There's sand in my car
on the seat, the floor, underneath the brake
I brush and brush but it just jumps up and falls back down
exactly where it is, as sand always did
as the sand from the Monterey Bay does
when I grew up and now
and I try to jog on the beach
but my muscles are so weak now
and I remember my young body
jogging and getting tight again within days
but I am home,
and that is what I feel more than anything
and the decades seem to be diaphanous, like clouds or
whispy spray, not so heavy and real
and after crunches in the sand
I am on the couch writing in a notebook
and I touch my hair and sand falls out
making tiny little sand noises as each particle
hits the paper
and I remember being in high school
when this happened all the time,
and sand will fall, and cling, and put itself on you
in your car, in your hair and into your life
until you can't live without it, must be near it
And my body will fade, and worse still my mind
but the sand will stay forever, tiny and infinitely monumental

They smile, and they attend social functions and are in pages of
a city's social diary, a mockery of a democracy
the Hearsts and the Bloombergs  and the others rolling in it
so their aging women can have too much plastic surgery
because time happens to the elites, too, and cancer and unhappiness
and the smiles hide the discontent and the slow death
and they are afraid of us, can't bear to be with us, this other species we are
and once, with my now X, at a fundraiser for his elite boarding high school
I listened to a pretentious speech that was so intolerable
underneath the canopy of a white tent in the middle of a gigantic field
with every grass blade evenly spaced and the same height, and the soil
filled with nitrite.
And the speech ended and the applause served as cover, like brush and I ran
out into the open air and flattened the springy grass
and I walked away because I could take no more

Crunch time, life time always in the way
Going through all the drama day after day fall away
things are never smooth,
I thought, I had an apartment, for my next move, now not
and I drive, hours and hours and fill out applications for threadbare little places
in a student's world, and there's a process and suspicion and a guy walking a dog
with a million tattoos and a beach about five minutes away and just give my this apartment today
So I can write, finish my great tapestry, my mastery of this storyline that has been in my mind
for ages, needs to be fleshed out, so I can get it out, of my head
and stop this disease, so please, let me stabalize enough inside and out to make it
put it out, on that computer screen,
until I have that, I am nothing.

Nearly four decades ago, nearly half a century
I walked Freedom Boulevard from
a lonely bus stop and as I drove there
the other day I saw a girl standing at one who could have been
me, in memory -- frozen

Would it still be there? One of my treasured childhood memories
Still living, not someone's brand new home, or a bunch of Villas in a gated community, lost
The land bleeds in California, but has started to scar over and forget the apple orchards
across the street from The Barn, where I used to ride, and now the houses are at least
covered in trees as nature tries to overtake the foreign, like in Cherenobyl

The big red barn sitting atop a small hill, crammed with horse paddocks now that
the little barns turned to condos.  But it is still there. Like magic, frozen in time.
The red barn, I walk in, it looks smaller than I remember
but the ***** brown cobwebs still cover the cieling and I am
nine years old again

Before I knew the boundaries of my gender
When I felt powerful, if neglected, strong and in charge
Before I knew the bindings of my ***
The limitations
I felt strong, and as I stand here,
I may as well be nine again, a single digit
And my fear melts away, and the lessons learned about my place
in the world evaporate
I stand, and look around at the barn nearly unchanged
and reclaim myself

The other day I sniffed
and it was me that stunk
do I really have that much underwear?
or have a been walking around all bare?
four weeks ago when this fury of busy began
I brought in a couple of fans
and stepped in one and hurt my toe
and still I know
the pain is there
and I sweat still and wonder where
my life has gone

and sore and explode
and heavy load
and I make it into a powerpoint
and I look at a zillion lol cats
and how to make a perfect flip turn
and Michael Phelps perfect stroke and whale length body
and sweat seeps into the couch
and it is still not done
my work is not done

There was a dog eating festival in a province in China
and tens of thousands of hapless dogs were brutally killed
and it happens all the time, cats too
why?
I want to turn into a superhero and pick up all the helpless creatures
who suffer at our hands
I want to protect them, but can't
I can't imagine how people can do this
No that's not true, I can