We're working on a job together
Actually, we're building a set
And yes, there's been many other times we've met

You weren't so nice to me, but since this job there's a gentler turn
I see it when you approach me, you show a softer side
And when the others leave, you approach me closer, with a quicker stride

Today I had no doubt, it was easy to read between the lines
You came in quietly, and I'll be honest, you weren't looking fine
As we talked, you seem so fascinated, I felt so watched
This was definitely being taken up a notch

So we arrived at a part of the set and you asked me if I liked the plan
I didn't particularly care for it, but honestly it didn't remind me of a man
You said, it's boxy, sharp corners, a masculine design
"Maybe you'd like it curvy," you say, and I'm looking at your sight line

They say you can tell where someone is looking from a hundred feet away
Well, this was much less feet than that today
I knew exactly where you were looking
I knew what that look meant
And yes, I liked it better curvy
So maybe your advice was heaven sent

At Bookshop Santa Cruz
I look at a book about the East Bay then and now
One picture strikes me: 1969 Sproul Plaza
Govener Ronald Reagan has the National Guard spray
tear gas on protesters on the steps of this Berkeley Administration Building
People run in black and white
they look like my parents
The helicopter is so close to the ground, like the Vietnam War

I was three
In the backseat of our VW Bug
My mother was driving me to Strawberry Canyon
for a swim
Then she got scared--something on the radio
We turned around
I didn't understand
She had to protect us from tear gas
We lived in a war zone
Everyone was very upset
We were attacked by our own government
Even children were fair game

An innocent frog is placed in water
If the water temperature is raised gradually
the frog will sit there until it dies

In 1980 Ronald Reagan became our President
Much to our dismay
"70% of pollution comes from trees" he had announced
as Governer, he was obviously a man of science

The vice grip clenched, the water temperature raised
as we felt around us the world becoming more
difficult as a middle class
we were supposed to wait for crumbs to fall
from the table of the rich folks
fighting over the bits like starving animals

Budgets were cut
Prices rose, wages fell or disappeared completely
We were at war

1985: I took a class in Economics in college, a UC
I learned that Supply Side Economics was
a silly idea written on a napkin at a fancy restaurant
where the fat ones eat
and the crumbs are thrown away

It was all a sham
An excuse
The vice grip tightened, the world became
more difficult
not the American Dream my parents grew up in
To be middle class was to struggle and struggle and still
not have anything

The frog began to die
Somehow we saw that
Reagan drifted away, but his ghost
remained, a respite in the 90's

Then we were at war again
Not just tear gas, but carpet bombing
Guerilla warfare in the streets of a hot arid country
Oil companies, already saturating our ground and our air with their products
Cashed in

The frog is near death
We struggle, and nothing gets better
Only a respite

At a fancy restaurant
on a napkin someone wrote
a new theory of Economics
that became like Scientology
Outgrew it's ridiculous inception
And became real

Ronald Reagan dropped tear gas
from helicopters on Sproul Plaza
and it drifted to Strawberry Canyon
where children learned to swim

But that is child's play now
the frog is about to die
I want to pull it out.

Saturday morning
Bedroom with sun shining through my green diaphanous curtain
My cats have carved out little holes where sun strikes through, unfiltered
and a rhythmic sound from above
Someone is getting frisky
and has a squeaky bed
And the natural cycle spins on, faster, faster
more intense and finally gone in silence
It's better than violence
but still TMI

what were they thinking, as I am here and still working
with four months to go and knowing there is no improvement
to be noticed and only betrayal after betrayal
and I've never been done so ***** as at this place
whose management thinks we are making 10 figures
and wheels and deals and has a blonde obnoxious secretary
who gossips and no I don't fit in because this is absurd and I am
reminded how a nasty person can ruin anything
a meal in Paris at a restaurant hundreds of years old
and a crabby old man who was my father in law and his
horrible girlfriend and we sat in this fancy place and I could
only think I wish my husband and I had gone out alone to McDonald's tonight
because we would be free of this hateful presence
or maybe we had just bought a loaf of bread and some cheese and at it
walking down the Champs Elysses, or maybe just starvation
would be better than these people and here I am again
in a perfect little "green" brand new school and I think it
is definitely located in the middle of hell and not surrounded
by wineries and fields and wealth

Lymphoma
There was a  fundraising run for lymphoma and other cancers
A little notice for it on top of the garbage can
at a home grown Jamba Juice right off the BART in Berkeley

It hit home: what I was up against
People don't run through the streets casually
and my cat had lymphoma

I couldn't find him last night for the first time
He had his weekly appointment and I brought in
something that didn't look at all like he was the week before

They paged the vet and she came in
saying thing like he needed an IV and tests and
wasn't there nothing else to do
didn't she say that
he needs hospitalization--his liver
we can't tell you what to do
but it would all go in a circle and come back
to a suffering being who had
come to the end of what science could do for him
what she was trying to tell me in her barrage of words
came through loud and clear

They brought him in
with a blanket and a catheter
and he struggled until he got warm and then rested
I wanted him to see me, as the last thing he saw in this world

She took the three syringes out of her white coat
Don't hurt him, just don't hurt him
my only request
There was no pain
Only relaxation, sleep and then at last no heartbeat
Her ability, her smoothness of execution was perfect
and he went limp in my arms
not suffering

The nurse took his body away
"It's the last gift we can give them" she said
and I imagined a man, a stereotypical
image of a man pacing back and forth in a white coat in front
of a lecture hall full of vet students saying that
exact thing and there was a serious air in the classroom and some wrote this down,
it was so true, sound, capable and final
but this woman said it
this veterinarian from Michigan
and through my tears and grief
there was some kind of undercurrent
of relief, that there is no more pain for him
He no longer suffers
and I did all I could do

Behind the building,
a one hundred percent green certified building
an amazing feat of engineering-science-forward thinking
fabulously energy efficient cutting edge building
sit solar panels in the sweltering heat,
extra heat from the toxic clouds in the sky
which now envelop the Earth

There, under the panels sit a small band of sheep, who represent the
last little bit of progressive wonderfulness
visionary design and research based and proven
and the future because they eat the grass
and there is no need to use toxic fume producing
loud unnatural unsustainable lawn mower

But the grass is long dead.
It is just white and yellow and there are lambs
baby sheep who sit and pant underneath the
sustainable solar panels without a decent meal
in sight. Only stalks and yellow deadness

I suggest vitamins or supplements
after all there is no grass, only grass out
that is watered sustainably and is carefully fenced off
from the living sheep underneath the dead panels
behind the dead building.

Outrage from the forward thinking cutting edge
Wi-Fi custodians of the cement and metal building and panels,
panels that emit a high pitched hum
from a hot metal box and regulate the CO2 in each room automatically
The sheep are there to eat the grass
if you feed them, even to make them healthier
so that they may get up out of their hot suffering
and eat some stalks in addition to a little bit of supplemental feed
they will not eat the dead grass, and they are there to eat the grass
they are not there to be comfortable or healthy they are just sheep
But sheep are only living non human feeling beings
and not part of the forward thinking cutting edge metal and cement
technology that is worth a lot of money and was written up
in the paper and got the custodians attention and recognition.
And they are just suffering, hot, miserable animals
and despite all of our technology, Mars landing
solar panels to electricity advance thinking technological wonders
our compassion and empathy remain tight and selfish
and the dead things, not the living ones, are what we value

Anxiety quelled by more medication
and an anxiety class where I learn
it is all about fight, flight, freeze and saber tooth tigers
and every symptom can be explained scientifically and
tabulated and put on a balance sheet where insignificant
experimental mortals like me can put check marks
in little boxes and the totality of my existence
can then be clearly defined and understood by someone
wearing a plastic name card around her neck announcing PhD.

The room has no windows, only a hand written poster
from an AA meeting and stale air and three anxious women
out of the ten people who are supposed to be here.

No one knows, but I am in boot camp inside my head
It is the mindfulness of anxiety
anxious thoughts, thoughts of you are to be
immediately exterminated
Perhaps the hand sanitizer that is available at every corner
in this place will help

Only now, with more power
I can own this
I can punish with flirtations that go nowhere
I can needle with demands that he can't meet
I can make him feel like he can do nothing right
Like he is forever a dissapointment and impotent in my eyes
Not always the victim now

We went out back
After the meeting
when we knew we had nothing
and had a long way to go and were now
much happier

To the little barn
Stuffed with donations
from magical beings with money
who bought things from stores and used them
and then left them silently
in crackling plastic bags

We had listened and found
all the he's were the same
We were not alone and strange as he had said
Those he's always said that
we had nothing that he had taken and we were not ashamed

Digging deeper into the bins
hoping for treasure

Lingerie with lace
Sparkling silly bling
Shoes for work
I still have the purple lamp
you picked out for me

Your check for tuition
bounced as we shopped
and we thought it was funny

Haifa, Israel, a Saturday before the Second Gulf War
The Iraq War, the Shock and Awe War, the war with embedded journalists traveling in
tanks across dusty deserts the smart way with no bulky supply lines following them
And they arrived and it quickly became apparent the supply line was a good invention

The beach is filled with people, enjoying their last few days of peace
People color the beach a kind of brown, moving brown, like ants wandering around a hill the entire beach is their hill right now in that moment a respite of the stress to come
Funny how War could be on some kind of timeline, with everyone waiting for it
like a Super Bowl game, or the second coming or a tornado or flood or nuclear bomb
Breathe this fresh air now, for tomorrow will find you smothered in a bomb shelter
crammed into small spaces with strangers even, or people you don't like, and screaming children

Your plane was due to leave for Florida the next day, but there was no seat for me.
At first that bothered you, that we had no money for me to go anywhere, only you
but now you took any chance you got to leave this place that was our new home
"We're making cookies," a couple said who we ran into down there.  
If there's an air raid, you can stay with us they said to me.  
And I imagined the pleasant aroma of butter
and sweet and nuts filling a windowless room with a Hebrew TV station crackling quickly in a language I still couldn't keep up with while we munched until we were like full balloons
in a land with the bus driver turning up the news updates on the radio every hour really loud so everyone could hear them, day in and day out, because this was part of life here. And most of what I could follow after so many hours of study was that most words at the end of a sentence on the news ended with -eeem.  Usually in threes, -eem, -eeem, -eem, which is maculine plural and sometimes there was MemShalah, which is Prime Minister.

It was your most noble hour, coming shortly after you rampaging up and down the hallways
of our cement apartment building, just a box but a nice one with a view of Haifa Bay saying Saddam does too have a bomb, and you just wait when the scuds start falling. You just wait.
But you weren't waiting.  You were going home.
And no I didn't believe Saddam had a bomb although I've never met anyone who agreed with me since then and that is getting to be a long time ago.  
Even though there were Freedom Fries now and a ban on French wine and I don't particularly like the French in many ways, still I believed them and Mahomood El Baradei
because he was a very smart man except American don't believe there can be smart, effective individuals and people working very hard in places filled with dust and ignorance and lacking
so many comforts and conveniences
And how could you check a whole country anyway?  
With connections, by being an insider and by being very clever and that's what I thought sitting in the living room watching CNN International being piped for free into our living room.
And you were terrified and you left in a sweat and a day or so later the War began

and I watched the War on CNN International in our living room after you were gone, and it was just mass destruction from great heights like someone's ridiculous plan of Urban Renewal from way too high up and I felt sorry for all the
people who would soon be called "collateral damage" and I felt ill at our Generals bragging about this mayhem, this obscene, idiotic pounding of a city without intelligence or sensitivity or perceptions and I felt no shock and awe, but only horror and sadness
and I, by myself, an American living in Israel, who now had dual citizenship of course,
you see, but Americans are never dual, we always leave.  We are only American.

I saw my country as something angry, and violent and dumb and ugly
And you waited in Florida for the WMD, and I watched the story unfold
and there were still no WMD by the time you got back and the Patriot missiles were lowered from their mountain top heights.  And there were still no WMD when paper plans for a bomb were unearthed underneath rose bushes in a scientist's back yard and I felt sorry for the rose bushes
and hoped they were re-planted.
And like my country, you slipped down a notch in my eyes,
Running away from nothing telling me there was danger and leaving me
when it was only you who believed I might die.  Only You.

He hated all the poor and then
He must have even hated Jews
Really that should be in the news
If all I read were right wing tracts
I would accept the above as fact

In your past, this past
they weren't valued
no one said they were members of the family
what walks on four legs and is furry and cute is only
to last as long as nature intended and then to be disposed of

Veal calves in crates, taken from mothers on the day of their birth
to make more milk for humans, horse slaughter for glue
and foi gras, ducks and geese locked in a vice grip of their cages
metal tubes rammed down their throats and force fed until a liver disease
develops, painful, but given no respite
and served as a delicacy and
fur coats from animals skinned alive right here in America
still when mink farms are outlawed in the Netherlands and  
two million dogs and cats skinned in China every year not to mention
other horrors and no one cared or looked their way because they are
only animals, and voiceless and helpless and no one cared to give them
a voice or advocacy
"that's why they're there, for our use, people still say" who profit from an industry
of suffering

And today, there are people who try to give them a voice and there are veterinarians who will try to help you with your member of the family, as he suffers, in his old age
a bag of fluids hangs from my exercise  bike, and intermixed with my medications
is the painkiller and anti-nausea pills for my dear old friend
whose pancreas is failing
and father, this is foreign to you
you pretend it is a crime
silence is the only thing connecting us now

I hope you enjoyed your last barrage of unkind words
I think you did. The saddest thing I've learned about people like you
is
you feel better after such an attack, to see me reeling, bleeding on the ground
and you feel better, calmer and purged.
A kind of misbegotten peace settles over you
an exploitive peace from another's tears and pain

And yes, father, there were no agencies to give a voice to children
when you were young
no CPS, to aid my nine year old ***** friend
as a code of silence enveloped her attacker
to protect him, the one who destroyed her

But today there is a small brigade of a modern kind of love
to give a voice, protection, soothing to the ones who can
only suffer at our hands and not protect themselves from
our wrath and exploitation

and it is a better world for that, father
for my furry pancreatic friend and for any other
nine year old **** victims here

A title, from the "Best of the Alternative Press"
After reading
I realize I'm not a woman after all

She can talk about the cruel things
men do to women
**** and ******

Then discuss draperies
in the next breath
how to organize your closet

Female Genital Mutilation in Africa
and her favorite appliance:
a Panini maker
I am supposed to rush into my kitchen
to make sure I have the same brand

"She understands how much women care about their houses"
I look around
I am happy here but
A new cake of soap doesn't send a thrill through my body
A fresh towel doesn't make me ******

I could make a grilled cheese sandwich
The way my ancestors, male and female have done
In a skillet with bread and cheese
If I squish it it, it becomes Panini

I check the mirror
I'm naked, and I see
I am a woman

He had a bright yellow one, as yellow as a highlighter
I see them now and then on the highway and they stand out
like an important concept in a textbook, something to be taken note of
I rode in it once, and it was so clean, I felt like I could eat off the dashboard
and the doors were attached with the regular bolts and backpack shoulder strap material
which I have never figured out
and he looked even shorter, sinking into the seat, his longer legs stretched to the pedals
and his torso foreshortened and far away
and it was bouncy, and I was sure he could see my fat shake but I think that was the last thing on his mind.

We had dinner with another teacher, and his burrito arrived on his plate, and I felt like
I ate the inside of my taco salad and drank my beer and a few seconds passed and his plate
was empty and his eyes never seemed to leave me, not in a pleasant, admiring way
but with concern and fear, and attraction
and he finally burst forth in a flurry of worry about what would happen to the taco shell
would I eat it? take it? I should have offered it to him, but I can honestly say I've
never heard anyone so upset over a taco salad shell, and the waitress took it away
and I looked at him gently through my beer fog and he seemed to be pouting and squirming inside

On the way back he told me we had no future
At forty one the longest relationship he had had lasted three months
and clearly this one wouldn't work and I remember being confused
because I wasn't aware I had ever brought up a lasting bond
but it's true, I wanted his attention, his acceptance,
I felt so down, even losing a job I hated
and besides, he would leave all summer and not talk to anyone except his buddies
and those he met on the road
He was wiping the slate clean

I never liked him, only craved his attention and didn't enjoy it when
I rarely got it, and on my last day, which I worked hard to make happen
a little earlier than normal
I ran to him and hugged him and kissed his cheek
and it was not a high cheek bone and I cold feel five o'clock shadow,
and the wrinkles on his neck, his neck like a turtle's
and I begged him not to forget me, in a strange rush of madness
and he let out a cry of  joy with the kiss
and said he wouldn't forget me, I was in his phone
It was like in Hebrew, where you say someone is "in" the phone, not "on" the phone
and I dreamt about going back to Israel that night, but not of him

He is somewhere with his buddies, in a bright red jeep
and I never really liked him
and can't this be the last time
I pursue and obsess over a man I don't even like

Left to die, unable to survive on your own
a child thinks this. It is the greatest fear
Doesn't last long, but makes a big impression
A bigger fear than being abused
But today, it means, can mean, freedom
from abuse mistreatment, your insults
their disdain, being his personal punching bag
the scapegoat for his broiling troubles
your neglect, and preference for under age girls
Abandonment is a respite
a place of renewal
a silence that terrifies, but then rejuvenates
as I can think on my own
let my thoughts be my guide, for a better me

All those young bodies
so trained, taught and tight
all put together for more than a few nights
only the elite athletes are allowed in the village
no partners, no spouses no one to investigate

Apparently that leads to lots of hook ups
Celebrations, commiserations, there's a lot of stuff to do up
So the villagers are supplied with fifteen condoms each
And all around, there is fun in heaps

All that is left are silent pictures
I wish I could reach out and touch you
Your ashes, all I have left
of you my friend, gone too soon, why?
Nature is cruel, and final
what I wouldn't do to have you back again

So tired
Back to work and then there's this social event and that social event
and the last one is the best one and I'm still trying to get over not having
last years job that was taken from me and given to you and still
trying not to even think about this because this is a whole new year and

Driving past Napa Valley's Wineries
Hotels, Buses, wine
Everything wine and I don't know where I'm going
My GPS broke, and the directions are drive straight and you'll see it

Suburbia has turned into true wealth
I've gone back in time, wine Haciendas on hill tops
like feudal mansions, waiting for the peasants to do the actual
work of wine, the dirt and the sweat of wine as the owners
twiddle their thumbs and worry about the stock market and their wine

I arrive at my Castle.  For a few moments I will be allowed to taste
the lifestyle of the wine and pretend that I too belong in this castle
watching grapes ripen and waiting for the teaming hordes to do my work
and the mechanical wine processors sit idly waiting for the grapes and I feel a tinge of
sadness and fear for the grapes to be processed like in a slaughter house
until I realize they are only fruit, and not mammals

And on the hot deck overlooking the beautiful, silent valley with grapes ripening before
our eyes the only chair left is next to you

I sit down and look to my right and I see the woman who I feared would take my job and now did
and I wonder how it is that this has happened that I've driven for miles in the hot sun
through miles of grapevines only to be made to sit next to you who jealously drooled over
my job and could never say anything good about my work and then you won.

And we talk and I'm very clever and you don't like that because I'm supposed to be stupid
and it's supposed to be obvious why you got the job not me and not some seniority thing
and you say nothing nice, and it's only me keeping up a charade of conversation that
could turn ugly at the drop of a pin but doesn't due to my skill
and you then leave made uncomfortable by the evidence of my continued existence
and lack of dumbness

And it's only later that I realize in my imagination I wanted to hurl you from the deck
and into the wine press

I walk along Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA
I walk down past the nice parts
to the bus station
near seedy bars
and a sandwich board reads
Cafe Pergolesi one block
with an arrow pointing

It's not too early to scout locations
It's the location of my opening scene
I approach, and I see, it is still alive
in this summer evening
people outside and in
a trod upon, worn and comfortable air
various levels to the porch
even ash trays on the tables
like Vegas, everyone is welcome

Inside, this is no Starbucks
You don't see a line clearly where you must order
and pay
like a theme park
or a hospital
or a slaughter house
where you are funneled

It's not too clean
But it's filled with comfort
Huge couches beckon
A Victorian house
One people lived in
with spaciousness and windows
Real air permeates the place
An ATM is casually smashed between a couple of tables
but no one cares
you can't mass produce this wonderful mess

A friend's band CD blares through the speakers
badly recorded
a barrista in carefully torn fishnets sneaks a break
on the back porch with her cell phone

I buy water and a cookie and settle into a huge worn chair
Every room has a different theme
But I want comfort
I pull out my notebook and write
I have a shopping list of scenes
And I add another one for this place

Would they let me shoot here?
I don't know
But I think I could live here
It's so non judgemental
People buy things
But there isn't that corporate pressure
There are no special names for dumb things
just small, large, cookie, beer

This is cafe bliss

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

I had run about, and my feet hurt,
all I could think of, is let me make it end today
and I did it, signing off with a secretary, as she left with her friends

I carried the small burden of a year of persecution
the worst job I ever had,
and he was there, in the cement quad,
talking, saying goodbye

What horrible things he had said to me this year
I wasn't even suited for this profession since I was so anxious
in his presence, since he is all knowing
And when it was too much, I cried, and of course
I shouldn't do that, but that made things ten times
more offensive, I felt like I had a target on me
so I made up a labor attorney I had in my corner
and when he was on the attack, I brought her up
and he fell silent and was more careful

And I saw who he'd promoted, as chief rooster of the English department
since it is a hen house, and he gets too lonely just as a vice principal
that he has meddle and control and pick and decide and ogle
and pretend he's not and revel in so many women in one room,
and he has power over us all

And just that day, he strolled through a Paris City Park
Tree lined, in Spring, with dappled shade on the ground from tall
trees, and metal fences, and people sitting on benches
having fascinating and illuminating intellectual conversations
and well employed and turned out people
strolling along, perhaps some even dressed in nineteenth century clothes
everything in two dimensions,
He the gentleman, her the lady, an impressionist painting
colorful and imprecise, more a dream than reality
of the good life, and harmony, all with a slight Sienna tint, in two D
it was, in reality,  in the gum stained quad in the blazing sun
and she was married to someone else
but she had that perfect English teacher look, blonde
and bland, with giant blue eyes and a bun,
and a dress that cut just below the knee
and blew gently in the hot breeze, flaring out and revealing nothing
but the middle class acceptability of the fabric
and I dashed, really ran by holding my charger, to the computer I turned in
and through the scene, tore a wave of three D, and the Sienna tone
had a trail cut through it of true digital color
and he said "wow," as a vision from the 21st century ripped into his world
and I imagined her boring me to death
making my favorite literature as lifeless and dull
as a computer manual, or a endless apartment lease,
and together this lady and gentleman, they were totally in sync and ready
to frighten another generation of students away from reading
forever...

Later he stood and he saw me
speed walking away from this world
and he gazed at me, waiting for me
to pause, for there to be a bit of nostalgia
and warm good will between us as we exchanged
niceties that were only the tips of a much deeper affection
and respect between us, and I saw him preparing for this
and my pace didn't slacken
and I felt like he was again in two D on a film screen, I, a steadi cam
smoothly floating past, taking in every detail, in slow motion
And I looked at him as more of an object, not a person,
because I couldn't bear all the feelings and thoughts and anxieties so I left him in two D,
watching him I said "bye"
and I couldn't hear what he said because the camera moved
past very quickly and all the sound was muted,
distorted, impossible to understand except to know
it was sound like what you hear underwater

and it was only later, five blocks away, that I burst into
frustrated, pained, angry tears, and I felt again, three dimensional
and alive and hurting and the sound around me boomed back, in all it's chaotic detail,
cars and people and the radio and my own human pain and I realized
I made it

I confront my prejudice
How will the girls in my script look?
I admit, I expect them to all be Disney Perfect
But that goes against my values
I know the damage perfect does
There is no perfect, there is only diversity
How can one genetic look always outshine the others?
Tall, thin, blonde with large *******.  Long legs and arms. Size 0.

No, there is beauty in difference
and it can be put on film
not as a side show, but the main attraction
I learned from my mother
Beauty is a mirage
An eternal struggle of pain
of hunger, the knife, the self hatred
that is never attained
A petite Scottish woman, medium *****
a dancer with a beautiful body and face
and a slasher for an inner voice, striking her at every move

It's in me, too
I learned the lessons of beauty as I learned Calculus in my high school texts
This is the formula, this is the way it is
The proof is it is all around us in the media
Body very thin, ******* very large
Size 0 without ribs, and hip bones and shoulder bones sticking out
How the stylists repel when they see that evidence of starvation
And large, engorged *******, ready to feed an army of babies
"nature doesn't make women like that" commented a model
before she had "augmentation"

If I am to create this world, my story
I must confront myself
I must accept my form, and its history
A body never born to be size 0
without ribs or bones showing
or six feet tall
or small *****
or large breasted without extra flesh everywhere
A body scarred by the affects of poverty
worry, and struggle
A resilient body, a strong body
and one that does not fit the mold
of "beauty" and never did
but at the same time, is beautiful
but not in the accepted form
like my mother

If I don't accept myself
if I can't look at myself and say this is OK
This is who I am and it is just fine
How will I accept it in my characters?
How will I look beyond appearance to the soul?
You don't make a good story with models
That is a fashion show
You make a good story with people who are unique
with their own configurations and unique qualities
even in their flesh

"The problem is that if you put a green
pepper in with a tomato, it turns brown."
Why not try an onion?
I ask myself as the conversation passes me
on the stairwell
Roommates wake each other up now
juicing
You can't argue with juicer that their new
obsession will not make them live to 120
or experience life on a knife's edge
Maybe our brains aren't that large, after all

The name of the mansion in the Hamptons
Forty rooms and a line of expensive cars in a traffic jam
spewing out fumes the same as a line of Hyundais
To raise cash for a potential future King

And all I can think is
before there was "The Creeks" there
were natural creeks
and they must have been pretty
and much more valuable to me
than what takes the space there now

"Thank you for saying Happy Birthday to Shimone"
my mother said and I kind of said oh, no problem
and we went on from there to argue since that is what
we do and she will never know who I am
and I assume she meant Happy Birthday on Facebook because I
certainly don't keep track of her friend's birthdays,
especially not her friends who live in Haifa and remind
me of my X

Upset, I ran off to the pool, hoping for endorphins
after some laps  I rested at one end
and realized in a kind of slow, creeping way,
kind of like fog rolling in over the cliffs at Muir beach,
Not menacing, even beautiful, but a little cold, that
I never wrote anything to Shimone, not even on Facebook
No, I've been too self absorbed to write to my parents Israeli friends who used to
have me and my X over for Shabbat meals where I used to insist
on walking up the stairs since the elevator was small and hot and scared me
but he always wanted to ride in it
and one day we went over there was a sign on the apartments next door
that a woman had died in a terrorist attack the other day--
When a suicide bomber, afraid of the security guards at the nearby
mall, ran into an Arab restaurant conveniently located at a gas station
where all the best restaurants are,
and blew himself and everyone inside up
CNN international came for a day to report and then left the next
like a rude house guest who comes for your best food
and then dissapears, never to be heard from again

With my X, my mother always got cards she loved because he
knew just how to pick them and he'd send them without even telling me
sometimes faking my signature or
I just had to sign and he'd do the rest, in between crank calls to them at all hours,
taking advantage of the time zone.  At once tormenting and caring for them
as he did for me

And now is he a ghost in my account?  
A ghost, a fog, a memory, something ephemeral, not real

"I hear you're threatening to go on a date!" my mother jabs
and I'm reminded why Facebook is passe, because it is for spies
Barbie likes Ken doesn't she?  But when you think about it
he's just kind of there.  They never even met
and Barbie still can't spread her legs
she doesn't really know him
that eternal plastic smile and a man who exists
but is not known and never speaks.  Both are silent and smiling.
I am not a Barbie doll

I was the better half to the whole, he said
To our friends, it's the polite and preppy thing after we wed
And when it came to and end
That slice down the middle was pain
And I limped off, half empty
Waiting to be filled again

Eight years later
some romance, a few letters
A lot of work, remaking my life
Can't tell you there's been no strife
OK, there's been plenty, it's been a struggle
And often, I'm in a muddle
But I noticed something yesterday,
That makes me want to shout out and say:

I am a whole person rising
maybe not complete yet
But I'd put money on it, I'd bet
That I'll finish the job one day
Yesterday
Walking in my old 'hood
Down on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
On the beach, trudging through sand
Listening to the melody of a day as I can
People having fun,
Their work is done
And I felt fine
I wasn't about to pine
for someone's witheld love
or untimely absence
I felt good, not sitting on a fence
watching a world go by
of whole people, living high
I was one of them I swear
Listening and breathing and really there

We listened to "Modern English"
Remember that band?
And people started dancing in the sand
When they played their hit from 1983
And I remember it, mercy me
I was feeling good, perched on a bench in the crowd
Sipping a foamy Boardwalk beer, eating fried artichokes, the  band was loud
And I felt complete like a total ecosystem
Fully functional, and happy, just one of the crowd and with them.

Holidays--everyone should reconnect
even with people you see everyday but
never speak to because you can tell
you won't like them...
show them some sunshine and brighten their day
overheard while showering in the women's locker room:
"How's the baby?"  "He's four and a half."
Whoops
"Hows Max?"
"He's in Rehab, he's not coaching"
"Ah,oh, ah"
Clothed, she rushes for the door
Continuation with another as I toweled off
"The pool at Concord is cold" "is not" "is" "is not" "well, the air there is cold"
(it's' only five minutes away from here)
Let's try this again, shall we? "So what do you do? I mean, besides swim?"
"I go to water aerobics in the morning
then I swim, then I pick up my kids and swim again. And we had a party and some doctors came over (she looks around, especially at my less than perfect physique,
she is about to expel a naughty, bad word that should never meet the ears of polite company
her eyes are red and look like they will fall out of their sockets
like those little ****** dogs
My friend the vet said one's eyeball fell out during an operation
So he put it back
she's roughly my age, but she has a natural tan in the middle of winter
and the sun has written it's thin lined signature all over her face creating the look
of a satellite image of an area once filled with rivulets of water,
but now experiencing a severe drought
but she truly is 99% fat free)
and they were...OBESE.  Can you believe it?"
L'horror.

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 guy sitting behind me
opened up a tupperware,
brought his own food
to my favorite cafe
and he smacks his lips as he eats it
crunches the world's loudest salad
and burps as a finale

*I want to **** him

I surf through the land of ***
A woman in a chat room
flirting for enough money to do a "show"
Men write "nice (), are you doing to do ()?"
She smiles, licks her lips, does **** female things
tells them they make her feel **** and excited
trying to get more money
I recognize my bra
I want to write
"Did you get that bra at Frederick's of Hollywood?
I have one just like it.  Same color and everything."

Anxiety is at the heart of all that ails me
like my best friend ever, it has always been with me
So familiar, my anchor in the dark
I return to it endlessly to remind me that this is just like the rest
This new thing, this new test
is just the familiar torture you've known all your life

By my side, it destroys my mind, and I can't stop
this addiction, will always be with me,
The lies it tells me, that this turbo spinning depleting energy keeps me safe
That the constant tension that translates into fear and self hate
Is as it should, as it was set up for me
And blocks me, just when I want most to be free and easy

Letting go of my best friend, so scary, and feels so light
and beautiful, like the afternoon sun in a quiet garden
where everything is colorful and peaceful and the air is fresh and warm
and there is the smell of water from a hose...slightly rusty with an aromatic humidity
and little birds flutter about, and a sound of a buzzing insect appears occasionally
All is well, and from here I can do anything
but I catch myself: I am not safe without my best friend
and the ax falls down into the scene and it is now night and I am hungry and cold
and unwelcome and stalked and frightened, as it should be.

Anxiety is my enemy
It keeps me from this delight in life
and I can go on: and when I meet it again
I shouldn't welcome it in like a friend, but finally
be honest about it and say: go away
You have no use anymore in my life
You served me at one time, but that time is over
and you must evaporate
and I must face the fear alone, without you
You stay back, and I go forward, with courage.

Shopping in discount stores
living the unglamorous life, that's me
It's not strife
but rife, with challenge and epiphany
telling me what I want to be
no matter what I see in me now
He talks to me like he's shopping for me
comparing me to these other females
must be making a lot of e-mails
I love your voice, I like your hair, great body
does he even care I feel like a product on the shelf
is he talking to me or somebody else and now
I'm in full blown obsession, no connection but Facebook
messenger tells about his session
and it wasn't with me, you see
What to do, I don't know, he cast the hook,
I wouldn't go just can't know what right
but this feels wrong when I got home
I opened the bomb, the wine and took a big slug
worked better than his cyber hug and
promises of massages
check my phone a million times a day
I'm as crazy as yesterday
It just lies dormant in the night
I can't fight
I check the phone a million times
Oh God, here it comes again
I don't remember when I was so confused
Should I have taken is invitation to go on that impromptu vacation?
Up with his family, how awkward can that be, what to do
I'd be ballin' baby. I can't afford it. I just have to ignore it
and turn off, turn down that voice in my head
that said: you must have him now
you can't survive on your own
you must belong to someone
but I'm just fine with no one

One of the world's worst opening lines, ever
Darkness, three or four of them crossing the street to me
My eyes down, trying to ignore
Figures looming, coming closer
My hometown downtown
This doesn't happen here
Wanna get with me?  Hey!
Other things: gross and ******
They're closer and he, who I don't look at
reaches out and tries to grab my thigh
Like he's tearing off a piece of bread

But I'm solid milk chocolate not fudge
His hand hits and grabs
It feels like a wrench as he grips
Digs for a hand hold,
But there is none, just bone and solid me

They walk past asking why I don't say hello
Yelling as I shut them out
And I remember when I was jumped
Carrying a pizza home in NYC at night
Pizza floated down in slow motion
steam in the air
A pile of eggplant and cheese
freezing in the winter cold
And the kid grabbed my jacket
held an exacto knife and demanded my wallet
As the rest stood around
like watching a demonstration
And I pulled free because a puffy jacket doesn't make a good hand hold
And ran away, kids do that, the guard at Barnard said

But this grip was different
Had it caught hold
Had they surrounded
I would have feared for my life

I walked away quickly, from them, from memory

"The population is expected to level off at around nine billion," says my father
A nearly full plate of Thanksgiving feast food in front of him
but he has been asked to pontificate which is what he does best
and I hear a tremor in his voice like I have when I teach
I know he is in the throws of excitement about what he's saying
planning for his keynote in Brazil, and what plant scientists can do
to help save us from global warming and the lack of water since there isn't
even two liters of fresh water for every person on the planet for use every day at seven billion
I gesture as to what two liters looks like  and my mother snaps "I know what two liters is!"

It's cold in here, in this large Oakland short sale house that fits my cousin's family
and my Aunt downstairs, where I like it better because the children aren't there
Like two houses put together and there are no carpets just hard wood floors and
open windows that make it cold and it is anything but warm and fuzzy
My Aunt is angry with me that I shop at Walmart but that's what I can afford
Tomorrow she's holding a strike at a Walmart with her daughter which makes them superior to me
She's also mad because I don't like my "Union" which does nothing for me since I'm not tenured
"You have to organize" she condescends, like that is a reasonable thing with my one and two year stints at schools but she is the big Union Head for CSU so she should know
She was on TV with Jerry Brown after all, so what do I know
The kids are noisy since they all have their own phone and can play anything they
want at any time in addition to turning on the myriad of TVs and radios and stereos in the house
and the noise ricochets off he hard cold floors and walls that have pictures on them
of people from the family, but they don't look quite like they belong
and they hang there uncomfortably and self consciously
There is every skin tone except deep black at the table
My family--all that is left

Childhood: I loved going to my mother's family in Idaho
It was hot in summer or cozy warm inside in winter and
a wonder land outside for snow shoeing and skiing
It was quiet and they always had wall to wall carpet
I rolled from one end of the room to another in it the first time I felt it
It was warm and fuzzy.  
People listened and there were breaks from noise and chaos

Here, every conversation is disjointed like we are going
in and out of different time periods and different petty rivalries and
fierce competitions under it all and families are blending and being
torn apart and the latest one has formed from "OK Cupid" online
and my Aunt has to be right, the smart one, the good one, the one of the people
and it is so cold, so very cold, and the windows are opened to let in more
cold Oakland air as if there isn't enough of it and all the sounds of
kids and electronics are driving me slowly insane

What can plant scientists do to help nine billion people
without water?  Not a whole lot, except invent crops that
survive like camels, or can live underwater like fish
since everything will be either dry or deluged with water
and I wish there was carpeting, warm carpeting and less
noise and more harmony
and this is the family I have now
the old one is gone, like the glaciers that will melt all at last
and the rivers that will run dry forever.
And I think: what we need to do is invent a way to make water
Make enough water for everyone, maybe from recycled bags or used Nike shoes
and if we can do that, maybe the air in this house will warm
and it will become quieter and the hard wood floors will become soft and warm and fuzzy
and I will feel at home here, with my family

The UN was all abuzz
Everyone was talking cuz
Saddam has got a bomb

Oh, no way, the French they say
and that crazy El Baraday
Sitting out in some Paris cafe
All they say is he ain't got a bomb

But back in America, they know best
Cuz we're a better country than all the rest
And everyone there knows Saddams got a bomb

I'm in Israel on that day still in danger
just like yesterday
And the last Gulf war Saddam threw some Scuds our way

My husband, we argued
that week before you left
I said I'm afraid I agree with the French
You said better watch out
Cuz you got to stay and see
And they'll be Scuds landing right here on our street

Then with great courage you said " I can't stay,"
Got important business in the next days
And for two we really cannot pay
and I say "oh, that's OK"
I'm getting more Israeli every day
When it comes to bombs I'm quite blase
And besides I've always been really, really strong
But deep inside my mind there's something wrong
What if Saddams really got a bomb?

So off you flew to the United States
Where everything was peachy keen and safe and sound
And I was in the path of Scud that could hit the ground

Back in Haifa I'm up late
Patriot missiles up on the mountains those days
Aiming high, pointing out to Saddam's way
And I watch the TV nearly all day
over and over the UN they say
Saddam he really, really ain't got no bomb

My friends tell me they'll be a help to me
If the bombs fall we'll have a party
and we'll drink and laugh and eat cookies
all inside the bomb shelter, it will be fun you'll see

I waited in Haifa and watched TV
Listened for the sirens but none reached me
And watched a night time shock and awe Iraq block party

It looked kind of like a pretty morbid fourth of July

And daily life went on that day
even in the Jewish state
And you'd never know that a war was going on

And then they say he got away
And when the awe had gone very far away
And the shock and the blood were very, extremely dry

The coast was clear
You could dare to come near
My hero man
I see you don't give a ****
So you flew back to our fair city
and you have to face up to me and say
You're right, Saddam ain't got a bomb

No mushroom cloud
No cheering crowd
Just a dusty state
crumbling at a rapid rate
No bomb in sight, they looked with all their might
No matter where they went the couldn't find the scent
just the scared and the saved and really dead bodies
And all of us scared Israelis

And then the world it had to say
The French were right and so was El Baraday
Saddam doesn't really have a bomb

I went through all this
Without you to kiss
To be scared with
Or be calm with
And I realize now
if I can do this
without you by my side
with you I really don't need to hide
cuz I can really make it on my own

Anxiety is at the heart of all that ails me
like my best friend ever, it has always been with me
So familiar, my anchor in the dark
I return to it endlessly to remind me that this is just like the rest
This new thing, this new test
is just the familiar torture you've known all your life

By my side, it destroys my mind, and I can't stop
this addiction, will always be with me, I think
The lies it tells me, that this turbo spinning depleting energy keeps me safe
That the constant tension that translates into fear and self hate
Is as it should, as it was set up for me
And blocks me, just when I want most to be free and easy

Letting go of my best friend, so scary, and feels so light
and beautiful, like the afternoon sun in a quiet garden
where everything is colorful and peaceful and the air is fresh
and there is the smell of water from a hose...slightly rusty with an aromatic humidity
All is well, and from here I can do anything
but I catch myself: I am not safe without my best friend
and the ax falls down into the scene and it is now night and I am hungry and cold
and unwelcome and stalked and frightened, as it should be.

So anxiety is my enemy
It keeps me from this delight in life from feeling all is right
and I can go on: and when I meet it again
I shouldn't welcome it in like a friend, but finally
be honest about it and say: go away
You have no use anymore in my life
You served me at one time, but that time is over
and you must evaporate
and I must face the fear alone, without you
You stay back, and I go forward, with courage.

What comes next?
A fusion with brain and internet? *** text.
descriptions of positions and inhibitions undone
crawling down the screen,
like  morse code across the sea
or an old computer reading cards, blurting out silent sentences
passing lights on the screen,
then gone
or the News crawl passing on the bottom of the TV
without the repeats
all in our imaginations
the touches, movements, even some sensations
the connection of  two biologies
two living breathing human beings,
much more complicated than simple machines

But this is the computer,
the technology star
that brought us fame and power and wealth
Now seems a bit in ill health.
A downward spiral,
like a old rock star, playing at a seedy corner bar:
the technology that sent a man to the moon
and fought the Soviets until their doom
the frightening technology
of my childhood years,
big computers creating bigger fears
and now being put to good use
as I have my fellow in a metaphorical noose
our fingers go across the keys
and send signals to each other's bodies
connected in imagination with mine
and it's frightening how it works to well
Almost like reality, I can barely tell
but then it's over and in the after glow
A thought taps me on the shoulder, tells me I should know
that in the end the bond with the human being
has evaporated like silent steam,
Not because we're mean
But because he's not there
but now I'm aware
of a peculiar new bond with my phone

they don't have sweat glands and
mud acts as a sunscreen.

In San Francisco, three types of trash exist now
Recycling, Compost and Landfill
We now notice with our vast wisdom

And I work in the public library and
fill my water bottle with water from
Yosemite's second valley that is
used as a bathtub for this place
I imagine the water I use causing the
water level to drop enough in the resevoire to
cause the bathtub ring to be seen.

And as I take a break I ponder
a carefully and wonderfully explained
exhibit which shows
which parts of this great city will
be submerged by 2050 due to global warming
and it is all very neat and scientific and clean, so clean

And I think pigs roll in filth because
they are animals meeting their needs
and we roll in filth because we only
think ahead to the next hour and never
of the consequences of our desperate actions
that far exceed our needs

I stayed home today
to work, when being in a cafe
would be nicer, but there
would be no cats and this ones brother died
and I don't know how much more cat snoring
there will be
my favorite cat
a human snore will send me into a fit
on a French train, a bullet train a man
snored as we passed a nuclear power plant
a big one near a lake with beautiful giant lili pads
floating with flowers in the golden evening sun
and I could have
thrown him out even though he was
in the back far away from me
and I used to kick my husband
when he slept and choked on his own flesh
making that vibration, not a kind
or tolerant wife when it came to snoring
but my cat snores and it's cute and soothing

Looking in your eyes
for my life

A flirtatious pout
lips part
fresh vulnerabilities
innocence of a dew dipped flower

A clever remark
An ******* laugh
that leads to the universe

Connection
In your arms
And I am still alone

I've slept for two days minus some hours I went out to buy cat food
Today I went to the pool in the rain, and chugged along back and forth
out of breath, encased in a partial wetsuit, watching the water steam at
times, and then glitter, with bright designs as the sun came out for a moment
And I return home to a monumental mess.  
Somehow it just didn't matter, this mess as I struggled at work, fighting
a lame diagnosis that "you are just too anxious for this job because you get nervous
before evaluations" from a man easily as anxious as I am, but much less aware of it
The work rained down on me like a waterfall, and I couldn't stay dry
Weekends gave way to endless work sessions and some sleep
Suddenly, as if for the first time, I see how much paper is strewn on the floor,
arranged by cats who inhabit this place far more than I do.
The piles of unsorted things I would "get to on vacation" are now
there, waiting to be gotten to.
It's clear I am one who values work above housekeeping and the happiness of the
little creatures who inhabit my world before order.
And that's just fine with me.

All it took
That warm serotonin glow
flooded me, my brain
After all the pain
feeling unappreciated, after I gave blood
with my hours and toil that lead nowhere
wondering how to survive these hours
a conversation continued next to me
I didn't hear it

"He said thank you," I said
I wanted to feel that again
And I did, the ecstasy of it
Of approval
Don't you know how I live for this?
I yearn for it
Pathetically, a little girl abandoned
I don't know what was said, next to me

Shouldn't need this
to live off another's words
like they give me permission
to take another breath
to fill the space and
stay alive

When tears seep out
it doesn't smear
the cosmetics I use
to cover and accentuate
as is expected of me
a little urn
tasteful walnut box
paw print on pottery
I admit, I shook it
to see if anything rattled about
but thankfully there was silence
Sometimes we lose
what we most want to keep
Every living thing
is precious
irreplaceable
I want to get a little black kitten
with some white on his chest
but it won't be my little black kitty
it won't be the one I found
on a road
next to the beach in Haifa
covered in tar and fleas
skin and bones and ear mites
and who became
a member of my family
my Shakour

1984, my new Macintosh 512K gleamed before me
So modern.  I was on the cutting edge cusp of the techno revolution
I remember the sound it made as you put in the start up disk
That disk was so small, like smaller than a 45 record and stiff like a credit card

We were all so techno.  
Everyone who was anyone in my dorm had ditched their IBM Selectrics for a Mac.
I couldn't type, so this was a total just plain survival
Being able to sleep through the sound of that dot matrix printer pounding out
a paper you'd just finished at 9 AM for a 10 AM class became a dorm life skill

I got an i-phone today.  It's so kool and modern
I am so techno and I look around the
Verizon store and wonder how quaint a picture of this place will look
in 50 years.
What will be new then?
This store will look like the computer that filled a warehouse to send astronauts to the moon.
And it's that technology that gave me the i-phone
What lasts?  
Ideas, meaning, poems, concepts, stories, universal truths...the same things
the ancients could carry with them from camp to camp

I passed six Targets on my way there
a Lake was my goal, the best of the Bay area
I also passed Lawrence Livermore Labs named after one of the fathers
of the bomb
and I drove on, the pool was filling up quick
not with swimmers, but a flea market of vendors
a lady dressed in her own wares, rags sown toegther
So I thought I'd take my chances on the wild waters of Livermore Del Valle
I arrived and offended a ranger when I didn't believe the stuffed cougar
died of natural causes, there are only twelve left in the Bay Area
but that was 2008.  I couldn't take my eyes off it, the fur falling off
it was dead,
The ranger was sure I'd get run over by a boat
I could tell he had me already pegged for dead
So I went North, and walked on the trail and waded in
and it was green and murky just like the last one
and there were fake waves, made by boats going way too fast
and people fishing everywhere
waiting patiently, boxes full of wares
and boats for rent, guys all around
and the sun was going down and a little girl and her mom
fishing practically on the sidewalk, or the lawn
started yelling, something on the other end of the line
and a huge guy helped them pull out the squirming dieing thing
and drop it on the ground, now covered in dirt
And a group of guys with their mouths open wide said
"It's a cat fish.  So much for the boat."
And that was funny I guess, like the Dad who couldn't get the kids
to come out of the lake until he said "we're gong to do the cake"
But I went back to my car feeling sad
for the poor fish, lying there, dead
and I thought, I'll delete that fisherman guy online instead

abandoned again.  maybe its cuz I wouldn't call him.
and now there's no movie, just my life, oh me
but it's good life, not bad
and it's going to take all the strength that I have
to realize he's not all there is for me
just a guy, and probably
one of those dudes I get with before I leave
a bad situation for a better
place
don't know why I do it,
but it's definitely a pattern
and I guess what matters
is I keep my head ******* on straight.
no desperate searches or calls or
staying up late
cuz if rock climbing is more important than
me,
this dude may just be one i toss back to the sea

if you want to know what it's like
come to my home town
and you might be scared
but I've never felt more here than when I'm there
there is diversity,
and open homosexuality
and all kinds of weird clothes
and vegan places on little roads
and tattoos and non judgemental stares
and street people strutting their wares
and you may think its crazy
but to me it's amazing
if only I could come back
live here, I'd be on track

We lived in the 8th eme, near the Canal
A lovely apartment we couldn't afford
our usual lifestyle
I did the shopping at the cheapest store I could find: Ed
Ed-day,  you say, and they sell life's basics
like milk with the date stamped on it
and I'm careful about the date
We were Parisienne
Life abroad isn't real, it doesn't matter
you are not you, known exactly
your mother tongue is the lingua franca of the world
but a gulf separates you from the cares of the real
people there, a gulf of culture, experience, genetics even
I am an odd mixture of religions and regions, strange even for New York
There I am a different species, which is good because it helps my normal
worries stand still, and I am able to be a spectator on life
like a child, I
notice every little nuance of the French day and I am put on hold
I keep to myself, my own thoughts as I can understand
so little of what swirls around me
and that is a burden lifted
I am not homesick and I watch with the same curiosity
Americans on the Champs Elysses,
recognizable by the men in boxy t-shirts
and the women in athletic shoes
I don't speak to them, they are foriegn to me now, too
we walk over centuries of experience, that have given a quiet wisdom
to this place and I learn every day, and the mistakes of the past
are right there under foot or in a museum
the scream and rage of the past has echoed for the last time
long ago, and something has been learned from it
France was right, "we are an old country, and a wise one,"
right before the second Gulf war
we didn't listen
Life has slowed down here,
In America we have that energy, that desire to create and make it
and we run ourselves ragged, into the ground, alone in our independence
no time for strangers but here, our friends take vacations and boldly
make a bridge to form a four day weekend and are proud of it
and invite us along for trips and long meals
and visits to old castles, now over run with "the people"
who enjoy the carved gardens and angular pools as much as
any aristocrat ever did
and I don't want to leave
I'm learning so much
but mostly I don't want to be real again
I don't want to be that American person with problems and no
excuses of distance and language and culture
and no excuses of the need for rest from the rat race
because in America, no one admits to that need
And one day in Ed the expiration date on the milk
is past our flight date
and I freeze in pain
knowing the milk will sit here
long after I am gone

His hand was outstretched, nabbing a pesky windswept hamburger wrapper
near a garbage can alongside the exit to the cafeteria
Bent over, exposed, frozen, pretending the hamburger wrapper
required more effort than normal to dislodge it from the open air just above the ground
Perhaps it was a turnip or a beet, that he had to carefully, surgically remove
and it was only that he saw me coming
if I could have slowed down time, to slow motion
Seeing my boss, the principal of the school, up ended like this
for the sole purpose of not having to look me in the face, I would have
more kids would have had a chance to stare at this strange posture,
and wonder how a hamburger wrapper could have such a difficult
time being removed from the ground and I want to remember this pose
it only gets worse, and as my exit comes nearer, I feel lighter
but he still can't look me in the eye
if he felt secure in his decision, in all his decisions about me
he could, but he doesn't
So he will focus more time than needed to grasp that delicate
wrapper, which contained a stale bun and the remains of a dairy cow
spent and gone before her time on a factory farm in the central valley
and if insecurity can impose such ludicrous postures on a person
I will take this lesson, and remember always to be brave