Didn't see you, not one time
and everything was fine
I honestly couldn't believe it
to see you, I thought I need it
but there was more space in my head
and I was surprised where it lead
I walked around at lunch
admired, a crystal clear unused pool
and wanted to jump in that moment, like a fool
and walked around the football field
the vast expanse, the pride, the high yield
of attendance and it's fully equipped
Tickets, food and bathrooms, nothing missed
And lights, really can't forget those
You can see them from very far I'm told
And then past the soccer field
truly ghettoized, not well healed
a few trees for shade, maybe some water
a shake and back port-a-***** the amenity that matters
This is our culture, this is where we stand
To play football is to be a man
Then past the solar panels
and the hot sheered sheep
standing underneath
the grass they are to eat is dry
So someone has added stale roles to their diet
and I saw a little lamb
and that was the best part, of this I am a fan
And when I came back everything was OK
and I hope one day
I won't think of you at all
and at last I will stand tall

I returned
dripping in soundless blood
Flesh torn open on the side
Gaping wound, organs exposed
aching

Dragging torn flesh
down the street

I was body meat
Human remains of a suicide bomb
lost in translation

No one could see

I sat in your free office
Next to stacks of
colorless government peaches
Donated clothes, a promise of delight

I sat in the invisible blood of others before me
What can I do about this wound?
My silent question

I sat there in his office, for our first formal meeting and
I thought: what a strange little man
and I thought: thoughts are private, he can't know
but I've no poker face, so as I watched him look at me silently
I was eyeing him like a stained onion under a microscope
Look at the cell wall, the keys dangling from the faded Dockers from 1982
the pale hands with the small sausage fingers
everyone talked about his hands and those small fingers
that would gesticulate and pontificate and annunciate his power over us
He walked from his desk to the table, and it seemed like it took ten steps
and he became smaller with every stride, in the faded wrinkled shirt, made of flannel
like a used bed sheet
there is the nucleus, the papers in his hand I thought and his faded green eyes darted
over at me, and he knew, he could feel it, he knew I thought he was a dork
At last he settled down at the table and I joined him and the sausage fingers
of power shuffled through my evaluations, which were good
before he had that grudge, nursed over the summer
before he let it sink in that he was never good enough in my eyes
that he was always dissapointing me
I would walk to him, like trying to buy good organic food at a seven eleven
and wondering why every time, it wasn't there
He knew he couldn't do anything right in my eyes
He wasn't up to my challenge
I didn't know that he knew

When I first saw him, he smiled, was very welcoming
And I thought nothing really about him, Authority figure warning this boss
who wasn't my boss because now I'm a student but there was nothing about him
Just another AP, covered in man clothes, long shirts and collars and belts and
slacks and at a married weight with a paunch over his belt and a picture of a
child on his cell phone. same old.

At the meeting I was sitting next to him and I felt that feeling
the authority figure disease I get where I think he's hot
and I noticed he had blue eyes, and a good build underneath
the married weight and this was totally insane.

I'm just nervous.  I don't really want to ride him like a pony
as I was thinking and crossed my legs and imagined
us naked, stealing away in some bland hotel and
just going at it to ecstasy and that blood rush feeling that starts
in your groin and seems to go out the Universe and you
share it with that, other being who for this moment is God and you Goddess

And the meeting was boring, so I shifted my legs again and
thought.  I'm just nervous.  This is what I do.
My habit of mind.
He doesn't really look like Robin Thicke
and I don't care and God I hope he doesn't notice
or can't read my mind and he turned and tried his best
to look up my skirt and I'm sure in his mind,
it's my fault he did that when his wife lives inside his cell phone
and has borne him new beings and here he is

And thank God the meeting was over and I never thought
about him again, not once

Didn't want to go back to the torchure chamber
Monday morning, I am back
"Keynote Speaker" harranges us to be better
at what we do
We are never enough
No one knows what exactly we're doing wrong
but it must be something or we wouldn't be subjected to this
Everyone sits docilely, hands folded
or immersed in a sudden fascination with a muffin
and not enough coffee

Breakout sessions and I feel a zit form on my upper lip
We are taught like we are imbeciles
And then we learn something we didn't know
that contradicts what we've been doing
and I want to contact you, my boss
the man I'm trying to forget to tell you
there is something wrong here
so I do

I succeed in getting the flu and eating every available sweet
On the third day you write back to tell me my concern is nothing
but we will talk soon and I don't want to talk to you
who I am trying to forget
and my nose begins to bleed
in protest of this confinement and frustration.

The fourth day it is over, and I am home with a flu
and a cat I love more than anything who has cancer
and the "expert" writes back and tells me thank you so much for
noticing her mistake but its all the fault of us who don't
understand what we are doing
but she will make it all right
so it is over and you are silent
You who I was trying to forget who I now can't
get off my mind

I reread your e-mail,
look you up on-line and notice
a new picture of you with your wife
clinging to you like a fungus
I check my own old married pictures
and no, I didn't cling to my man's arm that way
hiding behind him like he is my father-protector
trying to become one being like some experimental
modern dance

And I wish you'd worn your ring when
we met a year ago so your sweet flirtations
would have disgusted me, not confused me
and I don't even like you anymore like I
don't even like my mother but
this is so compelling to yearn for
someone who doesn't care at all.
It is a pain that kills me and an ache I crave
and I don't want anymore

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

"I learned in from Oprah.  Every year you put your clothes facing toward you
in your closet, and you put them back facing away from you.
and by the end of the year, you know which clothes you don't wear
and you can throw them away."
I listened to this announcement from my authoritative boss
with a look of horror and disbelief
I must have looked like he just said:
"Every day I forget how to tie my shoes,
so I look on YouTube for a tutorial."
I know now, that look I gave, must have said everything
and I said softly, "You mean, you don't know?"
And he must have felt like such a dork in my eyes
and what man wants to feel like an attractive woman
thinks he's a dork
He must have shriveled inside, first with self hatred
and then furious, tumultuous anger, a tornado of
recrimination and fury, carrying houses and cows and trucks in its wake,
and aimed directly at me
I need a poker face

Years ago: 93-94
NYC: Columbia
trying to finish that thesis script
in Butler library
sitting at a wooden table in a room full of wooden tables
covered in a vast ceiling
creativity squeezed from my brain
my boyfriend waiting for me
only a notebook, a row of payphones on the first floor
a line forms as undergrads wait for the inter-college phone

Today, 2012
Berkeley: Doe library
Looks like Butler but nicely painted
not ravaged by the weather and city
rows of wooden desks with lamps and outlets
I write on my laptop, a cell phone in my bag
The row of payphones on the first floor are just empty booths

I feel like, I could look up, and you would be standing there
You, my boyfriend, who became my husband
My best friend, a difficult one who I stood by against the odds
You would be standing there, or maybe sitting down reading a
large novel in French, and we would get up and leave together for a dinner on Broadway

I look up.  The room is quiet and clear.
The air is fresh, no sounds of the inner city
You are not there
You live only in my mind
I wonder, how it was for you, years ago, in your year here at Berkeley
before you ran home, uncomfortable on this strange coast, this new world

I wish I could say to you
doe library looks like butler library
isn't that interesting
when I'm here, I feel like I'm there
But you, my past persecutor and abuser, would not listen
you new wife would be horrified.
It's such a simple thought
I don't want anything more
I'm afraid of you
Just wish I could connect, with that good part
at an innocent time when things were working

What kills comes
Not
from the outside
but
From within

It was a glorious affair in the high school cafeteria  
and my boss said hello to me and I sang along with
the band..."I'm Yours"
And somehow you ended up across from me so here I am
with three men surrounding me when I don't feel that popular
but you have taken a peculiar interest in me like when I can't
count up all the tardies, and you help me out in a meeting
and I fixed the copy machine and you could make a thousand and one
copies of dissections, but there you were again.  
And you found a way to put your dead preserved animal away
because I was upset.  No one would do that for me they just make fun
if I don't like poor dead creatures displayed to children.
The admin supervising over
us like we're a bunch of kids...and there you are with your inquisitive face
and I always thought you were the cutest teacher...but you brushed me off and
brought another woman to my play and I understood except now you
are talking about what I'm doing over break and it's the second time you asked
me and you remember what I said I was doing over the summer, except my
cat died so I didn't finish my script.  And you just have that look.  
When a man is looking into my eyes wondering what it would feel like to
be next to me naked and would I take care of him like his mother did?
And I am wondering if you are a skillful lover and do you snore?
And so maybe we will make plans, or maybe not.  But that was definitely
a love spark, my friend.

Warm and fuzziness is the feeling I crave
That feeling that everything is OK, with me, the world,
the sun is shining, I'm out of that dank cave
And there's one way to get it, even though I know even though I've been told
through science I know, there are really two ways

Science isn't poetic, but it explains and you can understand it
Doesn't change much of anything in how you feel as you go along
I feel like I'm living through a ****** Kesha song
and that is sad and just plain wrong

Men.  They can give me, that seratonin high
And there's nothing better, although I've looked well nigh
everywhere and run down train tracks, into seedy bars,
took those pills in plastic bags and ***** jars,
it always comes back to that one elusive feeling
that floating, I am attractive, enough and everything will be just fine
And I'd drink a case of wine
except I know it wouldn't take me there,
just make me sick, and lie around making a rat's nest of my hair

It makes me seem desperate
For the guy who is experiencing me and it
I don't even have to like him
He just has to turn a kind eye and off I go
That's how I entangled with my X I know
I didn't even like him much, but off I went
and ended up married under one of those Jewish tents

So one call and I'm high
And then an hour later it's over and I'm low
There is only one thing I know
I must take the sage advice
that I've paid a high price
for
and that is: this feeling, to myself I can give
and if I learn that I won't feel like this
I can, anyone can, renew from the inside out
I don't have to walk around in helpless doubt

But it's the hardest thing in the world
harder than the butterfly stroke
that I'd never tried to learn
I wish there were drugs in some ancient urn
and I'd walk a thousand miles on my knees
until they were bloodied
to plunge my hand in and consume that thing
or I wish at least I had some book
that could teach me how to get there, or at least how it would look
Just be here, science says, that's all it does.  It's not enough.

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

A plump girl
sees her ride, steps off the curb

Purple cat ears on her head
A string of Purple hair
Butterfly tattoo across her shoulders

Glittering bustier
Poofy short skirt clashing with everything
ripped fishnets
combat boots
huge over stuffed bag weighs her down
It's a concoction, not an outfit

She crosses to a middle aged man
In a non-descript car
Wearing Walmart's finest
They argue

A story begins

Since I was a girl
I imagine great feats
of daring and cleverness to save
the village, city or world

The City inspires me
Streets of San Francisco sun
Bart rides blurring as I listen
to Swedish techno and imagine
the trailer to my film

Running to, running away
Catching in the act, driving
Getting hurt, getting up
Of course there's computer hacking
which I do with finesse
Something explodes
It's not me
I'm the first to realize what is really going on
and the first to enter the belly of the beast
everything depends on me as I move
quickly and my dialogue is clever
at the most dangerous moments

We end up
In a deserted warehouse with one gun
each and I outwit you and save the day
alone as everyone else shows up
I am an action hero

There've been many, from two coasts, two continents
And I'm here to tell you, they are heaven sent

There's a Freud street in every city in Israel
And I am living proof and here to tell
There's a very good reason for this
His descendants are an important part of life
For those of us who missed
Important pieces of the puzzle when we were growing up
And then they came back to haunt us, and really messed us up

All those women, staring at me from across the room
So thoughtful, so introspective, looking at their latest catch
Knitting their brows, trying to make sense of that
Which I never could,  not all by myself
If I could, I would have, maybe just read a book off my shelf

When I think of all the hours
I've talked and tried to understand
It would add up to a short lifetime
In a simpler land

My current one's my favorite.  
She lives in my former hood
She's a ****, she's progressive and she'd heal me right now if she could

But alas, there is no short road
there is no easy end to this
You must be quite committed,
You must spend a lot of money and never miss
an appointment, because if you do, you'll trip
And before you know it you'll be back in the dip
where you started
That would be a shame
For a problem is a problem by any other name

"There is no other way but through"
I've read so many times
I imagine a stuffy, grey haired man speaking that line
And yet, it is true
As painful as it is
If it were easy, there'd be a lot more sane people in the world
And we all know it's not like this

Why do I hesitate?
Prefer toys instead
They don't scare me
And I'm always satisfied
How many times did I settle for
only what the man
was willing to give
Frustration, dissapointment and silence
I need honesty now
Especially in bed

When we met, you were an eye in the storm
Stressed, hired at the last minute and expected to perform
without training or experience in front of the big male bosses
You gave me comfort and little endearments
a well dressed if not too handsome man
in tight fighting  pressed pants and shirts

And I took notice as your gaze lingered
and your ringless finger waved at me
causing me to wonder

But now I know you're not all that
You are ringless so you can flirt and I've seen you in action
a couple of times after you tired of me because you
always seem to tire of us and go "home"
and now you no longer seek me out or take much notice
except in passing or on accident and I thought it was me
but it's not, it's never me with a guy like you

You went to the next and the next
And there are now layers of them padding your world
and I am on the outside

One layer new in your office to make the year bright
such a pretty young face infuses your world with life
and you seem more energetic and have let what's left of your
hair grow out around the lower half of your skull
in a thin layer of fuzz to remind everyone that you are
still a man with a body that produces enough brown colored
hair to still be visible and not a plucked chicken with nothing

Forget him, I am told and have tried so hard to do
but I don't like being discarded like my mother tossed me aside
it brings it all up again, all the pain and desperation and self hatred
Sitting in the silence where you want a presence
Being unnoticed when you want attention

But I did better without her, felt better without her
and if I could survive that, I will be OK now

Maybe "Singing in the Rain" was really first doing laundry in the rain
Easter downpour, as solid as any I remember in Brooklyn, sans lightening
Big droplets, teaspoon size, coming down in successive sheets
like a hall of mirrors or glistening water, reflected further and further through
the misty air, and it's not cold, either, not muggy like Brooklyn
the air doesn't stick to your skin, cling to your body and line your nose
but the ***** water from the industrial sky still splashes on concrete
scattered small boiling mist of filth, oil, the mess of civilization,
the foaming "hidden creek" froths out from a concrete pipe behind this place
running underneath the parking lot, paved over like the river underneath 125th street in NYC
And I haul out my laundry, dragging it first across the ***** carpeting, then down the concrete
stairs, past remains of dust and play and gum turned black
until I reach the empty laundry room because who in their right mind would
do laundry on Easter in the middle of the downpour?
And I am dressed for it in a tank top and short skirt and the ***** rain hits my skin,
invigorates me, and I rush through it, smiling, listening to the remains of the creek
a shower of ***** water from a freshly polluted sky and I know no Broadway
dance moves and there are not street lights to cling to, only the inner ecstasy of
violating convention, droplets of water all over my chest, legs, being and I wash my hands
in icy rainwater flowing over someone's balcony like a refreshing waterfall

"...it is our own wish to be soothed that is the root of the attraction."
I read in the yellow pages, the spine of the paperback cracking and that is underlined
for the second time because I bought my first copy of this book in 1988
and I felt behind the times
Still, I am a "woman who loves too much"

My first copy became so thrashed I put duct tape on it from my grip kit
film school and obsessions with unavailable guys, boys, and all kind of things
I did, drugs and two on one *** to try to make him love me back until a social worker asked me to buy the book and read it

I remember going over to University Village and walking to the back of the store
where the self help books were and there was one copy and I paid 4.95 in a kind
of glazed over way like I'd bought photocopied readers for classes.
Dutifully, sure that this in some way would benefit me although
I wouldn't really know how and then I read it and I was never the same.

"This book says it comes from your family" I remember telling my mother
on my land line with the long cord connected to the answering machine...
and I read that book nearly every day and my life got better and I made a film and got accepted to a New York City graduate film school and I threw it away
when my very serious boyfriend made fun of it
which was a mistake, because if I had kept it I never would have married him, I think.
I still remember it sitting there on a pile of newspapers in a milk crate,duct tape on the spine in the basement garbage room that was so cold with winter's air
and I felt like I was abandoning something alive and now I think that something was me

Anxiety goes up, impulse control goes down and here I am again
I went to a store, some store, I don't even remember which one or where but some
book store this time with desperation to find that book again and there was one copy
and I bought it some years ago and every time some nasty thing happens
there appears in my life some dude
who torments me and who I chase
who I try to extract caring from

Because it is the struggle I know so well
And it's 2013 and yes I am reading it again as if for the first time
And I find, it is my own wish to be soothed.
To have someone tell me, everything will be OK
This, too shall pass
And of course I know this, know this, ingrained and wired in my brain is
it has to come from somewhere else
when really, the only one who can truly soothe me, is me

Loosens the screws to your psyche
as the loss, seeps out
What was once there is gone
And your personality caves in
just a little bit

Someone looking to exploit can sense this
Sees the loosened worldview
the unthinkable is happening
and what you believed you could not
withstand is putting you to the test
And you are quavering
The foundations shaking
As in an earthquake
If this could happen
What else that you believe in
can be destroyed?

The Morrocan hashish I would never
have accepted from a married
man on a deserted beach
with one Arab boy sitting on the rocks
nearby just watching the waves

And I lay next to him, the sand
between us at once so fascinating
and my dress feeling so short suddenly
and incapable of covering my body
in broad daylight
as the Arab boy
turned away from the water and stared

I want friends as percentages
that would be more realistic
in "social media" that makes me feel anti-social
I wish we could go back to a time
when we saw each other face to face
looked each other in the eye
and didn't exploit the fact that we're too lazy
to get up and do that
the isolation increases, the fantasy heightens
Reality doesn't matter so much anymore

My last boss, the last chain of command
complains and brags about his daughter to others now
not me,
because Friday they will hire my replacement

And he has stopped making eye contact with me, like the other one did a year ago
because why do they treat me so badly and
I'm still a person
And I'd like to walk right up to him and shout in his face that
if he were my father I'd have a lot of problems, too!

And I'd like to tell him as I've been told,
when you've thought of yourself as very intelligent for a very long time
it's hard to let go of it
and he met me, and well, I do not lack in that category
in sanity, perhaps

I want to scream and tell them all my most honest thoughts and have them listen
especially him, my last boss
But he will never listen to me, I'm told
My thoughts infuriate him
They run around his thoughts and lap them
and that is unacceptable

So every day I notice, every day, is a fresh form of torture
and appreciation
and no eye contact from your enemies,
things could be worse.

Social Darwinism
How we fight each other
in the marketplace of scarce resources
come scarcer
How I remember the claws of a rooster
flapping his wings
protecting his flock of unfed hens
so starving they'd eat their own eggs
His claws scratches my legs
The wings flapped and air
moved around him
like a small storm
I was so young

Today, working in a place
that's like a rock offshore where thousands have been
washed away, and drowned
and we are still there on those small slippery
places trying to do our jobs
and not get knocked off
by a passing wave
or a rude shove of desperation as someone falls

Invisible demons
Rumors and gossip drive this place
Men, not women, rule it
Impatient men who are scared for themselves
on the higher rocks
still feeling the spray
watching the struggling toil of those below
and turning inward to their own sadness and fear

All there is, the only safe place
can be inside
and yet for me it's not there either
An attack comes and part of me takes that side
A being eating itself, destroying itself
Thinking at the same time that this will solve the problem
If only enough flesh can be cut, if only enough suffering
can be wrought
I will be purged of these feelings

By now, I've got a swimsuit printed on my body
So you can see I'm not being too naughty
Or  even maybe going to a fake tanning booth
I don't have the patience for that, that's the truth

Bad knees and back lead me to the pool
Even though it bores me, like sitting on a stool
In a bar where I'm really not feeling it,
Even though there's nothing wrong with the place where I sit
It's just the company, I look around, they're not my type
And yeah, I love to drink but I want to call it a night

I bought a book about different strokes
And the pictures and diagrams, showed all different folks

The time passed by a little less fierce
And when I got out, people looked at me like I was all kool and pierced
A lady told me I swim well, did I learn in school?
And it's weird I just read a book, and jumped in the pool

I awoke, it was 5 AM or some such ridiculous number
and there are definitely at least two types of people in this world
morning people, and people who like to sleep in the morning
but I am trying to forget him
a feeling I have, this isn't even going to be anything
not a passing friendship, I think he decided yesterday
because I am what I am and I'm glad the Netherlands outlawed mink farms
and he likes to dissect them and I can't, I read a book today and it says
you can't be who you aren't just to please someone else and I love
animals and hate those who persecute them and I find myself
on the freeway, in the dark, practically a traffic jam of morning people
and then streets filled with them like they think it's noon
and I arrive at a steaming factory where it looks like people are being
boiled alive there is so much steam and human arms rising out of the water and back again
like they are struggling to the surface, only to be pulled back down and boiled
waving for help and no one helps.
It's 6:05 when I finally get to split a lane with someone I can barely see because
human figures dissapear 25 meters away in what now looks like dense fog and
the coach smiles at me, like he sees I'm crazy too
Rush hour, underwater is clear, but who called this strange meeting of people in water?
A stressed, crowded swim and I'm back to the silent phone with ice toes that might
break off so I take drink and begin to sweat
And I deleted all the numbers last night but there was a text so
I look and there it is, and I only look at the area code because I can't
memorize that number. That is death.  You can't escape then.
And by mid morning I've called again and there is no answer
and by mid afternoon I remember to delete all numbers and I missed one
call from a collector, but he hasn't called back and I've been rejected
by someone I don't even like and somehow it makes it worse
because I had planned to tell him I didn't want to see him
that I wasn't sure about this, day trips, all that when I've never
ever had a conversation with him I've enjoyed.
And I sit at my desk, because by God, I must do work now and
desks make you do more work and I don't want to leave the house
because I'll spend money and there is no money and my big giant
grey and white cat takes up at least half the desk.
And the phone is silent
And I do some work
And look up silly things like how you get a stallion to ******* into a device
and it's actually pretty easy.
And a married Polish composer starts chatting with me on Facebook
and so I get off.

Anxious, fears flitting in and out, through my head and back again
feeling like I know what it is to stand for the verdict
to live the last few hours on Death Row
And it is only a job, a silly job, a source of income
but this feeling, the same as I had last year when I lost
part of what made the job interesting
but this feeling that I have that I am so often dead on correct about
an intuition that pierces me and sets me on edge
and so often comes true
Maybe I would give up this intelligence, this ability to foresee for a little peace of mind
But no, there can never be too much you know, too much you can see
the water can never be too clear, the view never too deep

Bright white plates are placed at the bottom of Lake Tahoe
to measure the clarity of the water
which is now murkier than in Mark Twain's day
so the plates must be put closer to the surface
and I don't want that
to lose that purity of sensitivity
I only want to be able to know and not fear
So keep the plates where they are
the water remains pure and it has to

You are going to fire me I am nearly sure
I don't deserve it, but I didn't deserve to lose what I lost last year
when I had the same feeling

It was an innocent question and he looked at me and I could see
his chest heaving up and down, "no, nothing at all.  That's it."
We were alone in a windowless room and he had the key
He could lock it, this older man, my X boss
He looked stiff as a board and standing like he had his hands up
showing he had no evil intentions and
online I flirted with a man his same age and was amazed
when we finally met, at his ****** frenzy
tearing at my clothes, this man who I'd write off as needing
assistance from modern science, grabbing for my body parts
in desperation and power, yes, masculine energy and all the strength
and desire of testosterone reaching, holding, biting
and I thought of my X boss, and that strange moment
when we were alone together and I realized
looking back, how he wanted to lock that door and demand of me
the same things
Always after that, re-assuring me, when we had to meet that
there would be a female present
like a male OB-GYN doing an exam has a nurse in the room

Deathline, trapped, burdened, crashed, crushed
Locked up for hours muddling thoughts of escape
The sun, the bright freezing sky, dark blue churned up ocean topped with white caps
like moving whipped cream
I dream, from my claustrophobic place
Pressure cooked, mind squished, must I say this again and again
Finish. Burden lifted, fantasy of floating away
must stay, mind locked into treadmill, rolling out producing
breathing stale air, mind in a tunnel, through muddy darkness

He is not to be spoken of, although many topics are covered
and I can be grateful, I suppose, because I am determined to pay for him
despite your objections, my parents who I mistakenly went to for comfort
He is, as the vet informed me, doing quite well with his treatment
and conversation about him is avoided as assiduously as if he were the
elephant in the living room
that no one sees
how many elephants have there been in our family?
Thousands, so it should be no surprise that there is now a pancreatic cat who
can live well with treatment
and if I need any reminder of the abyss that separates us, that eternal canyon
that destroyed me as a child, it is this cat, who in the last times of his life, seems rather
comfortable now with his medications and fluids and
our values, our beings are as far apart as the Snake River Canyon
a yawning space, which I wanted so much to fill as a child
and now I see men there on the other side, and I want to connect with them,
because that is what a child like me becomes as an adult
the desire to heal is there, but I will never fill that void
and can only do certain things like attend to my pancreatic cat
and avoid your wrath about him, and look over at the men
who so tempt me, who I desire not so much because of who they are
but what they represent, shadows on the landscape, like you were,
but I must learn to acknowledge my powerlessness at bridging this gap
look at the shadows, and turn away,
to what I can control, like caring for my pancreatic cat

On my chest
the small of my back
a place where my husband said
no other man should touch

Other places
more intimate

It shows the animal
that is me

Why do you ask why?

A black and white X-ray I couldn't afford
clear and perfect, digitally presented with scientific precision
A tumor.  
Inside your small fuzzy belly
Your skeleton is perfect, little street cat
We met over twelve years ago on a beach in Haifa
You were crying out, abandoned, starving
I took you in and loved you
We've been together, long after my bond with that male human ended
I wish he'd care now to hear of your plight
I don't want you to leave me, please don't go
You were with me through all the trauma and fear of divorce
You were flown across the world to me, to hide under a blanket
In your California home, a new citizen, without papers
I couldn't afford that, either
I can't afford to lose you
I love you and I always will, feline companion

It's the way he looks at you a vet said
He's right
Your brother gone, only you are left
cross eyed full blooded Israeli street cat
who, as soon as his eyes were unstuck from infection
gave me that look

A tiny kitten, the size of my hand
He looked into my eyes, past the retina
into what lay beyond, my soul?
Human and animal boundaries blurred
He wanted to know me

Most cats are just cats
Like your brother,
Beautiful eyes, but a cat's stare
A cat's life, intersected momentarily with a **** sapien
a ground ape

But you are different
You are interested in me
You are a cat who studies humans
Who wants to know them, bond with them

He's a great cat, they all said
at the vet
My precious one, please stay a long time

Light, off-white, airy
Unblemished March in New York City
We arrive at the Citadel of Columbia
Dress and shoes perfect
Everyone is here
Waiting for the show

Too many

I imagined, getting married in a field
In a friend's  back yard
On the beach
More intimacy than performance

This is a production
Nervous like an actress back stage
The ceremony lasts a thousand years
I feel like a hundreds of daggers are stuck in the ***** of my feet

You crush the glass
In the small white bag mass produced for the purpose
We are legal at last
Acknowledged by the State of New York

I look into your eyes and see a blank, empty space

Nothing has changed
Nothing will make you
belong
to me

I've been told, I live in the past
I am aghast.
Always looking that way,
just live in today
it's so easy you see
not for me
I give up hope
Just do, throw down the anchor on a rope
and just sit
Such a perfect view on the way it was
and only because it was this way
have I a problem now
In a boat, on a sunny day, on a lake
I sit, am rocked by a wake
of a passing cruiser
Around me is a moat made by me
you can't really see it, it's not real
I can see out
but not touch anything,
and I doubt
I will ever move again,
reach for the rope!
pull the anchor up!
put my chin up!
stiff upper lip!
What have we? quick! man the oars!
Plug the drain!
onward mates, haven't got all day!
I lift my eyes and ponder the horizon
balanced on  the moving water
shrouded by fog,
is my future
I look at it, still floating like a log...it's all I can do

Cat, Mouse
Beach, Sand
Cookies, Milk
Coffee Bar, Toilet

Driving down the streets of Berkeley
Everything is irking me
And I've got hypnosis today
What is going to become of me?

I'm coming here to deal with grief
and maybe a little anxiety
but when I sit in the office you see
I'm calm and my eyes are dry

And I get put into a relaxed state
Although it didn't feel like something rgreat
but it was fun and kind of interesting

But when I arrive back home
and open the mailbox
Suddenly I get caught

A letter from the vet
consoling me for the death
of my beloved pet
Shakour

Twelve years, two continents
and countless moves
he really was there and saw me through
and suddenly the tears just come pouring out

And I'm caught off guard in a storm of sadness and doubt

An early twentieth century kind of thing
But sometimes my hope feels like
a battery hen, factory farmed
Nearly featherless, since molting makes
her produce more eggs
Crowded so she cannot move
De-beaked so she cannot defend herself
A slow death for about three
years until she is gassed
in a small container
A product, not an animal
a unit, not a senseate being
Hope is a thing with feathers
But when all the feathers are gone
only the hope of rescue remains

Luminol when sprayed on a cleaned wall
that was once stained with the blood of a human being
will light up every splatter, and reveal the crime scene in all it's
chaotic splendor, even after years of careful hiding

Things happen every day in my creamy, dreamy life
moods, like the calm bay that hides the sharks underneath
the blood splatter of the natural cycle is covered in blue indistinct waves
while carnage and drama play themselves out in the silent muted depths

And as the bay gets darker the further you go down
especially in the deep canyon where a fervent Japanese submarine snuck
into California waters, and chased a boat around briefly before dissapearing
forever, just as these depths contain mystery and waste
so my thoughts, once so churned and pained, lie dormant and unseen
with the plastic forks that are stuck in the sand
and the plastic bags that move by in the darkness like ghosts
Because beneath the surface, in that deepest groove
is where all the pain and waste and wreck of civilization has accumulated
and is creating a new order in a once pristine reusable recyclable landscape
But I cannot see my depths, only try to feel them
in a primitive way, like sonar--what is this?
A small submersible floats through the deep cold water down there
through the snow flakes of biological residue that is food for life
and it looks at the garbage and sends back a video signal
that this is a warning, of our ceaseless, accumulating destruction unseen

I love you like my bed at the end of a tiring day
You have been
a source of joy, entertainment and comfort
I've been amazed, by your energy
your athleticism, beauty
four quick little paws
lithe, capable of impossible leaps
A purr that could catch me
at my worst moments and warm me,
sustain me
Go gently, my little friend
into that good night
I cannot bear for you to suffer

The heat of the laptop seeps through the Israeli pillow on my lap
My life on hold for the last few weeks, now about to be completely gone
for this last week
I'm a performing idiot for authorities I cannot see
participating in this hot steaming mess in the company
of little picture icons of other "students"
I didn't have to move yet to take these classes
which is good, since they started before my job ended
but I am living an isolated farce, of pressure coming through my wi fi
is it real?  the quiet, sweaty summer, my plans shelved for now
all fun awaits as I read, read, write in little responses in little boxes and have
take some video, upload to little boxes and
the unimaginable happened yesterday, my wifi was down
so I called and looked and sweated and finally took sleeping pills
hoping tomorrow the laptop on the footstool would come to life
and it did, so the process continues
reading,  sweating
little boxes of information returned to me
How I long to just meet these people, once, in a room

Those profiteers of animals, the devastating news I found
this summer,
They finally wrote back, after I told them exactly what I thought
that killing is not a happy ending
that animals have fear, and know when they are facing death
They wrote back, those with the big bank accounts from the Big East
who tried to stop No **** San Francisco to protect their friends at the **** shelters
They wrote back, those that we fought off, because we are in the right
and money and power and influence cannot stop justice and we are right,
not them,
And they finally acknowledged me, and the wrote back,
trying to show how kind they are
Their over dressed CEO walks down a carpeted stairway to give a woman her dog
and they wrote back
because at the end of the day I have nothing to hide
only justice at my side
and they can sit in their fancy Eastern clothes
and they can wallow in their power and influence
but at the end of the day
it's the little animal lives that matter, those they don't save
and justice is more powerful than any earthly prop
and it will win

You have been together since birth
Do animals grieve?
You seek out my company now a little more
on the back of the couch, head draped over my shoulder
as I write, your fuzzy head on my knee
You, the runt, the littlest one grown into the biggest
Over twenty pounds of Israeli's finest cross eyed street cat
Rescued at the same time, you were near death
your brother tried to escape into the inner workings of the car
stopped by my grabbing his tail
He was always the stronger one, the faster one
the normal one
You wait for him now, when it's time to eat
While he struggles to his feet, nothing but a skeleton
We will have each other when he's gone
but I think you will miss him, too

A paper on my door saying I hadn't payed my rent and was to be evicted, thrown out
in three days
This morning as I was measuring laundry detergent into a washer at 6:30 AM a lady
stopped and asked if I knew where a certain address was written on a lease on a clip board
and I didn't know, but thought that must be repo-lady, or collection-lady or eviction-lady

Two lovely Chinese older ladies in the office.  Under new management.  Every year it's
"under new management" and why was I so angry?  It was frightful
Another eviction notice posted on my door after they found I actually DID pay my rent
Oh, look, here it is, you don't have to look in your computer
They said, confiding, about the sins of the OTHER
A lot of people don't pay their rent after the Holidays
Moneys gone, they just "forget."

And I thought of all the people on spending sprees I saw during the Holidays with a gleam in their eye sort of like people get in Casinos carrying out huge boxes of things and stuff
and it's all so happy and festive and I wondered where do people get all that money?

It means you are really next to something
You are near
The conspirators
in Julius Caesar had to be close
to sink in the knife
the old way of killing

It means, you are with another person
who you really like
who you trust
who you allow to be near
and share your vulnerable self: emotional, physical
because you trust
he would never
sink in a knife

But what happens
if that person you trusted
you lived with, you are close to
becomes a conspirator
and sinks in knife after knife
until you are a heap on the floor
crying out tears, not blood
time and again
ruthless, relentless
until you feel like just a blob of emotion
spreading out like a blood stain on the floor

It's the "unkindest cut of all"
from Brutus
except worse
because a man and wife
are even closer than Julius Caesar and Brutus

That fear in me
Will it ever end?
Will I ever want another man
to be close?

I'm serious.  I expected more in a place so near the Bay Area, the most
liberal city in America, San Francisco, that
I would not be kind of ahead of my time but somehow agrarian culture, no matter
how high end does seem to breed a kind of conservatism,
how could it not when it resembles feudal wealth, with busy little foreigners
living in tents doing all the work, as the serfs of yesteryear, days bygone in another land
or not, bearing a resemblance perhaps to the South, well, at least they do get paid and
can't be beaten physically, at least not in public but I digress
my ideas, more than a few of them, from my female vocal cords, and feminine visage
and curves that fill out my dress and full head of hair which is becoming increasingly rare
in men my age still, here.
What I said, suggested, noticed, presented was only heard or appreciated when it was later said
suggested or presented by a male, usually about six at least months later in the endless chatter of meetings and chance discoveries
And I know this is not the place for me
where only a male voice
where only a male package between one's legs
a very primitive way of determining what gets heard,
a way that resembles that of dogs who sniff each other and not
humans who have frontal cortexes and high order thinking
had what I said come from the less shapely, thinner lips of a testosterone laden individual
I think
in this place
they would have been heard
and absorbed long ago

The Middle East
My parent's friends had left for the year
The silence echoed through the city
I didn't hear it
No one to watch out for me
But I didn't think I needed protection

I wasn' t aware
Like a deer grazing blissfully
in the gunsite of a hunter
Then he struck
it wasn't a clean ****
everyone saw
but no one did anything
there were different rules there
men do these things
wait it out, or leave

Hide the evidence
Just leave, he said
like, walk out the door and
hop on a plane to San Jose
like catching the subway in New York

Or like putting the body in cement boots and dump it in the river
I was stunned
who was this man?
he looked like the man in the wedding pictures,
my husband

The body stayed there for a few months more
To him, evidence
rotting, stinking
being noticed
talking
living
showing off a rotted trail of abuse and scabs
trying to come to terms with its destroyed life
wrapping its mind around how twelve years
could wind up like this
"I'm sorry it had to end this way,"
the American husband said
in his new form, a crude sketch of what
he thought was Israeli
what he thought he could get away with
here

then I was gone
the evidence disappeared
He painted the apartment
like a crime scene made fresh
and blamed me that the landlords
weren't friendly to him

Hours later, with the help of an airplane
I was back in a world
where these things aren't tolerated
Women don't have to cower and
wait it out in a cosmopolitan city
where jets fly overhead so high
you can't see them
Shivering, fearful, trying to hide the trauma
pretend it was just a normal divorce
How could anyone believe what happened?

She gave it to me in a ceremonious way, since she's advised me to have rocks before
because they ground you when you hold them and it's better if they mean something to
you because then it is more powerful and I've had plenty of rocks, but none have really
worked so well as this one.
And I hold it with me nearly all day and it makes me feisty, and I feel strong because it
comes from her office, this island of sanity where I can suddenly let go of all the fear and
guilt and self hatred and realize it's them, not me.  No matter how much I want to believe it
is me, that they are good and if I only change.
But some people are not good, or wise or kind and they can decide that you'd make a nice target and
self laceration will not make them stop stabbing and stabbing, ceaselessly until you are nothing but
road **** on the floor because it is a great relief to them to let go of all that onto someone else
and so you must fight back and that means, you believe in yourself and you fight for that self and this rock came from her office and it came from under a plant and she wiped it off after my mind was
clear from another tornado of self hatred and punishment and she said, this rock comes from this office
and I didn't want to take it because I thought the plant needed it but she said not to worry that she
had plenty of rocks and now I hold  it
And I've been fighting, fighting against those dark forces and the darkest of them all, the one who
has made my life a scary mess for months now today he finally said he was sorry for misunderstanding me.  He said it twice and I think: this is a breakthrough and he may still take me down, because the future is far from certain but I would say you may take me down, but I'm going to take a piece of you with me. And I felt the power of the sanity in that rock and I hung on.  I hung on.

I got the flu in mid January and it's nearly Spring and still I cough
but I decided to force myself to go out
and get on Bart and go to Berkeley
and I saw things
stared at an ad for "American Idol" on the platform
for an unseemly amount of time trying to figure out which
human representation had been more photo-shopped
Fascinated, coming out into another land other than work home bed

Standing on the Bart platform, with no evil smells like the New York City subway and a breeze
and a polite voice telling me when the train would come
And at the next station an ad for the Jewish Museum and a young Ethiopian Jewish man
has an exhibit there and I felt good, that yes, there is such awfulness in Israel
but even there, like here, some can rise

And then Berkeley and my favorite cafe,
and it so reminds me of Columbia University, only cleaner
but it doesn't hurt about my X anymore
but it reminded me of my cat who was dieing in July and
he didn't want me near him too much because
dieing things like small spaces and not too much attention
so I left him in the closet curled up as cancer worked it's inevitable devastation

And I was coughing and tired, an invalid at the end of the day
but I made it to the Shattuck Cinemas to watch "Lincoln" and they have
a bar, and couches in the theater and you can take drink in if you're over 21
and that was our idea, in my days as a theater manager, we'd
talk about ways to bring more people in and we suggested couches and alcohol
and our manager laughed and thought we were crazy
but here is crazy and people walk in and love it
I sat in the back and took up a whole two seat couch selfishly and
listened to people come in and say how nice it was

Today I was an invalid again and could hardly get up
but the memory, it was worth it
I am slightly more alive again

One of the beautiful animals
a vet in Haifa said to me
"I don't like cats!" says my Aunt at dinner
"The vet bills!" moans my mother
Cats haven't changed much since their inception
because they are already such a good design
They eat what is living at the time
as other species fade in and out
I love cats
Back at Thanksgiving it is loud and cold
and I am so tired so I get up and go downstairs for a nap
just like a cat

writing is thinking
teaching is what I do for a living
you're not supposed to say I like teaching for
the vacations, but that's a big perk
Plus, you don't have to sell things
and you get to do something meaningful for money

My thoughts become murky
How do I get my script from A to C?
the B part, it's shrouded in mist
like a grasp for it but there is no spine

I wanted to finish it this vacation
but I always want to vacate, too
Life is too short and we do our best
the worst is to waste your precious energy
worrying because you only have control of so much

Stay in the moment, even if it is painful and not what you want
Even when you are tired at work and it's the last place you
want to be and you think you'll be fired
just be there
it makes it better
be there for all your moments
is all you can do