If only

If only God Almighty were not so

insecure. 

What gruesome death that crucifixtion
of any son, of any blood and body 
and why must every soul be offered up?
If only God did not need hell on earth--
if only that everlasting hell could be enough
to satisfy His revenge.
If only He did not demand redemption
for all of humankind, the innocent beside
the evil, but most especially 
by horrific immolation.
If only God could be content.
Withdraw demands for victimhood,
for our extreme obedience.
If only He truly loved as father, mother, friend,
we would not be so afflicted by pestilence, war and famine,
and countless other terrors
by the Him who wants to be exalted
daily for all this misery.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life.

If only.  If only God would come to this.

Dry

Then, one day it is completely gone, 
all the love,
the heart feels empty again, 
bloodless, 
beating barely just for one, 
just for itself alone, 
after all the love 
finally leached,
the heart dries and hardens
--the peach eaten, 
the pit spit out.

It's wrong

We watch it together, the way the sickness robs

his body’s surface, slackens and liquifies 

just as each year the fresh autumn pumpkins

extirpate in summer heat and sink

into grassland.

We have discussed it, we have seen the signs

of the deranging force and we have joked 

about how its witchy extortion hovers in no 

hurry for us, only drifting our way 

with starts and stops, and, we thought its 

descent would always be lethargic, 

we thought we had ample time 

and then late afternoon I was turning on TV

and glanced his way and there it was, kneeling 

by the bed, reaching for him, extorting him 

from the room. But he resists, holds on tightly

to his air, his thinning matter and I watch 

from the chair rocking all night, the extorting 

force crawling around my feet, climbing into 

the bed purring beside him who sweats in sleep 

and I rock and pray to Him I don’t see or know: 

Please do not deploy your power in this way. 

And my faith takes another blow.

Inside the fridge

Hunger isn't why I stand before

my mother’s fridge in my work clothes

and peer inside the vicious white light

like that laboratory I once worked in

(those skinned cats nailed to clipboards!) 

but here there's only one lump of flesh--

a chicken leg attached to a meaty thigh.

That's what I find in her fridge most 

days I visit--raw meet, an apple turnover

or two, milk and eggs, white bread.

None of which I ever eat.

It's just a habit: walk in the house, 

drop my purse on the floor, 

and look in the fridge even

though it's been 30 years since I left home

(and have my own home and fridge).

That's what a habit does to a person.

You do the same thing over and over knowing, 

maybe even hoping, the outcome 

never changes.

You just keep doing it 

because it feels so good, so right, 

because your mind can go flat and quiet, 

you can forget your cares, 

and what's better than that?

Fake

My mother calls to tell me how nice 
her flowers look in their window pots  
warm with summer sun. 

Her voice light and high--

she’s practically singing-- 
as if the sun shines on her alone.

That brave soul! Badly wounded 
but never down for long. 

Those flowers are fake!

But she loves them more for this 

very reason.
They will outlive the living blooms

that leave her to sweep up their decay 
and make her start anew. 

Much better fake! 
Durable, practical, just as lovely--
but nothing fragile flows through 
their polymer stems.

Time does not spoil their skins, 

their thorns never cut, 

she can hold in her hand a world 
without end.

It's too late now....

.....for the dream daughter son husband 

to sit around with me on the beach blanket  

and talk in happy voices about their good jobs 

and good homes and good politics 

and breathe in the spicy gusts of sea breeze 

together, with a kind of ecstasy, 

and with all that combined happiness, 

lift me, cartwheel me across the salt dab sands, 

rolling head over head, lightly, 

end over end, lightly, 

on and on, like tumble weed, 

uprooted, inspired deeply, moved deeply, 

satisfied deeply, 

as if there is nothing I should be doing 

and they doing everything they should be doing.

It is too late in the day 

to change the day.  

All is all. 

But if I could revoke, would I?

Now that I've bonded so deeply 

with the anti-dream?

Under my skull roof

A believer and nonbeliever 

go about their days with rarely a quarrel.

One stands very still to hear the great spirit speak 

in the Mourning Dove coos and the salt winds 

and in the bob cat hiss. 

The other of the metropolis, of devices and data, 

concrete, car horns, and microwave peeps.

They meet hour by hour in my body, 

unable to speak a common language 

but aware of one other--

not friends, not enemies--each busy 

with itself,  its point of view. 

Neither comprehends a purpose, 

though one can sense a great direction,

while the other sees such thoughts as

just thoughts--axons addressing dendrites--

nature talking to itself.