desperate to get it over and done with before she’s dead
i choke on the dream scene, the prognosis and the grand scheme / ever-present in my throat / and weep then, a memory of us wedges in i cry a smile, and smile a cry
i think this, is all, too much i can’t do this.
though,
she is the one doing it
with her dignity, her calm, her reserve, she’s had too much practice, she’s well-traveled on this terrain
the birds’ choir is a mockery outside my window, eight different species on the sill — eight — for gods’ sake!
these days when the Sun’s arc is long and the soil is warming for the season — and permanently
i am in my bed with lead bones annoyed that i woke up again, and guilty with an ungratefulness about it
my steady lament is sung out loud — but still unheard i counted my mistakes like sheep, to sleep again they didn’t wander away though they stay close to their shepherd, always
they say Death comes in threes and that’s true but it still hasn’t chosen me instead, conscripting two complacent men, known to me, thirty-six, fifty three, in one week’s time — why? while i’m out here volunteering for the cause it cruelly searches elsewhere to complete their trio
of course i’m still fucking here! the gods won’t give you what you pray for!
courage, love, fidelity, life, death
they’re full of motherfuckery they know exactly what i — and what you, want most — of all
the man who bought my kindergarten clothes when i was still yet four years old and paid my Lutheran school monthly tuition for eight years; the man who had the rusty 1972 VW Bug, gifted to me by my boyfriend for a high school graduation gift restored over the summer before my freshman year of college; the man who adored both my son aka “monster” and “bam-bam”, and my first dog, Digby aka “hound”; the man who endured both the devastating loss of custody, and subsequent parental abduction of — and then, the tragic accidental death of his only biological child,
a son.
the man who never got the chance to properly retire and healthfully and happily collect his 30-year, hard-earned Teamster’s union pension — and just go fishing all day because he became acutely ill with undiagnosed high blood pressure and kidney failure, and spent the last years of his life on thrice-weekly, hours-long dialysis treatment — and his last six months on Earth dying from a rare, aggressive and metastatic cancer.
may his spirit know peace eternally.
Willie Mack gingerly cradling his namesake Mack on the first full day of the baby’s life, and who we brought home on Father’s Day, 1994
“This used to be my playground.”
and, our proxy for church on spring, summer and fall sabbaths.
These were the halcyon days.
Load up the International Harvester TravelAll with wooden door and quarter panels – it has two gas tanks, you know. Bought it used, but clean, pristine on payments – from the showroom on Logan Boulevard and Elston Avenue with zero credit history and all the
usury
Have mercy.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of fish.
He will bait your hook on the bamboo pole he bought for you. Later, you will insist on the “Pocket Fisherman” – as seen on TV.
she gently pincers the end of ki’s gorgeous black tail
gingerly pulling kin off the road
redundantly committing ki’s spirit
to the universe, aloud
with apologies for humankind, silently
purposefully committing kin’s body
to a safer spot
for mourning
and carrion feast
Ki’s body was unexpectedly heavy
full of walnuts and seeds
fat and strong for a long winter ahead
so alive just minutes ago, I saw out the window
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
for me
for my kind
for our machines
for our structures
for our carelessness
for our selfishness
for all this,
engineered, manufactured, destroyed
the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars kiss me at all hours
did you see me open up this Autumn?
after a Summer spent wailing,
wet, yet fruitless after a Spring spent wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good
I bathe
nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, in wetland pools and moonlight
unapologetically
|out in the open|
unabashedly
baptising my face, hair,
and eyes, my breasts vulva
and legs, my lips, throat, spine,
and my wild heart
ceremonially, first with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed, in the name of the Mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|a cabernet henna|
then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia, lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded to cleanse or drown [to live, or not to live] in the name of the Moon
|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|
the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth
the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct and overrides decorum with new delights
|and old delights, revisited |
an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking hidden in plain sight, everywhere and I’ve intuitedItas Ol’ Scratch, I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here
You, Your windows are not true eyes Your lamps are not enlightenment
So, bless the dark
of the night
of the country night sky
And the Moonset
of my moon
it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,
My life seems long, I know
My body’s mostly worn
Inside, she’s just begun to live, again
A young woman and girl, or gone long ago
There are bottled laughs to voice aloud
New smiles to wear with these old shoes
Time to know the world, and you, and you, and you …
between these walls of peeling, muted hues
Once Herr died
My Self was ready to return
My cadence so shy and slow,
Lamenting the awkward waste of precious years
I find my voice as I write the past,
But in my book, the Tomorrow has no page
Forever winter approaches from within
These years and years upright on hard chairs
Unreal, unseen, unheard, untouched
by the world, by the womb, it may concern, Whom
I speak through and then beyond this pain of bone and life
Before the cold within brings silence of the tomb
You see, to me, my presence still feels warm, and blush
somehow, even new
My life stretched out behind me, no steps ahead
And I forestall Death’s cue, awaiting mere glimpse of you
