He's not coming back without her

On May 1, 2022 

the boy of 15 meets online 

a dark-haired girl of 14 

with eye lashes black and spindly as spider legs 

& the two video-chat nonstop. 

Their murmurs fill the night.

It is 1 then 3 then 5 AM. 

What is most shocking--

He is talking again!  

The boy imprisoned two years 

in his bedroom by a virus

had come to resemble that silent lonely ghost 

who bursts into TV as a mass killer.

And in his new voice there are the high notes 

of merriment 

& the low notes of secrets being shared.

And then on the morning of May 3, the dark-haired girl

is sitting on his bed.  Panic crossing all our faces 

when I step into his room, 

accelerating when his chest pushes against the door

 and mine thumping and pushing back.  

In silence they grab their backpacks, 

synchronized motions as if they had planned this moment 

and like thieves 

run from the house. 

 

I do not hear from him again for three weeks. 

Waiting, I sweep up his room—condom wrappers, chip bags,

cookie bits—change the bedding and wash what is in his hamper.  

I stare at a pink thong and a padded red bra. 

It hits me hard.  

On May 24, he texts, 

I will never come home without her. 

Where do they go next?

 

My friends are not on my side. 

They scold like old nuns—as if I 

could make this little Catholic girl 

do what I want her to do —

she a child too and someone else‘s—

but to our boy-child I do suggest 

that he suggest 

the A-word:

And then her sobs 

make his phone rock in his hand. 

That sound of a wounded dog yelping 

brings back our sweet Lab’s cry 

when this boy drove his bike over her paw.  

That too was by accident. 

He stares at the floor while his red-headed girl 

begs me to tell him—our love—

               yes, our—he‘s my love too!—

„Dont ask me to kill our baby!“

But I tell him something else: 

This is not their baby 

but a clump of unformed matter 

as incomplete 

as a box of Betty Crocker cake mix. 

His face tells me he is weak and torn, 

digging down into the bottom of himself. 

The rhetorics of baking and killing 

jostle in his eyes.  

Betty and Baby.   

And so It will be her crying without shame 

            and, perhaps, the prodding 

            of her pretty three-inch nails 

that will decide where 

they go next.  

We argue again.

 I smell pot again 

hazing from his bedroom. He denies

it because he’s 16 and thinks I am so old 

he can persuade me to distrust my own olfactions.

He displays other corny emotions 

like saying, Fine, I‘ll move in with my mother (the addict) 

or with my dad (who paints his body with magic markers),

       all the while this boy knows I will say 

              what I said, which is that I love you

                                     too much 

but I don’t say the rest, which is 

                              I wish I didn’t

               because life would be easier. 

Wouldn't it?

Wouldn't life be easier 

          without this boy 

                    who struts away grinning while I am still speaking?

This reckless boy with pimples 

and a weird hairdo

                 who seems not to care 

about his mind-body connection 

&  inhales tobacco and pot 

as if they were fresh mountain air?

Or would life be easier without him

to greet at dinner

though white buds breathe sounds 

in both ears?

I try to imagine no voice at all 

in these rooms 

                        where a previous generation 

                        turned up the boom boxes and made 

                        havoc of their brains with my wine.

Imagine. 

Just me here 

with memories of all that 

                but not just that. Of love notes too, 

                and of huddling together 

                on the sofa—all much worth living

over again.   

Only now more helplessly 

because I am unable to persuade a young mind 

without that husband.

I think I would not be happier 

without this boy’s voice deepening daily 

down the hall 

and the giggling little redhead 

who face-times him 24/7. 

I am sure I would not have learned 

to love Juicewrld. 

And I admit it. I love this small garden 

he planted 

for which I paid him $75 

though he used it to buy whatever is wafting 

like burned basil down the hall. 

I wonder often under this part moon, 

here in my Garden of Gethsemane.

Turning 13

I couldn’t wait. 

Stranded daily by the need

to be a teen—

to be eligible for real life

in a bra, lipstick,

I marked each month 

on the kitchen calendar.

12 is hard. 

Lost affection for dolls, jump ropes.  

Nothing left to beg 

for in the holiday catalogue

except, maybe, 

another board game

but they too are challenged 

by the sudden flame of womanhood—

by the discomfort with too much youth.

Where’s the catalogue for mutants

leaving middle school, 

for busting

into the next life

of hairstyles, boy bands, boys

heartbreak?

For feeling less strange 

in my own home with mom,

herself bored at the dining table,

flipping through catalogues, 

wrestling with age—

Mine and hers, 

for the first time.  

Now the nights grow chilly

When the kids move out and your man dies 

and the best friends get cancer or move to Arizona,  

the rooms in your house look dried out, roped off

like those rooms in a history museum 

because you just can't remember what you said 

or did in places where things will never be like that again.  

So you make pumpkin bread now and that makes you

smile back

at your Jack O Lantern‘s wicked grin.  

Outside the window a maple tree drops 

bits of gold across the yard, there’s a scent of wood 

burning in the fog & you feel the earth turning its back

On the sun, all the long, bright days

no more. 

Autumn still beautiful as before but

the nights now too chilly

so you go to bed with the candle burning 

just to keep Jack smiling at you

all through the night.

 

The Locket

I feel guilty. 

I was going to call back J 

and K and then I was going to read 

How Minds Change 

for the new book group 

but the Lex Fridman podcast took longer than I thought 

and afterward

I put on Paul Desmond and dropped 

into my sun-licked couch and picked up 

Len Roberts’ poems. Read and read and read

because Len knows 

how to keep me alert and out of air.

Each word of his poem What the Hell 

Kicks my butt and I am as angry as he 

so I put down the book.  

No need to step further out on the ledge of suffering 

than is absolutely necessary.  

It’s sunny.  I should take a walk.  

I command myself, get up, 

my self talks back. 

Why am I so lazy? 

 

The phone dings. A text from a boyhood pal 

of my teen-man.  

In town and wants to see us.

I’m excited and slip right into old road trips 

with the boys— how I miss them and

that locket they gave me—

With a string of plastic hot dogs —it’s in a drawer 

somewhere.  

I should take it out and wear it

like a badge of honor

because teen-man is not sentimental 

so only I keep all that we have been. 

The memories spill down the hills 

right into me. 

This is my sorrow—custom-made. 

Teen-man will not even make a call.  

So as usual I tear up and text a lie 

back to his old friend.  

 

Now our old dog pees on the floor—

housebroken 12 years— and there’s blood in it.  

I stay teary. Feel like the last apple holding tight 

To the tree. 

Then the smell of skunk.  

Teen-man’s high now.  

And the rice I steamed came out dry. 

I soak it with 1/4 pound of butter 

and share it with the dog. Together 

we dine on our misfortunes.  

 

I've been refused

I’ve been refused epic talent, 

power, fame

a long-lived  marriage 

and grateful children,

what I wanted in my prime, 

in that order

and before that, 

as a pious youth, I was refused 

a world without epic greed, epic hurt.

About that I am still angry, 

But about the rest, about all the rest

I am not angry, 

and about all that came my way, 

all my parochial achievements,

I am pleased, 

more than pleased, 

I am profoundly grateful, 

at times even blissed out

by the wholes and the fragments of my fate, 

the camaraderie and comforts, all the kisses--

for all I was not refused, at sunset

I kneel under the partial moon, the

hiding star.