Panic

My mother always says the man’s a fool so it comes 

as a surprise, how surely my father drives through 

the maze of streets in New York City. He makes no 

wrong turns, asks for no directions, 

consults no maps. From the back of our Rambler, 

four children thrust heads into the beeping horns, 

into the streams of cars and buses that waver

and wobble forward like penned cattle, 

and there’s my father driving calmly right through 

all that mayhem as if he enjoys it. He even points 

things out to us. 

See, that's the Stock exchange. 

Over there, that mansion, Andrew Carnegie lived there. 

Just like that, all the way to Long Long Island 

without a single hitch. 

It is late afternoon when we arrive at his mother’s

beach house. After miles of dried Indiana clay, 

the glittery Atlantic ocean stuns, an amazing sight, 

a planet in itself, etched in gold. But what I see next 

stops me in my tracks: rising from the whirling water, 

armies of black-shelled creatures as big as geese

with feathery claws and snapping tails, and eyes with 

pouches like purses, are crawling over sand, 

whiskers twitching, toward us. 

We scramble up the porch squealing, beating 

on the door, we are banging, we are yelling, 

we are crying, but my father’s only swaying, he is

pouring, and his mother’s saying Francis, 

you've had enough, and the ice is tossing in the shaker, 

the vodka’s splashing and I am understanding 

my father’s not a fool, he’s a drunk.

The Jump

As a kid, nothing was more exciting
on a sunbaked afternoon
than a jump off the diving board
at the neighborhood pool--not a dive,
I didn't how to dive--but a good jump,
Like a jump from a tree into a river,
A clumsy jump that  began with a rapid waddle
to the end of the board and then a gangly leap into the air,
one hand plugging my nose,
suspended for an instant like a dolphin,
quickly gulping a mouthful of breath, holding it,
and then a long, slow plunge,
my burned body finally
breaking the cold water,
the delightful shock of submersion,
sinking lower and lower,
losing my weight, my direction,
my hearing, all my heat,
my burning eyes wide open,
the taste of chlorine,
the breath bursting from my lungs,
And then a gentle moon landing,
my butt touching the bottom,
And then bouncing up and down
against the concrete, and then
pushing my butt against that hard floor
to catapult me back up toward the white sky,
my long brown hair floating like seaweed,
hair slipping into my mouth,
my fierce splashing upward,
and just before my face breaks
through the water,
the warm pee between my thighs,
without blushing because no one knows,
no one will ever know.

The Proposal

The Proposal

Joe Burns puts his arm 

around my shoulder and he says marry me?

Inside my head an argument begins as if there 

were two of me, one eager to say yes, the other no.

Yes, oh yes, yes, yes to becoming a Burns, 

to being his mother’s daughter, 

his sister’s sister--the most popular girl in the universe--

whose starlights gloss my ugliness, my poverty, 

my many sins, let me walk in their beauty under 

Their very own personal sunny skies.

Joe seems to hold a mirror to my face and there 

They are--his sister, his mother, lovely and perfect

In their floral fabrics and he is saying,This could be you! 

The path from dark to bright, from clumsy, messy

To breezy softness, to sunny glowing order.

I see a wicker chair, a woman with an armful of flowers

who looks like me trying to make the flowers

Fit nicely into the vase, but the task is too complex,

the flowers bend, fall, scatter, she begins to cry. 

She is lost in this flower wicker sunroom, not being from there, 

she is a pantomime, does not fit into this air.

So when Joe’s lips move toward mine, I turn my head, 

And he stands up and walks away

And it’s like an elevator door has closed on me. 

The Best Place to Write

Cafes with their deep sofas, 

electrical outlets and people communicating 

on keyboards, books, blank paper

(but not with each other) 

are pleasantly lonely places.

For as long as I’ve been writing

I've been drawn again and again 

by the cafe’s power to capture my focus

--and I wonder, do minds function

best amid noisy arrangements

of people preoccupied with devices?

Because distractions, whether mundane 

ones such as letting out the dog or big ones 

like depression, with its repetitive thinking,

Can only be conquered by sitting in a cafe, 

where the moment I stand in line 

to order a green tea latte

everything in my life waits at the door, 

dares not follow me in, knowing it will be ignored, 

will cease to exist, and so I wonder, 

Is the ability to focus

(if not to be happy) most possible 

in a realm one does not own, 

among strangers, where one is a guest, 

and nothing is asked of her 

and where she can do nothing at all

about anything except write?

Still Life (Published in Monterey Poetry Journal, October 2013)

It was night, cold and dry and still.

Ahead we see cars with red and yellow lights, pulsating

Like lighthouses on cliffs of a black sea.

Two girls sit in the back row of a car, one with her head

Leaning back on her seat, face turned to the window,

The skin mostly gone, but there was enough left

To see her expression--she looks stunned,

Her face says calmly oh no, look at me, 

I am dead. Her arms have fallen to her sides, the skin

is gone but the sleeves of her blouse hang in pieces,

The bones of her wrists with hands turned upwards lay in her lap--

This was all that was left of her after the fire.

This is what her mother will see when she comes

To the morgue. I don’t turn my head away, my own 

hands are holding my head, as if my head were so heavy

two hands are needed to hold it up, but my hands will not

release my head or turn it, and my eyes could not

Leave hers, that would have been cruel, to just

Look away from this incinerated girl, to drive away

Quickly and turn up the radio as my friend wants to do.

The other girl’s head has fallen face down onto her breast

so we could not make eye contact, therefore I focus my attention

On the girl I can see, on her white cheek bones covered

By ash, and her eyes, the holes where her eyes had been, 

turned to me but not into me, past me.

A man is sitting straight up in the driver’s seat, 

he too bone and ash, sprinkled with broken glass, 

and I wonder, was he sober when he drove them all

out of this world? Possibly the only world 

they would ever know?

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?