It’s Marge’s.

Her hands planted the
peonies and the lilacs.
She chose the burning bushes that flank the walkway on either side, and the
boxwoods guarding the front porch.
The two massive pines?
Christmas trees from long ago,
legend tells.
Growing ever greater, choking the
light from the eastern beds.

Every day this week we’ve had rain.
Storms sweeping from the south, filling the
Ohio River past her banks toward
civilization.
She never agreed to the townhouses, the
bars and cars, the
soccer fields and parks and highways and boulevards.

I can always orient myself to the river,
despite my sense of no direction.
My gutters spill over, too, and water the multiplying weeds in Marge’s garden.
And the boxwoods, and the
burning bushes, and the
honeysuckle taking root in the old stone wall.
The rain waters it all, unconcerned which is garden and which is wild
Earth.

My mother is concerned. She is
exasperated to hell with me for allowing
Marge’s garden
to become ripe and full and wild.
She’s right, you know,
as a person of civilization,
the bars and cars and townhouses and boulevards,
the gardens of the generations who occupied these homes so long before us,
they demand order.

This garden isn’t mine.
It’s Marge’s.
And so the house.
And so the world.

But I can always orient myself to the river, the
storms, the weeds.
I am the wild things.

A river can
drown.

A garden
can be drowned.

I saw him see me.

“Hello, ma’am? Miss? Hi, can I give you a free sample?”

**** ****

“Uh.”
Cue winning smile.

I had reflexively glanced at the store name, Bee & Co.
Bee is my daughter.
All Bees are my Bee.

“A sample. Sure, thanks.”

“Can I show you another sample? Just in here. I know you’ll love it, I promise you.”

No.

“Sure!”

****! Betrayal. I follow him in.

The space is unnecessarily large and aesthetically devoid of personality. White walls, glass shelves, side lighting. Small clusters of bottles and jars arranged on a table here, a shelf there. It’s giving Everything Must Go; it’s giving White Woman Influencer; It’s giving American ******.

“I’m so excited for you, you’re going to just die.”

I am trapped, and we’re off to the races.

“Have a seat.”

He’s good looking, sort of wolfish, this salesman. Early-to-mid 30s. Well-groomed, brown skin, black hair, gay. Pale and underslept in that giddy way that comes with overcorrection. Coffee? Adderall? *******? It’s that look, that hungry look. His accent is warming spices and hard liquor, and boy is he talking.

Words like

collagen
-medical-
<penetrating>

as he enthusiastically smears a glob of something under my eye,
“This one because it has the darker circle.”

His dark circles pool under his eyes and he intently explains the same thing over and over again.

Anti-aging,
lifting and tightening,
fine line reducing.

It’s a needy pitch,
Too thirsty.

Well what if I like my fine lines, I don’t say.
Crafted,
as riverbeds are,
as canyons;
Emblazoned, each. Earned.
Emblematic of my many lives.

(A door opens at the back; another man steps out. We make eye contact.)

The serum dries like Elmer’s glue on my delicate under eye skin.
It settles in strange places,
Pulls and distorts.
Discolors and cracks.

“I look older,” tapping it with my fingers.

“STOP TOUCHING IT!”

I stop touching it.

The mall is so close. Nothing is stopping me from leaving.

                                           (I don’t even want it).

We can’t afford it.
There. I said it.
                                                        (I don’t leave)
-aghast-
“You can’t afford it?!”
Pearls clutched.
“You, what? Are you serious?”
                                              (Why can’t I leave?)
Uh. Well. I have a family.

Brick.
I wanna smack him as hard as I can
Step.
I wanna be young and beautiful again
Brick.
I wanna burn this ****** to the ground.
Step.
I wanna apologize for being broke, for having bills, for ******* around.
Brick.
I don’t like this. I can get up and leave.
Step.
I absolutely have to make him like me.

But he’s irritated,
“We might as well even you out,”
As he slaps the goop under my other eye,
Still talking,
Talking a lot, a whole lot actually.
Too much.

Okay this is reaching a fever pitch and I was not prepared for the hard sell today.
His voice edges with desperation,
Shame on you for getting in your own way.

(I’m holding onto the tow line
The boat is unmanned
Reality has become unmoored
We are, none of us, truly in control)

“It will last forever, it will give you what you’re missing, it will patch up all your empty holes with collagen and kisses.
You can’t put a price on confidence
But I can tell you honest
I’ll price it half of where it’s at
To help you with the cost.”

I gotta get out of here.

“Uh.” Winning smile.

He gives me his card
                                                     (I don’t want it)
- His name “BEN” and an email address printed on receipt paper -

And with him is a torn box.
Something and something about something.

(What is reality anyway but a deeply subjective personal construct, tenuous at best, unknown and unknowable but for the rare fleeting glimpse between the gaps in the seams of the fabric of the universe?)

75% off. Because of the box.

The mirror is still on the table.

“Look look, it works, you look great”

                                                     (I don’t want it)

****.

****.

The mirror lies to me in a thousand languages as the glue shifts beneath my skin.

If you listen closely, I say, you can hear me shatter into a million pieces.

clink. clink. clink.

Ben and I skip hand in hand through the middle of the empty room to the checkout counter,
pirouette, arabesque, plie,
celebrating the space.
celebrating my face.

I am exhausted.

Ben’s hands are shaking at the counter. The WiFi isn’t working on the credit card machine. His hands. Are shaking.

“Uh.” Winning smile. “I’m really excited to start using this. Thanks for your help.”

He visibly relaxes. Has he breathed even once since I’ve been here? More employees arrive, they smile toward us. All men. All men.

I can tell Ben likes me now. He’s pleased, thank god. My whole being recoils at the thought of disappointing him, and I uncoil intentionally.

(Don’t think too hard about it.
You can’t put a price on confidence.)

I hope we never see each other again.

“How old are you?” He actually asks me.
A lady never tells.
“I’m 40.”
I’m 39 but getting the feel for it.
Forty. 40. I’m forty. I’m four hundred and forty.

I am ageless as time and vast as consciousness.

He feigns surprise.
I tell him he looks young.
He calls me cute and gives me a hug.
I turn to dust and blow away.

“Can I show you something? I think you’ll appreciate it.”

You don’t know me.

Winning smile.

“What’s that?”

He takes off his sweatshirt - “don’t worry” - and rolls up his sleeve.

A tattoo. Just above the crook of his elbow. He beams triumphantly.

                   TRUST THE PROCESS

There's butter in my coffee
I heard that it fills you up in the morning
It's the fat, they say, that sustains you.

The problem is, I haven't eaten in, oh,
19 hours or so,
And this buttery coffee is making me feel funny.
Like, nostalgic,
Plegic at the kitchen table
Staring at the new paisley tablecloth without being able to think about anything.

This house has a voice and it's making me tired listening to it scream all day.
Only a month and already I'm pushing away
You can tell, you keep trying to kiss me awake but I can't hear you over the house.
They say this is what happens, so I never tried until now.
You really see a person, they say.
And I can tell you are really seeing me for the first time in these three years,
And it's making you nervous that maybe I'm actually not okay.

Maybe I'm not.
This behavior isn't normal, I guess, I mean most people eat and sleep at regular intervals
And share themselves
And do their chores
And go to work in the morning
And live a life that resembles something.

And now you're really noticing.
Normal behavior hasn't ever really been my "thing."
But writing songs to the tune of your own heartbeat isn't the way to make other people sing.

Tonight
Again
I battle myself
As Vince Guaraldi twinkles low on the smart speaker
And the baby sleeps
And the tree in the corner absorbs water into its severed spine
And the lights shine merrily
And the dog kicks and snores
And the dishwasher sloshes
And the wind chimes sing
And the clock ticks
And the wine bottle drains
And drains
And drains
And tomorrow looms,
Always so distant,
Always so near.

If goblins are coming, they'll expect something.
Goblin tea.
I don't have the recipe.

Butts and stubs and the shrubs out front
but who knows what they'll want for lunch

It might be me
I don't have the recipe.

There's a brand new world
A new universe that doesn't include me. I try.

I try.

And it's not their fault.


There's a brand new soul.
A new universe the doesn't include you. I try.

I try.

And it's not your fault.

There are veins
Arteries
That connect my heart to the rest of me
Something so vain to plainly see
Your heart exists floating free



Ooohs and aahs

I've never been the kind to shy
Away from another's mistake
And the clouds that live in my house were just another obstacle to shake
But there's only so much a tree can take
And my bows bent so low that I'm ready I'm ready to break
I'm ready I'm ready to break
I'm ready I'm ready to break

I saw something today on Instagram
One of my many astrology pages
Informing me that this is the time
To let go of pessimism
And external validation.

First of all,
I’m not pessimistic.
I’m a ******* delight.

Secondly.
How would I ever get anything done
Without the promise of a
High five at the end?

Silly moon,
You know not your small pale daughter.
Leave me in peace
And I will leave you to your royal fullness.

We are always waiting.

John Lennon or someone on Facebook or God said:

"Life is what happens when you're making other plans."

Life is what happens when you're waiting, and soon you'll be dead.
That's what that quote says to me.

So I'll just wait for eternity
Quietly.

And if I'm in line at the grocery
or synching my phone
or whatever it may be

maybe I'll use the time to write poetry.

Leave my little mark,
help the world remember
that while I was waiting I was still
me.

I place the pacifier not -in- your hand
But near it.

You surely will find it there
Right there
In the dark
When you are searching for comfort.

I nudge it a little closer,
Thinking of little girls whose parents don’t protect them
And wishing I could climb over these rails
Into this little crib
And hold you hold you hold you.

I bid the pacifier take over,
Sleep tugging me away from you with its persistent hand.
A curse, really, to abandon my post.

How many hours do we lose to sleep?
I would give them all up
To stretch this time out and out and out.
You, dreaming your mysterious dreams
And me, right there when you awaken.

We are all mothers
As we care for one another while going about business as usual
Our greatness in the guidance of the women whose scalloped hands stirrup our feet in the rooms and halls and roads of our lives
Who we notice only when we focus our eyes on our own faces, on our own working hands, on our own burdened hearts.

This morning
I woke up late like always and there was almost no time To
Comfort your crying
I thought it was a nice weekend and I wasn’t hungover
So I made you breakfast
Of the breakfast you made me when we were feeling so good
Potatoes and cinnamon rolls
You said the alcohol sugar kept you up all night
Hands in your hair.

It’s a poor paraphrase of I think Maya Angelou
that when people show you themselves, you should believe them the first time.
What if all you know, all they show,
Is what they’re not?

Tomorrow morning if you’re crying
It’ll be the same thing
I’ll wake up late
As I wait for you at 2am to join me in our bed
After coming home to an empty bottle and you
Feeling better

The spinning hand
of fickle fate
Will rarely land
Square at the gate

So if it do,
Set fear aside.
With faith anew,
Push the gate wide.

Oh no.
This is it, isn’t it?
When I wake up tomorrow
It will be time to go home
To start my new life.
Early 60s guitars, Connie Francis
Singing “who’s sorry now?”
in that eternal swoony teenage croon.
Dissolving the gathering dread
Into sand for the hourglass
Rather than lock it away down down in my gut
to harden into glass.

The afternoon sun makes the living room feel like a day at the beach.
River seeks the ripest beam and plants herself, closing her eyes.
The weekend suits her.

Your hair falls into your eyes and you push it away with your whole palm,
fixedly engineering the tallest tower in human existence.

I walk to the wall and pause the clock.
Everything freezes.

The threads of childhood are just beginning to weave around you,
funny how I hadn’t noticed.
Your hand is suspended in pursuit of a block,
your face intent,
your blue eyes shining with bright determination.

I tuck a stray curl behind your tiny ear.
What kind of person do you see when you look at me?
What kind of person do I want you to see?

The clock clicks back into rhythm with the universe, ticking and tocking once again in its forward march.

“Look Mama! A tower!”

Your hair falls into your eyes and you push it away with your whole palm.
River snores.

Such times as these,
we bottle our moments like wine,
hoping for feast,
preparing for famine.

Winter noisily clears his throat.

“Good Christ,” he says, “I just can’t shake this thing.”
He theatrically spits,
paTOOey, like Clint Eastwood,
into the Great Lakes region.

(Another record-breaker in Buffalo).

The Wind hisses, snaking through the dead leaves that carpet the frozen forest floor.
“Repulsive,” she mutters, and the waving grasses nod in agreement.

Winter is not in the mood. He freezes the grasses where they stand.

The Wind shimmies up the nearest tree and settles herself on a boney limb. It sways gently, as if underwater, and a few lean grackles startle and take to the air.
“What’s eating you?”

The sky will be the same color all day,
so it’s difficult to tell the exact time.
Could be nine or noon or 4:30.
People hate days like this,
but Winter relishes them, revels in them. Nothing comforts him more than an oppressively slate gray sky.

“I scheduled my favorite sky today but I can’t enjoy it. I think I’m getting sick.” He summons up another storm and accidentally drops it, this time on New Orleans.

“You’re getting sloppy, old man,” she says flatly. Winter is blustering and aggressive and gets on The Wind’s nerves when they have to spend this much time together.

She arches her back and sighs in irritation, disturbing the surrounding fauna. From the canopy above erupts a cacophonous flurry, jarred from their roosting place and screaming into the air: cedar waxwings and white-crowned sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, mourning doves and a lone red shouldered hawk, which arcs above the rest eying them hungrily. It selects a small sparrow and abruptly knifes down toward it, effortlessly slicing the sky in two.

Winter and The Wind watch quietly, interestedly. It’s one thing neither of them has control over. Fate.

Evolution and animal behavior can be influenced to a degree; landscapes and eco systems crafted; civilizations built and destroyed as quickly and easily as drying up a river. What’s written in the stars, the plot and grand finale of every living being, that’s a different department entirely.

Winter leans in,
“My money’s on the big one.”
The Wind rolls her eyes,
“How on-brand. I would have bet on the little one anyway.”

The two birds, predator and prey, swoop and dive gracefully through the dark daytime sky, a carefully choreographed dance imprinted on each of their DNA since the dawn of their creation. The little sparrow is fast but the hawk is just too big. It will clearly catch her.

“I think it’s because I’m overworked,” Winter looks at The Wind, continuing. “The snow quotas were raised just about everywhere except my usual route, you know? The Poles are really starting to freak out and it’s like, I’m telling them, sometimes you’ve gotta give a little to get a lot. I don’t want to promise them a new Ice Age just yet but all signs point to yes. It’s time for another big boy freeze, Wind, I can feel it in my bones.”

The Wind is still watching the birds. “We can only do so much planning right now while everything is so unpredictable. My schedule has me fanning California wildfires this season and it’s a real drag. I didn’t agree to this project, but you can’t just say that, right? So I’m there, I’m doing it professionally, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a little outside my scope. Like, wildfires in the Palisades? I spoke to Fire and do you know it wasn’t even on her calendar? The extinction process is always so laborious and disorganized.”

The hawk is climbing altitude now, it won’t be long before it goes in for the ****. Exhausted, the sparrow flutters weakly, unable to give up.

Time briefly suspends, then a flash of feathers and talons and beak and it’s over. The little sparrow dies silently and maybe even gladly. She was so tired. Away, away, balanced upon the line of the horizon they both go, away to a nest or a cliffside to both fulfill their roles in the divine comedy.

“******* Nature.” The Wind has sat with Winter this way for aeons, since the birth of this place. She always bets on the small ones.

Winter smiles at her. “It’s been a long time since I had an Ice Age.” He clears his throat again and makes to rid himself of it, but The Wind cuts him off.

“You’re disgusting, I can’t sit here with you while you snow, it skeeves me out. I have a meeting with a weather system over the Baltic Sea that I can’t be late for anyway. Look, if you’re sick, you should rest. The next Ice Age can wait.”

She blows him a kiss and is gone, and the forest stills.

Winter is alone again. He begins the satisfying work of preparing for the evening’s offerings: black velvet darkness beneath a swath of gray expanse. An ice storm in the wee hours will see a glorious sunrise in a crystalline wood, the light dancing and refracting joyfully from blade to base to branch. He enjoys Wind’s company but doesn’t miss her. No one will lay eyes on tonight’s workings but the forest creatures and the celestials. This one is for them, and for the white-crowned sparrow. She deserves a holy funeral.

The hawk, back in its nest, gazes steadily at the slate gray sky. Night is coming. The hawk breathes in and out. In and out.

In.

And out.

It's been getting worse.

6am was open for sinners but 10 was closed for repairs. Imagine the disappointed frowns drinking coffee reading regretful emails.

The afternoon sun hurt my head, I miss your cave.
In my bed, pillows over your ears and eyes.

12 pm was better but 2 was embarrassing.

I hate to leave like that. I never want us to be mad at each other.
Crying at the kitchen table, no it's not you.

Calling myself an idiot in the car for routinely missing turns.

The mall wasn't crowded but it felt like it was. No dresses fit for the wedding tomorrow. Staring at a red scarf listening to Burning Down the House over the loudspeaker at Dillards and feeling my eyes in my head and wondering if David Byrne ever dreamed he would have songs playing over the loudspeaker at Dillards.

You shouldn't have done that to yourself.  I'm sorry I suggested it.
It's ok, it's not you.

It must have been 50 or more dresses. Four hours.

This has been the worst day.
We've been talking about this for a long time. Sitting at the kitchen table, ugh, boys.

Smoking through the window.

My great grandmother made my *** my pants when I was eleven because she was cursing the door she couldn't unlock.
I once saw someone lose a prosthetic leg while riding a roller coaster.
TJ had a cat named Rodney.

We found burn holes in her mattress when we moved in. All her stuff was still there.

Reconfirming value, standing in front of the mirror in wedding clothes. Red heels. A white scarf to a wedding that doesn't belong to me.
It's ok, it's not you.

Nick started talking about what he's going to say for our wedding.
I told him not to worry about it, I don't have any idea what I'm going to say at his.

Cigarettes in the cold. Adderall and ZzzQuil and Dr. Who prints on Etsy printed on old dictionary pages. The world is falling away.

Write a poem.

3:17am is open for sinners.

It's been getting worse.

You didn't stay at the party,
Even though it was at your house
and you can still hear laughter coming from the living room.

You didn't stay at the party
You fled like a mouse
from the prey of the cat that you hoped would leave soon.

But it's five in the morning
God, you're so ******* boring

But the boy with the ukelele
Is still serenading the lady
Who has absolutely no interest
In becoming his mistress.

I'm writing this poem
because there's no way I'm a-goin
to sleep any time soon.

So you get to hear me comploon.

Complain.

It's 5 in the morning.

I've gone insane.