"it's that time of year again"
fidgeting with our masks
which year?
lungs now with growth rings
the winter of a million dead and no more ventilators?
the spring of choking in taksim square?
the summer of tear gas (any & all of 'em)?
the fall of the DAPL cough, 40,000lb of Rozol later?
for every thing
there is a season
so they say
and every year
my coughs
linger longer & longer
oh and look
you already forgot
about the wild fires
over and over and over the loud speaker
NO LOITERING
PLEASE DISPERSE
we are all of us at home
and I am now a woman
who peers out of curtains
with greying hairs
they installed the tower this week
after three more were shot
over and over and NO LOITERING
PLEASE DISPERSE
into the night
we are all of us at home
I am grateful
the one of us who was shot in april
where the tower now stands
has a room in back out of earshot
and curtains that peer into a garden
which is where women forget their grey hairs
over and over NO LOITERING
but this time no pleasance
DISPERSE DISPERSE DISPERSE DISPERSE
my father worked in Palestine in the 90s
i was too young to remember
my sister age two saw his face on the
television somewhere behind Arafat
and was afraid it meant he was trapped inside
the tv box forever
padraig o'tuama is an Irish poet leader
student of troubles
who does truth & reconciliation work
in Northern Ireland
he once said that
the most powerful
question
he ever asks
is a simple one --
"what do you want?"
my sister
very much
wanted to know
if Yasser Arafat likes apple sauce
and if her father
was trapped in a box forever
many children are still waiting for their answers
many children are never asked
many children are gone
and cannot answer.
the breadline
is a presence in the universe
that exists
at all times
it continues
whether you are there or not
like a current
like a grave
like a child's growth spurt
we simply
slip in and out of it
when it is our turn
an entity unto itself
does it have a spirit?
or spirits who guard it?
are the spirits happy when
we come
to take our places?
is our waiting
worrying
fidgeting
sighing
beautiful to them?
do we feed them?
do they comfort us?
if I knew where to find
the altar of the breadline
I would leave this poem there
with a flower from the sidewalk
every egg in this carton
is a twin
how strange
two yolks
nestled
within every shell
these days
who knows the decorum
superstition
or suspicion
a wink from the cosmos
or the fingerprints
of meddlesome corporate scientists
no wonder the people have lost where to put their awe
every day I returned
to the fridge
surely today will be the day
the facade cracks
the pattern breaks
but each new shell fractured --
twin yolks
clinging inseparable
inconvenient defiant
where now, your awe?
I've rubbed salve on the wound
bent limbs into healing postures
swallowed pills and grudges
and polished the amulets
all that is left is
to write poems
and hope they don't turn me out to pasture
before I've finished
give me one memory to relive
for the rest of the afterlife -
take me back to the country road
at dusk with a sister
songs on our lips hallelujah in the dust
and our feet casting growing twins
shadows happily lengthening
with every step home.
give me the bird songs
and hands relentlessly guilty
with the juice of mulberries or perhaps elder and
give me a half-finished hope chest
which is all my grave need ever be.
grant me all this - it's all I ever was - I'll rest easy.
shake ten new hands for every damned scissor bill -
I'll rest easy.
a girl is a paper bag
container for provisions
you fill her with what feeds you
a girl is empty
a girl rips
holding the weight of your
cravings
note: a girl is not a child
children belong to god
a girl belongs to everyone
note: a girl is not a woman
women belong to themselves
a girl belongs to the tongue that summons her
a girl is a conjuring
a girl is a beach ball
a girl works for tips
a girl is a pay phone
how many metaphors do I need to write before you understand
I am not a girl
this is why you pray for a long life
god willing
in order to live days like these:
you hold me as I sleep
although the sun is high
and beckons you to other biddings
you stay
and other days of course:
you with your grandiose missives
and I with mine
high and mighty with
purpose - for a time -
as we stride and strive
towards that which seems
oh so important
and probably is
but more for days like these:
whether you take my hand into waking
with coffee and a poem
or kiss me back to sleep, mercy
you are by my side
god willing
you are why I pray for a long life
hospital coffee is an atrocity.
a shame really usually
in this strip mall death cult we call home the issue
is not
staying caffeinated the issue
is bodies
how they fail
are replaced
bodies we love bodies
we disdain bodies we
never knew but
insistent in their absence
in hospital I drink in contempt
I wait for a body loved not
yet surrendered
my mind wanders to the river
the turtles returning of late
who will be my substitution?
displaced to the city dirty
dues paid I am
in the replacement
stick to the diet sodas
swap some blood for formaldehyde
the difference between
bodies loved disdained
fades beneath the fluorescents
I speak now
to the God of wet moss on rocks
to the Lord of speckled lichens
and fungal blooms
Shy One, teach me Your name
my ancestors did not appoint one for You
because You were quiet
omnipresent
easy to forget
in these days, here
we have finally come to sense Your presence
because You are on the run
Your arrivals
and absences
have tuned us
to Your holy ways
Oh Great Teacher
You are the first to leave
when the air becomes choked
with the poison of wicked men
and the antipathy of all other lungs
to scarred to care
and You, Wise One
are the first to return
after disaster
and death
after destruction has stolen
all hope
from hearts trembling in exile
the first to leave at the scent of corruption
and the first to arrive at the scene of despair
I can think of no greater God
to worship in these
here days
no use laying down salt
when ghosts live
inside the body
can no more protect
lungs from heart
than can contain
ravaging spirits
from wild hunt within
I am
the territory
what hungry death resides
better to lay salt
across threshold
so neither I nor my ghosts
may pass
bidden and biting
into ignorant daylight
the blueberries are good for
January, I'll admit
piled on your plate watching
with baited breath pancakes
as a form of prayer
I did drag you out of bed for this mass
didn't I
as if scrambled eggs
could make any difference
I am wrong to mock breakfast
as salvation on this morning
of the third day you
rose again proclaimed the gospel
I remember there is warmth in the world
asking
again this time not
for another plate of communion
but for methadone.
I would have brought you the moon if you had asked.
we strap on our boots and walk
I,
and my mother
mud is too eager these days
should still be in winter slumber
but we live in waking times
I,
and my mother
we walk as all our mothers have taught us
close to water
speaking of the day's worries
so that others may rest easy
there's not much light left today
careful and our boots in the mud
I,
and my mother
