When will her heart stop?

Will she take her last breath tonight?

When will my phone ring?

Nobody knows -

Not even her.

I have heard about your time in Viet Nam,
operating on wounded soldiers.

About your hearing loss due to the bombs.

About your then husbands abuse
that left your unborn child dead.

Your feelings of worthlessness.

And you're angry,
and you should be -

it wasn't fair.

Now when I feel irritated because your TV
is so loud, I try to remember all of this -

I remember my dark times too -

so tonight I close my door against the noise,
and let you be.

I was twenty-five and suicidal, barreling down 35W, the accelerator, pushed to the floor, weaving in and out of traffic.

I heard the siren and paid no attention until I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror, I slowed to a stop.

The officer approached my window and motioned for me to roll it down.

"Mam, you were going ninety-seven miles an hour." He looked at my tearstained face. "Are you all right?"

"Offices, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Can I call someone for you?" I shook my head. "Ok, I'll let you off with a warning. Please drive carefully." He pulled away as I sat shaking, realizing what I had done.

Now I am writing this memory, knowing I could have killed someone, and acutely aware it was white privilege which allowed me to escape without roadside consequences.

Now when my housemate hurls racial slurs, I tell her to stop.

Tonight I taste your cancer,
my memory of your agony so real
and tangible

that I try hard to get rid of it -
mints, toothpaste, mouthwash, soap.

Tonight I hear your cancer too -
the brutality of your words was the vehicle
that tried to burn our bridges.

If I could do just one thing tonight,
I would reach out and hold your freezing hand,
one more time.

Start where you are. Hike your own journey, being careful
of rocks in the road. Use your inside voice. Remember
everyone has a story needing to be heard. Look for the tall
people in ALDI - they can reach the string cheese on the top shelf.
A repeated mistake is a decision. Every day, breathe outside air.
Read: street signs, back-of-the-box instructions, your housemates'
faces. If you can't be kind, be quiet.

mourning in morning
needing the mom i needed
they buried your soul

when I
forget to
remember
there was
good stuff
too, I

want to
forget to
remember
all the bad.

I
just
might
be
the
angriest
person
you
know

It was summer, about a hundred years ago, and
I was 13, sitting next to my mother over the Atlantic.
Inside  the darkened plane the piolet's voice
interrupted sleep.

   "Folks, I know it's late, but if you look out your windows
     you will see something amazing."

I opened  the shade and found we had flown into
dazzling lights, shimmering colors - dancing, gliding,
whirling to the music we could not hear.

And then it was over. My mother slipped back into sleep
while I watched the  stars, listened to the hum
of the engines, as we headed home.

Sometimes I perch you
       on my shoulder.

I ask you to read
        my newest poem

look inside my soul
        and tell me

        everything

Since I heard you died,
I have been brittle.
Angry at the wrong people.
Afraid of things that aren't really scary.
Fighting the biggest battles
with the smallest guns.

Now I know you are gone,
tears come at unexpected times.
I grieve the woods you once walked in.
My arms thick as branches,
and frozen as the icicles
hanging from my fingers.

You were sad my whole life.
Angry too, though you didn't show it
until the bone pain wore you down.
Then you opened fire.
      "You stupid girl, never could do things right. Look at you,
        fat as a **** pig, no one will ever want you."
I knelt down next to you,
inside the stench of cancer.
It had eaten you down
to the size of a six-year-old, still
wearing your eighty-year-old face.
You didn't understand
that you didn't understand
I have been sad my whole life too.

No poetry today.
No words for the despair.
No calming the fears.
No poetry today.

I should be out of tears by now
have cultivated the strength of a warrior

I wish I knew why I keep waking up
in the morning
                           (despite the night)

again, again, again

bang inside my brain
burning my soul

I kick them away in restless sleep
jaw clenches  in familiar fear

truth or consequence
all night long

Tonite
I'm
wondering
everything -

Can
you
please
tell
me
my
name?

It is late.
It is always late
and I wonder
how you are
and where -

It is late,
too late
and all I can do
is miss what I had
to leave behind.

Ten years ago tonight
we were watching
our mother die.


The bedroom -  with her
beloved blue shutters -
littered with used
medical equipment

her low moans.

Someone inside me
remembers the stench
of cancer

Now  her three daughters
stand in a triangle with
our backs turned -


and no one says a word.

I am not reading poetry.
I am cupping the words
in my hands, pouring them
over my head, rubbing them
through my skin, into my bones
breathing in
breathing out

becoming a poem

Sharon fears she is invisible.
"Can you see my face?"
she asks twenty times each day
or "Am I wearing lipstick?"
She clutches my forearm with
surprising strength as I answer "Yes"
and "Yes Sharon, I can see you."
"Thank you" she sighs, stands carefully
and wanders away.

I am a poet who cannot write,
a reader who cannot follow a sentence.

I wear four sweaters yet cannot feel warm,
know secrets I cannot tell.

I want to run but have no place to go,
I am screaming but cannot open my mouth.

If  You have been sending
fires, floods, and mind boggling hurricanes
to get our attention -  

This morning I watched  a newscaster  holding
a screaming  baby she had just pulled from
what used to be his  home  and no one  was
coming to get him--

You have my attention.

I want to re-invent
my life.

Break every rule, defy
every expectation

Gather all the professionals
with their long to to lists and

give them a collective ***** YOU.

Throw out all un-purple clothes.
Pack every notebook ever written in

then hit the bricks and who wouldn't?
I am tired and who wouldn't be?

I take out the lists, try again, again

This is a way to re-invent
my life.

Home is clean sheets on Tuesdays.
Piles of poetry defy gravity, over-sized
soft  t-shirts in the closet and always
enough Diet Coke in the fridge.

Home is the cat muttering about nothing.
Lists for Doctors, for Target, for God.
Popcorn for dinner, music instead of  news.
Windows open in January for different air.

Home is breakfast, then leaving for meetings
or other hard things, then I come back, back, back.
No matter what the day brings, this is how
I get to next Tuesday again, again, again.

Dry my tears, but do not touch me.
Go away, but don't leave me alone.
I am tangled in terror, tiredness, confusion.
So tell me again how I am safe, strong, and free.
Go ahead. Tell me again.

Don't worry, there is a way out.
Don't worry, God already knows.
Don't worry, we will find the answers.
Don't worry, daylight will come.

I know I am young
and need to learn -

but you are old,
and need to remember.

because I have been listening to
your bullying in my head 44 years
and that is 44 years too long.

Listen up Mrs. K
because in 4th grade you said
I was too fat and stupid to be a poet
and I'd be wasting paper anyway.

Now I have something to say.

Tonight in a bookstore filled
with people as my poetry group
launched our book, and I read my
my poems out loud - I was heard
I was good enough to be there.

Mrs. K, listen up
because I am a poet

and you are evicted.

I woke up obstinate and needing to wash clothes.
which meant changing a $10 into quarters to use
the apartment building's cheap machines
which meant a hike to the bank

or to the overpriced laundrymat four blocks away to
where "Change Machine for Customer Use ONLY" signs
are painted on the glass doors and I knew
what I had to do.

I stuffed a plastic bag with other plastic bags
then with an actually ***** T-shirt ,t for authenticity
and marched those four blocks fearlessly.
I yanked the door open and went inside

where the manager was guarding the change machine.
He eyed me like the rule breaker I really was -
I held up my bag and he grunted his approval.
I put in the bill and taking my quarters

strode to the back of the store to hide for a moment, for authenticity.
There I found a woman about two hundred years old
mixing salt with her Borax. "I learned this from the Martians"
she said and I nodded, wanting to ask & also afraid of her answers.

I waited another minute and headed to the door
passing the manager - as he opened his mouth
I said "Oh silly me, I forgot the laundry soap!"
walked out into the now golden day.

I am an old kitchen timer
who lives in the bathroom
and I work once a day
for fifteen minutes, while
Anne showers.

I don't know what
she does in there -
maybe she sneaks
down the drain,
pops up into another
bathroom where  everything
so confusing here makes
absolute sense.

Or maybe she stays
and tries to scrub off
the night.

At the end of her time
I bring her back
loudly, insistently;
I hear her shiverswear
when she turns off
the water.

Why she climbs out
and into the day - every day -
I have no idea.
I am only a simple
timer with a dial
that turns and a silver bell
for my back.
I do not compute.

Binges
and
wars -

where
is
morning?

I want to write
a poem - the most
remarkable poem
I've ever written.

The one that blows up
mountains into pebbles
I can pick up and throw.

The one I can fan
from spark to inferno,
burning through
useless to pointful.

If I write this poem,
keep it out on my wall
I will be reminded
that the only way to
get my power back
is to take it.

I just wrote
a remarkable poem.

circles
chasing
circles
chase
triangles
chasing
squares
chase
lon­g
black
lines
that
when
stood
up
become
high
black
walls.

I had a list.
It was important,
which is why
I lost it.

I had a list.
It was filled with
things to do
      vs
things not to do,
questions, quotations,
1-800 phone numbers
from late night TV.

I had a list.
Remember to buy vinegar.
Remember who I am.
Channel Grandma.
Pair up socks.

I found a list -
I wish it was mine.

Unanswered questions

2.. Overloaded backpack

3. Night terrors

4. Unwritten poetry

5. More anger than I probably know

6. My mother's voice

7.  Deep love for purple

8.  Responsibility vs Irresponsibility

9. Desperations

10. Tenacity

Poet,
where are you?
Did I miss the memo
giving your notice
to vacate?
Are you frozen,
did you get burned?

Poet,
where are you?
I will meet your demands.
All the ink in any color,
all the paper you can fill
and you won't have to be succinct
or quiet or right side up.

Poet,
you've been inside me
from bone to skin
and without you
my soul is unprotected,
a lifeline gone.
Where are you?

Again

In the bathroom mirror there lives a lady
I see sometimes when I brush my hair.
She has my mother's face, her aloneness.
Sometimes I ask her  Are you ready for this
fight, are you strong?  
Strongly afraid, she replies
and I reach to touch her cheek, stop just short
when I realize she is gone - again -
and I walk out of the bathroom
into the day.


Anne Curtin