Back Seat (Published in Monterey Poetry Journal, October 2013)

I see the two of them.

On the back seat of his car.

It is night, very late.

Soon he will take her home.

On the dashboard, a can of coke

Mixed with rum. The moon

Lifts his face out of darkness.

He turns his whole body to her,

In a rush of need,

Covers her like a mountain,

pours himself into her

Once, twice, many times.

She feels an odd boredom

Being rocked and rolled about,

And turns her head to the window,

Wide open, filled with dark things, 

and nearby a large and silent cow, 

which she watches as she waits 

for the storm to pass through her.

Forgiveness

I won’t visit the ward where she’s sitting 

beside others who stab themselves in their necks.

Who does that? Who? And why? 

(Is that icy tone mine on the phone?)

She didn’t want to die, 

Only make her lover stay.

Because I’m needy, mother!

One of her serial assertions.

I love you is another

Once upon a time she was a sunny child

(Wasn’t she?) Am I dreaming when I 

see a little girl with a soft red heart

flung open to everyone?

She loved hearts, on her headbands, 

on her socks, on her toothbrush, 

pillow hearts--everything she owned

wooed Be Mine.

Her beauty wasn't subtle. (Why didn’t it save her?)

People stopped us on the street, knelt down 

for a better look into those bluegreygreen eyes

(their color has no name, has never been seen before.)

Didn’t I bring her warm milk at night?

Didn’t I embolden her with dance, surround her with my

Kind, savvy friends? Give her new shoes
(covered in hearts) for summer camp?

Didn’t I make it clear she was not doomed

because language in all forms failed her?

She had dreams of driving a red convertible

with its top down, volume up, her blond hair blowing 

like yellow scarves but now almost 30, not even a permit, 

she feels stranded in a dream noir, 
on a long drive from somewhere to nowhere,

forever crashing into strangers’ lives.

It wearies me, repels me. I’m standing

too close to her desperate edges.

How deep is her doubt? Who knows?

What part of her is her, what part monkey?

How much deeper will her slow dive take her?

I don’t know when she’s lying and when she's not 

since all her words are stained with colors

unfamiliar as her eyes and from her mouth, 

strange sounds that scare me to death.

I should have watched her more closely. 

I should have watched her the way a sailor

watches the wind before setting out to sea.

Everything in the air must be important if

you want your boat to move to the right place

at the right time along the best route.

She cries, mom, mom, it’s not your fault.

If I could forgive, if I had a hero in my heart,

I wouldn’t sail backwards in my sleep, 

never reaching the shore, never coming to rest. 

I would not judge. Because who knows 

where the wind comes from?

Who knows where it goes?

Poem A Day Project: Home Sweet Home

My friend's husband calls to tell me
she cannot go to the beach
with me tomorrow:
she's coming unstitched with worry.
What if she has an episode?
What if her meds fail?

The problem is she remembers
as if it happened yesterday
what her father did long ago
in that house with no white shutters,
with no softness of gathered sheers,
or clean scent of white cotton.

Hers was an unscrubbed shed,
rugs were stained,
windows small and heavily draped
so light and air could not rush in.

She longs for a house
with a blooming sofa heaped with pillows,
a soft throw for an autumn nap,
sunlit bedrooms painted

in dreamy hues.

A house where childhood
can be transformed.
A lighthearted realm of seascapes,
candlesticks and books.
A place to host family dinners,
share pure embraces
and remember a beloved past.

Poem A Day Project Dirge on the Pier

A hundred harbor seals swim

along the pier, all  barking and coughing.

But the bellow does not at first 

disturb the filmy light, 

the fairy shimmer around the sea.

Susan Radlov is dead. 

It's the coughing from below 

these planks that calls 

this shocking fact 

to mind again and now 

the chummy yowl of  harbor seals 

will join the growing list 

of most mournful sounds 

I'll ever hear.

Poetry Workshop (Poem A Day Project)

The poet to my right coils 

and uncoils herself, flattens her chest 

against the table, rolls around in her seat--

She just can’t contain herself in a single form.

Not her on my left with a penchant

for the lost, the brittle, all the hard

things in life, which she reads

to us with twitching eyes, spine pulled 

straight as a rod, her whole body pleading

Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.

Another sits so quietly.

Life has scraped her clean, taken her apart 

stone by stone, washed and dressed her

and set her down across from me.

Her poems fidget, search for a place to start.

She asks, Can anyone help me?

All the rest model courteous self-control. 

There’s not a carnival vibe among us. 

We don’t even blink when our teacher

Tells he will soon be dying.

On command we pick up our pens--

our rescue from this shy reserve.

(Just because we’re poets 

doesn’t mean we know what to say.)

We simply share a need for

kindness, for mercy as we force ourselves

upon one another shamelessly.

I'll Miss Him (Poem A Day Project)

He's leaving.

The young man lugging his TV 

Out to that beatup old car

Is happy to be going.

I’ll miss him.

But not how you miss someone

who’s never coming back, not like

you miss the child who hugged your waist

As tightly as he could and cried,

This was a fun day, mom!

I wish I could rewind it.

First Date (Poem A Day Project)

He talks alot about Lulu.

I know what she likes by the way she meows. 

I can see that cat purring against his chest.

Feel his hands stroking her nippled belly.

 

Taste the kiss on my mouth.

That warm tongue lapping 

the little puddle behind my lips.

I can hear him listening raptly

to my meows.