30 April

The woman in question

for Cathy

1995

“So, who is she, anyway?”

the fellow from the assessor’s office

asks the barista steaming skim milk

for his dry skinny decaf au lait to go

as the screen door flutters shut

behind the woman in question.

“I don’t know her name,”

the barista replies discreetly,

“but she’s a wonderful customer.”

Might have been a waitress once,

she thinks but doesn’t say.

“Medium regular here.”

The guy from corrections hands her

his sludgy bulgy pitted plastic mug.

“Well, we saw her walking the other day,

staring at the sky and smiling,

and you know what was up there?

Nothing but clouds.”

29 April

VILLANELLE FROM HELL
1999

"Fourteen days at Slocum Creek
are fourteen days too many," moans
the river, sallow, slack and sick,
"but I am waiting for the dam to break
and will wait 'til time and times are done
if that means fourteen centuries at Slocum Creek."
"I cannot gasp, but if I could, I'd shriek,
squawk, squeal and groan,"
the crappie, sallow, slack, and sick
is rasping as it fishflops down the thick
stagnant soup that it called home
sixty-six years ago, at Slocum Creek.
"This so-called campground sucks."
“That pissoir of a lake.” “Discarded, putrid bovine bones.”
The anglers, sallow, slack and sick
are calling and responding from the wreck
of outdoor recreation. Clowns!
Just fourteen lines describing Slocum Creek
have left me sallow, slack and sick.


Note: Should you be planning a vacation here, a BLM sign at Slocum Creek Campground near Owyhee Reservoir indicates that the overnight camping limit is 14 days.

27 April

Counterpoint
1991

I am the weight
at the opposite end of the scale.
In country where it rains
eight feet a year, the green kin
in my windows traveled here
from deserts where their fleshy leaves
stored scarce water and their spines
squared off against death’s teeth.

As I meander into love with you
I dream your death,
dispassionately wonder if you’ll be
the one I get around to
murdering.

Each day we kill our loves
a little more carefully.
I say what no one wants to hear.
My laugh is loud and impolite,
my silence has sharp edges.
When my hands clap rhythm
they reach for counterpoint.
You tell me you don’t know
if anyone can dance with me.

26 April

Everything I Made
early 90s

“There is nothing left to keep me here,” he said.
“I have lost more than I knew I had to lose.

I would take my grandfather’s clock
to keep it safe for whoever is to love it next,
but I will go without it if I must.
It is a fair trade for my life.

All I was given becomes a story I will tell by firelight.
Everything I made, I can make again.”

25 April

I DO
for David, April 25, 1998


Call this my rough draft of the vow
I’ll revise and renew and never quite finish.
What I did got me here, but it won't
get me past here. Remember
those strange words I stammered,
stalling for time, when you asked
if after two decades of safety
I might consider the danger that's love?

Our compass is set for a bearing
beyond my Shabby Hotel by the Sea,
out of sight of your Shoals of Reason.
You called me Ambassador from the Edge,
Consul of the Lost and Found.
You knew me well enough to name
my Homeland. The answer is yes.

This moment light gathers around,
I promise you what I do best
yet still with least confidence:
Like my mentor the mole rat, I will
gnaw through the perimeter. I am
poised to become the new creature
this marriage calls to. From now on I do
whatever it takes.

24 April

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.”

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.