;

and the other thing, so palpable, impossible.

She lowers herself onto him

but even in her mind her body is ridiculous.

In the produce a boy stacks bananas carelessly.

The bruises will develop once she gets them home,

once they ripen. This boy. If she asked him

would he run? Stare and breathe through his mouth

in disbelief? Fear? Would he smile?

She has no idea what is possible anymore.

She buys avocado, palming the wrinkled skin,

and eggplant, rubbing its smooth purple.

She holds an unwashed grape in her mouth.

Maybe she could ask someone. Casually.

Ask someone about whom she cares nothing

what is possible? And read the answer

in his careful pauses.

V. At the Reception

The former beauty is seated at the extra women's table.

Silently

she slides her thumb under the heavy necklace of rose quartz,

lifts the beads to her lips

and marvels at the warmth left from her breasts.

VI. At the Mirror

The former beauty pulls at the sides of her face

and realizes she'll never wear flowers in her hair again.

No longer possible, the fair Ophelia

mad with love and beautiful in madness.

Now she is Ophelia Dredged,

puffy and pale,

no longer in love or mad.

VII. In the Yard

In her fat nephew's cast off shorts and tee shirt

the former beauty weeds the front flower bed.

The cool breeze brushes the sun's heat

from the back of her neck.

The sedum is the last thing in bloom.

She cuts her hand on a dry daylily leaf,

sucks the blood.

A car of teenaged boys drives by.

They honk, yell something.

She waves with her injured hand,

assumes she must know them from somewhere,

and returns to her day's work.

Proposals

Fall Romance

I want to marry a terrorist,

get grit in my khakis

while I squat to pack munitions,

a blush of gunpowder on my cheek.

When we rut

I want to be hardly there at all,

a crater burnt and sifted after.

Knowledge

I want to marry a machinist,

to stand on the lot of the plant

in my hard had and visitor's badge watching

while he fits metal together,

measuring it carefully once it's in place.

I'll wear pink lipstick and a cotton dress

and bring baskets of warm cornbread

he can pass around.

For lunch we'll sit

on upturned buckets side by side

and his coveralls will smudge my thigh.

When they whistle as I walk away

he will smile at his steel-toed boots,

knowing what he knows.

Invention

I want to marry a used car salesman.

We'll make up stories

about the people who will drive

away in the Camaro or the Escort wagon

as we soap the windshields -

Real Honey, Runs Good, 1 Owner.

On Saturdays I'll dress up in the bear suit

and wave to the people driving by

in their old beaters.

As we leave the lot every night

we'll pick a different car,

depending on how we feel and

drive away

into the Porsche-red sunset.

Travel

I want to marry a nomad,

feed him greasy meat

wrapped in flat bread

cooked on a hot rock.

I want to smell rain

and know when to put up

the beasts.

I want to be sold for spices or camels.

When I come to my new husband

I want to spit and curse his eyes

before I dance.

Thank you UMSL

Thank you to UMSL on Retirement

When I was a little hippie girl neither I nor anyone who knew me well expected me to live beyond the age of 25. My career path consisted of sex, drugs, rock and roll, dying young, and leaving some brilliant poems letting the world know how badly I'd been treated.

You can imagine, therefore, my dismay when I woke, or to be more accurate, came to, on my 30th birthday. My plan was not working out at all. Apparently it is harder to kill an Irish woman than I had thought. I decided to quit trying. I cleaned up and started looking for a life.

It was at this juncture that I got into the 1970 VW Beetle with the (as my mechanic once put it) stickers and shit all over it and drove to the UMSL campus and took a job as a word processor. I decided to work at a college campus because the only time I had been vaguely happy to that point was during my 7 short years as an undergraduate.

For the past 24 years UMSL has been my community and in many ways my family. I've made lifelong friends and had loving, patient mentors. Frankly, I've learned everything I know about being a grown up either here or in one of my many support groups.

What did I learn? I learned to show up for work. I learned to believe in public education. I learned that I could learn. I learned that I could be wrong and live. I learned that the smartest and most accomplished people are often the kindest and most generous. I learned there's no substitute for actually doing my job, no matter what kind of mood I'm in that day. I also learned that if you bang a phone on your desk you can actually break it, but we won't talk about that today. Most of all I learned that there is great joy in being of service.

These may not seem like big life lessons to you, but they changed my life.

Since 1983 I have had the privilege of working with all of you and of being of service to many students. You have given me a place to live the life I was looking for when I got here. I has been an amazing ride and I thank each of you from the very bottom of my heart.

At 77

At 77

Coyote has a chest tube

strung from lung to plastic bag,

a ginger colored liquid trickling.

He's prickly and not too clean,

carved down to sinew

and spots and yellow teeth.

He's denned himself in

and doesn't want much company.

I rub his shoulders, feel how

the muscles have let go of the joint.

The nurse comes in and he snarls,

rolling his eyes behind her back

to show me he knows what he's doing.

He's alpha still

through bed rails and morphine;

holds up the bottle

to show me how much he's peed.

The Sisters

The Sisters

The idiot sisters who live in my attic

are keeping me awake again and I want some rest.

They dress themselves in lengths of fabric, pretend

they are in gowns, capes, boas, and tromp around

to some new play they've written. In the midst of this

romance one of them will remember some old imagined slight

and throw herself down, wracked with sobs on the threadbare

horsehair sofa, which reminds the others of the play,

causing the lot of them to shriek in excruciating delight.

To shut them up I bring them gifts of cupcakes, candies,

plates of cheeses and bowls of potatoes over which they coo

for a while. Then the fair one wants to save some for later

and the dark one wants to give some away and the redhead

wants to eat it all now and they're into another awful row.

I even taught them to smoke, a quiet, peaceful hobby.

They prefer cherry cigars, puffing on them dramatically

while they don fedoras and write mystery novels, pounding

away on their old Underwood. Anything will set them off.

I went downtown to get them evicted. I thought I could sign

something, get a restraining order so they would restrain themselves,

but I was told I can't because we're related. So we're in negotiation.

I've hired a mediator. On Tuesdays, when we all get together

I try to calm them down; they try to make me laugh.

Don't Read This

Don't Read This

For god's sake, put down the book

and do something useful.

Open a window, blow the stink off;

stir fry up some fresh vegetables,

call a friend to join you for dinner;

buy a card for someone who's sick;

go outside and get some exercise,

you're pale and going to flab, look

at those thighs!; wash your kitchen floor,

it's full of dog hair, bird seed hulls

and muddy footprints; and walk that dog,

she's getting tired of sitting home

with nothing to do but eat the crotch

out of your old underpants; light a candle,

say a prayer for the dead or the living

or for yourself, somewhere in between.

A Hard Right

A Hard Right

Corn bends close

Gears gum with chatt

Motes hang motionless

Light pierces the eye

Grasshoppers fly into spokes

Thistles prick calves

We waiver in the turn

I can see now it's uphill

from here to the place

where I tell you good bye.

Evening Shift

Evening Shift

The easy laughter of working men

drifts into my back window.

At once I am 18, the girl from the office

taking a smoke break in a smear of fluorescent light

outside the hissing factory.

I want to be an artist in black

who has everything she needs

but with the sweat running down the small of my back

in this too-short polyester dress

it is too easy to joke;

easy to pick the one with the wallet wife

and the key to his buddy's place;

easy to give him the one thing

without seeming to want to;

easy to pretend I care a little

until I walk out to the cab at dawn

and don't look back.

Reflections on a Winter Window

Reflections on a Winter Window

I stand before the glass- a shocking sight,

too white, too big in stocking cap and coat

and glasses, too. Is this the girl who wrote:

I'm God's frail angel, trembling toward the light?

I could not be this woman in the pane -

What would she know of trembling heavenly bliss?

If I'd known back when that I would look like this

I'da put a bullet in my trembling brain

And missed the snow upon the redbud tree.

And missed the sleeping spaniel's velvet ear.

And missed the graceful green frivolity

that rises at the turning of each year.

For though this flesh may less than sold be

I thank it for the love it's shown me here.

Surely

Surely

for Dr. Shirley Martin

based on a true story

At the invitation of the Shah's people she set out

for an adventure abroad taking

10 uniforms

3 pair of good American shoes

2 identical white cardigans

and her mother, who would find clean water,

bargain for melons, and train the help.

Square and blonde she moved briskly

through Labor and Delivery trying to discern

the structure of the system

as women arrived, chose empty beds

and quietly let her know when they were ready.

As the baby came, the nursery girl

would write the mother's name

on its forehead with a grease pencil.

Several times a day the babies were brought

and mothers' names called out.

If there were many Maras, the baby

would be carried from one to the next

until its mother was found.

Some days she would visit the nursery

after her shift, brushing babies' black hair

with her small white fingers,

crooning their mothers' names to them

in a language they would never speak.

Once, puzzled by clean faces,

she asked the nursery girl

Why no names on the babies by the heater?

The mothers had left. They had too many.

Or too many girls.

Her own mother told her to bring them all home.

More realistic, she presented a plan to the Director.

Milk could be expressed, agencies involved.

Fingers making the church and the steeple,

he explained it was impossible.

She never visited the nursery again

but served her time efficiently,

telling herself over and over,

like a prayer sung out in the marketplace:

Surely this one

sliding into my hands

will be delivered.

Friendship

Friendship

A button gone,

a drunken thrust,

our time ends,

clean as a suicide,

painless until public.

The vision turns back

counterclock

dissolves in a fiery breath.

When I Was a Boy

When I Was a Boy

Back when I was the boy of the family

I used to jiggle step in my father's shadow all Saturday.

At the barber shop there were Hulk comics

and pictures of ladies in their nighties

and I learned to say JEEEEEESUS Christ

and not make it sound like a prayer, either.

We'd go to the bar to sit in cool darkness

and drink 7-Up right out of the bottle.

I learned jokes and shaking hands with the guys.

Or we'd go fishing - catching pumpkin seeds or clumps of grass.

I had to be quiet then, but it was serious quiet and easy,

not like mom's nap quiet when I always needed stuff.

And we'd sit together against a tree.

Blue eyes and brown eyes didn't make us different then

like breasts did later.

Oh, we were a club, just us two.

At night he washed my little hands in his big ones

and dried them hard,

even between my fingers.

Hauling My Father Away

Hauling My Father Away

The man who hauled my father away

arrived at the trailer park in a black Chevy Blazer

with funereal curlicues painted on the back window.

The trailer was disintegrating, my father was big

and though it was a grey February day

the man was sweating in his black polyester.

When the wheel on the gurney hit the hole on the floor

my father flopped sideways like a tuna

trying to catapult itself out the door.

My brother and I laughed

in spite of ourselves.

We were so tired.

And our father was so gone.

For My Father, Five Years Dead

For My Father, Five Years Dead

I said I love you as I left that day.

You didn't hear me say it, I suspect.

I'd turned to go and the machines were in the way

and I wasn't even sure it's what I meant.

The dark familial clutter clears away

as years and failures all my own amass.

I say I love you easier today,

not just because you are not coming back.

Letter

Letter

Mama, I'm awful tired

and I feel like coming home

to eavesdrop on the ocean

and spit into the foam.

I talk to people on busses,

spend all my tips on books,

tell lies to good looking customers

and cheer for all the crooks.

I listen to jazz all evening,

I forget to sleep or eat.

There's a brown dog from the junkyard

who attacks me on the street.

My friends aren't.

My lover doesn't.

My work is.

My party wasn't.

Out here in the heartland

even the cows are bored,

and I'd commit hara-kiri

if I could afford the sword.

Irish Is Dying

Irish Is Dying

Irish is dying,

so Pat and I, roots deep in the peat,

are off to community college to save it.

We learn

there are consonants, slender and broad.

Slender as in si, pronouced she.

Broad as in gaoth, pronounced gway.

Nouns are declining around us

and nothing is as it seems.

Teach looks easy, until it turns into tschalk.

Shibh, impossible to puzzle out,

turns out to be shiv, something I'm ready to use.

We learn

to say "Is anyone at all satisfied?"

and "He is happy, but she is not happy."

both of which we commit to memory,

knowing they'll be useful in Dublin or Belfast.

We learn

there are very few speakers of Irish

left in Ireland.

And none at all

at community college.

Catholic Toilet Paper

Catholic Toilet Paper

The building my new office is in

used to be a convent.

Everything we say in our little cubicles

can be heard clearly in the hall,

as if Mother were still pacing,

Rosary ticking,

alert for Special Friendships

or overzealous penances.

She doesn't want us

using much toilet paper, either.

There's a hidden stopper on the roller

so we think we're free

to pull as much as we want,

but instead we get

just a little less than we need.

Postcard

Postcard

Our ghosts ripen within us

making us tender.

Looking behind,

the brown hills bruise

with distance.

Gone Gone Gone

Gone Gone Gone

The scenery falls too fast

from this inexorable train;

pastures, houses,

signs unreadable,

license plates unidentified.

When did they tear that down?

People, too, moving,

twist themselves out of our arms

and run;

take the long, easy glide

from the sky

into that little pond,

there on the left,

gone.

Even our dead,

bodies stilled,

are taken,

disposed of,

gone.

Speeding on,

our bodies rebel,

cramp,

tear

as if it were our own flesh

gone.

The Purpose of Deer

The Purpose of Deer

"I can understand God's purpose for most animals, but what is the purpose of deer?"

Julie at Lake Alice

I. April, 1983

I carry my knees like broken sparrows to Garth's kitchen.

Garth whirls up milk and honey for ulcer burn,

picks gravel from knee meat, bandages elbows.

I beat out droning Saturday morning litany:

don't know, can't remember, never saw before . . .

I have stopped even pretending emotions;

I'm no longer shuffling that old dance.

I am a single mechanical note

sounding on the current of that hot juice.

I am beyond shame or gratitude,

beyond the whole writhing maggoty mass of my humanity.

I have leapt clear of the wreckage of heart and mind;

I hang suspended above it on an amber thread.

Wrist scars, cigarette burns, childhood bruises,

all B&O railroad quaint from this height.

My hated father and I have never been so alike

or so separate;

we are identical objects under glass.

This is completely predictable tragedy

in glaring black and white.

The buzz saw edges closer.

Cut to the heroine struggling.

Her mouth opens, but you hear nothing.

II. September, 1983

A new movement has begun. There is no score.

The ripe moon of this season exposes

real heroes without names

riding in and out of my white rooms.

I claim to be rebuilding myself,

stretching my limbs at this transformed barre,

but I begin to see the gift

these people slyly leave on the counter

while I talk, talk, talk from the other room.

The gift is a secret about who we are.

It is this.

Clinging to the hem of existence,

dragged by gravity,

logic pointing the other way,

we push upward.

We do not turn on each other like beasts

but share bread and bear witness.

Under the milk-filled moon

we do not howl for the dead,

but dance.

Longing

Longing

"for your husband shall be your longing, though he have dominion over you." Genesis 3:16

So this is the plan:

this throb,

this molten river coursing

from nipple to belly

as she watches the husband return

from the garden.

She kneads floury biscuits

at the window,

an amethyst bracelet of bruise

appearing and disappearing

into her cotton sleeve.

And this:

this portion of spirits

the husband allows himself,

erasing ache and knowledge.

On the way to lunch

he calls each restless beast by name

and tucks his bottle

into its straw cradle

knowing he'll return.

Late, in their unforgiving bed,

she rends his back,

he pounds her prow of bone,

longing.

Men at the Laundry

Men at the Laundry

Four men at the laundromat together,

uniform in white shirts and ties,

hair trimmed like lawns.

Moonies, maybe, or Mormons,

not hard enough for the service.

Their glasses reflect the sun.

Yes, I decide, Christians,

looking for a sanitary theology.

I am a happy beast before them.

With my blood clotted cottons,

my flea bites and sweat,

I claim this flesh

from which they fell

and into which

at sunset

they slide like fish.

She Hopes She Is/She Prays She's Not

She Hopes She Is/

She Prays She's Not

She hopes she is;

she prays she's not.

She makes coffee,

drains the pot.

Feels sick. A sign. A sign?

She recalls the lip-biting grin,

the double nod;

imagines them quickened

to a piscean reality.

She turns her mind, willfully,

and still it returns, returns

to that dark pool.

She sleeps and hears waves.

She works and hears little whale calls.

She is a gate.

She is a cove.

She is dumb as a sea cave;

waiting to be startled

by the life within

or the blood emerging.

Still Friends

Still Friends

He is telling her about a trip

he is about to take.

He is leaving out

anything that might hurt her.

Who he is taking.

What he feels.

Why he left her.

His voice is carefully casual.

She nods, smiles absently.

She traces the barely raised ink

of her Pepsi bottle

with an unpolished fingernail,

scraping slightly,

finding no gaps,

no place to begin its destruction.

Terrier

Terrier

A fountain of black bangs frame

chimpanzee eyes and a pink U of tongue.

The terrier struts into the room

all happy aggression.

The leash is taut as she dips her head

into the rotting railroad tie.

Her body is a trembling spring until

with a neck breaking shake

the snake is hers.

She bites its head clean off

and leaves it without a thought,

harmless and shiny as a bracelet in the moonlight.

Asleep on her back she's wide open.

The green tattoo on her inner thigh

hints a a tale of misspent youth.

One creak of a floorboard

and up she wakes,

snapping.

The Nurse and the Sailor, 1945

The Nurse and the Sailor, 1945

Every horn in the city blares

She edges through the mob

Where's the subway stop?

The familiar corner is disguised

in Mardi Gras crepe

Cold beer sloshes down her neck

A hand on her shoulder

She spins around

All night she's been moving bodies and listening.

During the day the boys smoke and play cards,

but on the night shift they tell stories, eyes unmoving;

a heroic raincoat stuffed into the suck of a lung,

gut burst from the shockingly fragile skin of belly,

the white of bone, the remains of a face.

Drink this, she tells them. Rest.

I'll see you tomorrow.

She spins around

Some sailor grabs her

Cigar smoke and sweat

Tongue prying her lips apart

A shutter snaps

She breaks

away

Overkill

Overkill

Mother's cooked up way too much.

She doesn't just make duck but makes pintail ducks,

wood ducks, ruddy ducks, eider ducks, fulvis tree ducks,

widgeons, cinnamon teals, red breasted mergansers,

on and on, a redundancy of duck.

Still she urges more on us, pushes the plate toward us.

Fescue fingers up the sidewalks.

Chickweed loiter at the curb.

Trumpet vine clasps the gate shut.

Profligate snails dance through

their seventeen hours of foreplay,

leaving trails all over.

Cottony packets stuffed

with baby spiders hang in the back of our closets

until we carry them out at arm's length.

Bagworms wrap the redbuds

and gorge until we split them open.

There's no end to her excess.

Dandelion blow sticks to the sappy trunk of the white pine.

Millions of sperm bulge in teenaged boys.

And babies drop into dumpsters at dances.

Four Colors Suffice

Four Colors Suffice

So say the mathematicians

at the University of Illinois.

Equations worked late into the night

over vending machine meals

have proved it.

No matter how complex the politics

or how irregular the borders,

cartographers can open

just four pots of color

(including blue for the sea)

without fear of Mexico and Texas

coming up an identical adjacent pink.

So little suffices

to keep us apart.

Eulogy for my mother

Francine Marie Provost O'Connor

4/8/1930-10/10/2007

My mother enjoyed life and a wide variety of things in it. To her, whatever was up next was going to be great! She loved her family, all children, books, crossword puzzles, teddy bears, dolls, the Catholic church, seafood, cigarettes and coffee, the Secular Franciscans, and jazz. Hers was a world in which Precious Moments could groove to Oscar Peterson. As a child she'd taken acrobatic ballet lessons and late into her life she could still do a perfect cartwheel. Without any formal education or training she made a successful career of writing and publishing; and she made it look natural and easy.

My mother's life was not easy. And it was populated by some difficult people. For many years I was one of them. And yet she absolutely insisted on seeing the world through the eyes of love and grace and beauty.

Ever my father's daughter, I can't tell you how many times I tried to explain to her (and these words are all capitalized like in Winnie the Pooh) The Reality of the Situation. She would just say, "I know, Peg," and go right back to seeing the world in love and grace and beauty. And no matter how many times I warned her, she always talked to strangers.

I want to tell you my family's iconic Francine story: It is the mid-sixties, a time when going out to eat was for very special occasions only. We're in one of my father's used cars, let's say the Rambler, and we drive past a pancake house. My mother says, "A pancake house! Those are always so nice." A pause. My father says, "Fran, have you ever been in a pancake house?" She hadn't. But she knew that if she did, it would be great.

In her final days my mother's body was bruised from the accident and she had pneumonia. It hurt her to move and it hurt her to breathe. But, typically Francine, because her family was standing around her bed she said, "Hasn't this been the best week ever?"

Myself, I'm not such a believer, but for her I am sure that whatever is up next is bound to be great.

Lost

Lost

The crows have found the crumbs,

covered the moon with their cruel wings.

You and I consumed the last bits of rage

hours ago.

Orphans crudely bedded and cold

we recall

the acrid nourishment of indignation,

the nervous warmth of pain.

On Picking a Man

On Picking a Man

for Amy

You'll want to choose one with small flaws.

A painful past is good:

the memory of being overweight

or having been small enough to stuff into a locker;

a history of unfortunate eyewear,

bad skin, lack of coordination, or poor color sense;

maybe a job requiring a paper hat

to which he had to ride a bicycle with coaster brakes.

If there was success in class, it will have been in science.

If there were sports, there will have been a concluding injury.

If there were girls, they will have left him

for politics, or religion, or other girls.

Some current conditions will do:

recovering from alcoholism;

drying out from drug addiction;

suffering from a minor mental illness controllable by modern meds;

a child who won't call;

an ex-wife who still shops with his mother;

an inability to keep his hair, or business or waistline.

And most of all, you'll want him older.

He'll have memorized enough baseball stats

to be willing to abandon the game

for a Saturday afternoon.

No longer cocksure, he'll have developed

a compensatory adroitness in loving,

more tender and reliable.

And when you are ready to unbutton yourself

you can leave the light on,

knowing he knows, as you do,

a soft spot or a bruise is a small price to pay

for the sweetness of ripe fruit.

Missing You

Missing you

Cat tracks in raked gravel

Mallard laughs his demented laugh

Willow dabbles her fingers in dark water

Lotus dry in cold sun

Maples rust

Above, the transparent casing

of yesterday's moon

Nuns at Volleyball

Nuns at Volleyball

I think nuns should be required to wear habits always. That way when they are doing something normal, like studying in the library, they can look more amusing.

Once when I was getting out of my car at the grocery store I heard a beautiful, chiming laughter nearby. A group of nuns in grey habits were playing volleyball on the grounds of the nursing home next door. It was an autumn evening. The light leaned toward them. Their veils swayed on after the ball left their fists.

Blood

Blood

Let, spilled, spent,

gathered at the rim of the slick sheath,

dried, flaked, famed, unnamed,

resting on the nape of the embattled hill,

running before triumph,

trickling behind failure,

trapped in the cherry's violent red,

sword thirst, virgin squirm,

"Take ye and drink of this, all of you," He said.

Birds Drop

Birds Drop

Birds drop each through a thin space

where stringy clouds catch

and unravel in their beaks.

Sunshine is cut and cooled with blue

and their lace bones inspire.

On earth we slog through a clabbered mist

thick with clots of gnats and pollen,

and where your loosed breath

washes into my mouth.

Loving the Fat Man

Loving the Fat Man

He describes the bucket of mussels he ate last night,

the butter and the soft meat,

leans way way back in the office chair,

presents his belly to her

and with his middle finger

wears a circle into the upholstery.

She wants to climb onto him,

let him devour her,

lick her own juice from his chin.

That middle finger working.

The Good Die Young

The Good Die Young

The rest of us live.

We clean the truck's windows; wash the sheets;

press our thumbnails into our child's wrist to quiet her down;

hear the hollow thunk of our shoe connect with the dog's chin,

half accidentally;

turn cruelly from the weak; buy a little something for ourselves;

tell the joke that hardens a heart;

forget his birthday, the anniversary, our sorrow.

While we worship the good who have gone before

we can not help

but love ourselves.

Church Basement

Church Basement

Here we learn to ease open our hearts

and to hold them open with both hands,

letting something human flow among us -

for the one with the lichened smile,

the one still proud to have blown Chuck Berry,

the one who can argue herself out of everything

but the next drink,

the one who knows how to introduce someone

else's urine into his bladder,

the one who ran over his baby.

Here we hold our kin with a hard affection.

Here love is a verb, active, transformative.

The Workers in the Vineyard

The Workers in the Vineyard

Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?

Matthew 20:14

I waited for my cousin.

The others were still coming in, shirts off,

dirt, juice, and sweat painting their faces.

I was tired.

Not from working,

shit, I'd only started an hour ago,

but from the heat, from sleeping all morning,

from my life.

Emmett, always trying harder,

had gotten on the wagon at the crack of dawn.

I could see him coming in, pulled back

by the skinny horse, both of them swatting flies.

Around me men started to grumble,

to fight.

Everybody was getting the same money.

Emmett and I were getting the same money.

Suddenly I couldn't stop laughing.

Ahead, in the green shade of the fig tree

that crackpot stood,

handing out the pay, saying

I love you.