Eggs like these
2006
Easter morning
and we haven’t colored eggs in years,
but there are two in the little hollows in the fridge,
brown already, courtesy of the chickens.
We will do our part with magic markers.
Seems it’s our histories the two eggs
wind up wearing, with the good humor
and perspective on our years of troubles
only time bestows. My egg becomes a face –
mildly curious eyes,
nose too prominent to be attractive,
smile bulging with silver –
all surrounded by ringlets on the verge of blue.
When I was a girl, I tell you,
there were men, women, boys, girls,
cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, and turtles
crowding the refrigerator door.
Though I drew them all myself,
they still surprised me every time
I pulled the handle and the light flashed on.
When you were a boy, you tell me,
you spent an entire hour
painting a Madonna and Child
on an eggshell’s curved surface,
and I’m wondering if today I’ll get to see
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
in miniature, but no, it’s Lenin.
I would recognize him anywhere,
and on the egg’s reverse, fireworks bloom
above Red Square and words you outlived
to ridicule: “The victory of Communist labor
will be ours with eggs like these.”
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
23 April
Underground
Late 90s, early 00s - wish I knew for sure
It’s April and we’ve planted pastel spheres
of pea seeds. We’ve had the necessary
drizzle and shy sun, and our neighbors’ lilacs -
one stark white of saintly faith, the other passion’s
violet signature - lean across our fences.
It’s three in the morning, muddy, and the night air stirs
exhaust fumes from McLoughlin Boulevard
into the scent of cold, wet dirt. I sit on my heels. I listen,
but I cannot hear the ghostly tentative roots
investigate their home’s dark nourishment.
These are the sweetest days of my life.
Only lend me the grace to wait.
Late 90s, early 00s - wish I knew for sure
It’s April and we’ve planted pastel spheres
of pea seeds. We’ve had the necessary
drizzle and shy sun, and our neighbors’ lilacs -
one stark white of saintly faith, the other passion’s
violet signature - lean across our fences.
It’s three in the morning, muddy, and the night air stirs
exhaust fumes from McLoughlin Boulevard
into the scent of cold, wet dirt. I sit on my heels. I listen,
but I cannot hear the ghostly tentative roots
investigate their home’s dark nourishment.
These are the sweetest days of my life.
Only lend me the grace to wait.
Friday, April 22, 2011
22 April
GOOD FRIDAY’S GONE
2005
Every April,
when the cellophane grass, chocolate rabbits,
and squishy bitter yellow chicks appear,
I realize once again: Good Friday’s gone.
When I was a kid back home
in the second-biggest city in Vermont,
the whole world as I knew it shut down
between noon and three o’clock
the day Christ died. There was no school
and the weather was always unseasonably
warm and sunny. I used to wander
in a post-Apocalyptic daze. I loved the darkness
behind store windows, loneliness
of the streets, where few cars crawled by
all those slow three hours, and no one was out and about
but me. I admit I wasn’t thinking deep religious
thoughts. I probably caught a few disapproving glares
over the years, though I never noticed.
But I’m nostalgic now for those bleak collaborations,
the force of will that kept my neighbors
shuttered from the sun, even if snow
was forecast for Easter, as it often was.
I miss the watch I kept those hours,
feverish, morbid, but not irreverent,
and how the world came back to miraculous life
each mid-afternoon, and stirred the mystery
of my peculiar faith.
2005
Every April,
when the cellophane grass, chocolate rabbits,
and squishy bitter yellow chicks appear,
I realize once again: Good Friday’s gone.
When I was a kid back home
in the second-biggest city in Vermont,
the whole world as I knew it shut down
between noon and three o’clock
the day Christ died. There was no school
and the weather was always unseasonably
warm and sunny. I used to wander
in a post-Apocalyptic daze. I loved the darkness
behind store windows, loneliness
of the streets, where few cars crawled by
all those slow three hours, and no one was out and about
but me. I admit I wasn’t thinking deep religious
thoughts. I probably caught a few disapproving glares
over the years, though I never noticed.
But I’m nostalgic now for those bleak collaborations,
the force of will that kept my neighbors
shuttered from the sun, even if snow
was forecast for Easter, as it often was.
I miss the watch I kept those hours,
feverish, morbid, but not irreverent,
and how the world came back to miraculous life
each mid-afternoon, and stirred the mystery
of my peculiar faith.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
21 April
SESTINA: URBAN LEGEND
1999
Here’s how I heard
it. Some rugrat let all these alligators
loose even though the babysitter
threatened him within an inch of his measly life. She recalled the beehive
incident, had been trained to stay away from a Corvette
with a stain in the back seat, or a man with a hook.
So this ordinary creaker, except for the hook,
he was the one who heard
the sound like a Corvette
moulting, only it was really alligators
slinking in the sewers, a militia like a beehive,
but the babysitter,
who might have saved the city, that babysitter
was otherwise occupied. She was dialing 9-1-1, cradling the hook
in her boyfriend’s neck, every hair in her perfect beehive
keeping its iron grip, while she heard
the ambulance wail toward Lovers Leap and another sound that might be alligators,
which she ignored, preoccupied as she was with body fluid leaking all over the Corvette.
She coveted that Corvette,
and if her boyfriend bit the big one, the babysitter
was hoping she’d inherit his wheels and not his collection of squeaky toy alligators,
and she kind of wanted the hook,
too, she’d heard
they make attractive accessories for a beehive.
She’d never had a swarm of bees take residence in her beehive,
but she had seen a few back seats of a few Corvettes.
There were the obligatory ominous urban legend lectures she’d heard
involving various bubbleheaded babysitters,
and if they got the hook,
well, maybe they deserved it. Meanwhile alligators
were issuing from the city’s every orifice, alligators
the size of freight trains, and she was touching up her beehive.
The man with the hook
was leering at the Corvette
which he wanted more than the babysitter,
and him licking his scabby lips was the last thing she heard.
That’s how I heard it. The alligators
ate the babysitter, beehive
and all. The authorities never recovered the Corvette or the hook.
1999
Here’s how I heard
it. Some rugrat let all these alligators
loose even though the babysitter
threatened him within an inch of his measly life. She recalled the beehive
incident, had been trained to stay away from a Corvette
with a stain in the back seat, or a man with a hook.
So this ordinary creaker, except for the hook,
he was the one who heard
the sound like a Corvette
moulting, only it was really alligators
slinking in the sewers, a militia like a beehive,
but the babysitter,
who might have saved the city, that babysitter
was otherwise occupied. She was dialing 9-1-1, cradling the hook
in her boyfriend’s neck, every hair in her perfect beehive
keeping its iron grip, while she heard
the ambulance wail toward Lovers Leap and another sound that might be alligators,
which she ignored, preoccupied as she was with body fluid leaking all over the Corvette.
She coveted that Corvette,
and if her boyfriend bit the big one, the babysitter
was hoping she’d inherit his wheels and not his collection of squeaky toy alligators,
and she kind of wanted the hook,
too, she’d heard
they make attractive accessories for a beehive.
She’d never had a swarm of bees take residence in her beehive,
but she had seen a few back seats of a few Corvettes.
There were the obligatory ominous urban legend lectures she’d heard
involving various bubbleheaded babysitters,
and if they got the hook,
well, maybe they deserved it. Meanwhile alligators
were issuing from the city’s every orifice, alligators
the size of freight trains, and she was touching up her beehive.
The man with the hook
was leering at the Corvette
which he wanted more than the babysitter,
and him licking his scabby lips was the last thing she heard.
That’s how I heard it. The alligators
ate the babysitter, beehive
and all. The authorities never recovered the Corvette or the hook.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
20 April
Some good news & some bad news
for Dan
1999
The good news is
my big brother got
disability to the tune
of twenty-four hundred
dollars a month,
tax free, for as long as
he’s certifiably nuts.
That’s the bad news.
He’s philosophical,
says he’s always wanted
to pull some crazy stunts -
he’s still so protective,
he won’t tell me what -
& now he sees these impulses
as investments.
Me, I’m saving
my pocket change for bail,
consulting the Magic 8-Ball,
shopping for a greeting card
that says, “Congratulations
& Condolences.”
for Dan
1999
The good news is
my big brother got
disability to the tune
of twenty-four hundred
dollars a month,
tax free, for as long as
he’s certifiably nuts.
That’s the bad news.
He’s philosophical,
says he’s always wanted
to pull some crazy stunts -
he’s still so protective,
he won’t tell me what -
& now he sees these impulses
as investments.
Me, I’m saving
my pocket change for bail,
consulting the Magic 8-Ball,
shopping for a greeting card
that says, “Congratulations
& Condolences.”
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
19 April
GRAPHING OUR DYSFUNCTION
for a rocket scientist
1998
x > -4 (that's me).
y < 11 (that's you).
For instructional purposes
I'll keep it flat.
Take your graph paper, mark the axes
horizontal x and vertical y like the cross we bear.
Draw diagonal lines from the top edge
to 4 lines down from where you marked that x-axis.
All the way across. Good.
Turn your attention to the left side
of the paper and draw diagonals
in the opposite direction up and down
its length until you reach 11 past your y-axis.
There. Now that's done.
Note the crosshatching where the two graphs meet
in the upper left-hand corner.
That's where my terror of abandonment
and your ambivalence about commitment
overlap. It's the graph of our dysfunction.
It's what's wrong and why there's no use trying
to solve this problem
let alone all those trains
leaving Midwestern cities at various times and speeds,
loaded with dynamite, conductors
asleep at the switch.
for a rocket scientist
1998
x > -4 (that's me).
y < 11 (that's you).
For instructional purposes
I'll keep it flat.
Take your graph paper, mark the axes
horizontal x and vertical y like the cross we bear.
Draw diagonal lines from the top edge
to 4 lines down from where you marked that x-axis.
All the way across. Good.
Turn your attention to the left side
of the paper and draw diagonals
in the opposite direction up and down
its length until you reach 11 past your y-axis.
There. Now that's done.
Note the crosshatching where the two graphs meet
in the upper left-hand corner.
That's where my terror of abandonment
and your ambivalence about commitment
overlap. It's the graph of our dysfunction.
It's what's wrong and why there's no use trying
to solve this problem
let alone all those trains
leaving Midwestern cities at various times and speeds,
loaded with dynamite, conductors
asleep at the switch.
Monday, April 18, 2011
18 April
Little things
2000
I cherish my bottle
of Ibuprofen
manufactured at
the Khimfarm Kombinat
in Staraya Kupavna.
It's dark brown, real glass,
the label recommends
"Keep tightly closed
in a cool dry place"
in Russian, and I can
read it! The cap doesn't
have any childproof features,
another way of saying
I can open it! When I do so,
I find no safety seal,
only a hundred sugar-coated
rosy pills and a wad of fluffy
white cotton I have been assured
is pure.
PS I'll bring you some.
2000
I cherish my bottle
of Ibuprofen
manufactured at
the Khimfarm Kombinat
in Staraya Kupavna.
It's dark brown, real glass,
the label recommends
"Keep tightly closed
in a cool dry place"
in Russian, and I can
read it! The cap doesn't
have any childproof features,
another way of saying
I can open it! When I do so,
I find no safety seal,
only a hundred sugar-coated
rosy pills and a wad of fluffy
white cotton I have been assured
is pure.
PS I'll bring you some.
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