I was never the type
of child that obeyed
much  of anything;
not even the many
times  I was told
not to stare into
the evening sun
when I felt
alone.

My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

Sometimes I wonder

if I even survived
my childhood.

Maybe some part of me
is sleeping
up on the hill.

One of those
Nightmares
That I couldn't escape
Carried me off
In its jaws

and so maybe
I am planted.
Looking down
At all the people
I can't remember.

I hope that I am ashes.
I never wanted a stone.

She hushes me repeatedly
as if my voice could be– too loud
for these shrunken, elder walls
What voice can I revive to tell her
that this little place...reminds me...?

Ratchet up the memories  
the young mistakes
my welfare “townhouse”

as if my voice could be too loud?!

Where does anger go to say
These cheesy rugs remind me!
of the smoky halls, stoop-sittin’
head lice, **** roach
fumigated invasion
Music loud enough to blow pipes
induce trauma through the walls
Thud Crash
“Stupid ****!”
Knife-weildin’, drug-sellin’, boyfriend-of-a-future

A can of beer later...
with stress on hold
the smells of dinner, now—all fifteen of them!
Assault me through the front window
“Ya there yet?
...to this “cute little apartment, I mean?"


So it’s sold…
Someone else will wash windows, rake the yard
Shovel Massachusetts snow

Christmas lights come down
in my mind—
Running toward them still
Toes numb
Skates bouncin on my back
Sled firing off sparks against the sidewalk in my wake
Running and as always late
Mittens soaked, heavy
Like my eyes—


Mom and I
looking out this window for the last time
Looking out toward the daughter of the woods I was
Behind—me
the bride sinks
to the bare mattress—
“Was it really 57 years?
How can it be?”

since...clutching can opener and Coke
He scooped her up and through that door....
  
“How can it be?   Oh my….”

"You can always keep the memories."
she chirps to check the tears
                                                           ­                                                                 ­But I can’t taste them!
…Mom baking cookies
stew and dumplings on the stove
Snitching chocolate bits
waiting for the bowl
Impatient little helpers at her side

Colors slipping…
A child husks corn in sunlight
A blue Huffy gleams behind birthday candles
Sheets billow from the line

Sounds fading...
A choir of music boxes
before the Christmas carnage
Doing dishes in three-part harmony

I can barely wrap my words around our voices!

“You can always keep the memories”

Preamble to the dutiful decision
Hypothermic excuse
to dump the place

Street sign shrinking in the rear-view

It’s there—
in our goodbye
in that last glance back
across the heat reflecting
from the roof
Your car between us
The door is open
and your wounded soul

He’s dead at 21— I know
you loved him

I overdose this moment
Paralyzed
our eyes—

go on forever

Brake-clutch-shift
Glance at the clock
It must be about... half-past-an *******
as I sit in traffic, idling, wondering

Glance at the clock
Could this be hell?
98 degrees, sure humid enough
and will this guy ever signal a turn
or find the gas pedal?!
No, of course not
His job in damnation is to torture
the sucker stuck behind--

--his cardiac appointment
his destiny at the grocery store
Half hour early
just to wait in line
to pick up prescriptions
to punch the clock at The Pearly Gates

He's out and about in his Ford Taurus
ridin' the brakes
touring the streets in sunglasses with blinders

“No Effn' blinker, Pops!?”

Twenty miles per hour
just inside the lines of

Turning me into the animal I am
in the depths

"There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone..."  Peter Gabriel's  "Mercy Street"

Orion abandons the sky
dropping his club
casting his belt toward the horizon
Just once, for a moment, he glanced away
from exalted ****
his vanquished prey

He’d seen the picture—
A girl of sixteen
lying awake—muses in her head
eyes shut, arms thrown back
behind pillow
Tee shirt stretch across lean chest
Hips mingle with blankets
She is scattered there
among the minions of her hair
behind her mouth of unkissed words
____

McCaffery's Coffee is open late
He’s seen the picture
Muses in his head
His arm almost around her
Hers on his shoulder
Small—feather-light fingers
lift the hair of his neck
Reaching around her
his hand searches and slides
along her silk-draped hind
...and the view he has is amazing!
___

Music— and waves pounding and lapping
at the life he fears....

Little boat stranded in gray mists
till a thousand tiny birds alight
in a peppering and fluttering
stir of time
in greens of brine
as the sun pries through….
___

McCaffery’s is ready to close
but the owner, knowing
douses the overheads and turns away
leaving candlelight to crouch and duck
and blink in circles

How long and free we
are allowed to gaze....
so full of wind and riffling water
Stars above and stars below
blooming on the floral silk of night
Vespered lilacs exhale
Votives of warmth
beneath his hand
Silk sweating—
familial in their rocking

Distant lightning loosens eternity