She storms in the kitchen finding bits of things to stop her mouth, wish it could stop the words spilling out. How could so many well-dressed people have their heads so firmly wedged up their
Freezing asses?
Fists should swing toward imaginary foes while the real ones all live among us, work at Walmart, never liked that effing little dog.
In the dying light a boy nurtures wild cats, feeding them, watching them, pouring water out for them.
You and I just watch him. As usual your words anchor me, which feels a little unfair for you, seeing that I am the old one. I love your strong voice shared by all the women from your tribe, and just as when you were a little girl I want to call them to assembly, muster them for us, say, see these kids? The ones you have loved all these years? Be there for them, please,
No matter what.
They are out there somewhere still, three, sometimes four, figures and a dog who has long gone, gone past the snake on the path, gone past all the wounds of time, leaving snapshots of a good dog all the while the children howl full wind
They knew no shelter from the start
Miles of lonely nothing
No stones, bread crumbs, or birds to
Guide them back
Home.
Most days I try
To plunge into the same body of
Cool water
Sun on the surface
Always blue beneath
Unplumbable like oceans
This place I go to see you
In the tumbled pieces of ill-formed autobiography
You, always you
She has been a cloud, a curved white wave, a story from a picture, the daughter who won’t answer back, reminder of all I have lost, world is full of daisies, I could find one now, on hands and feet in the night. They are common things, hands and feet in the dark, looking for lost flowers, people we always knew we needed. One million daisies, little flower faces, pushed to rough angles by this lion’s wind, breathing us into impossible life.
I always show up somewhat grudgingly, worried about imaginary time, until I see how much he loves them and how much they need him while in the after dark crickets sing
I don’t own a gun but I am grateful the barefoot neighbor in Sutherland Springs did.
Every time we face the devastation of a mass shooting in this country I want to say things like:
We cannot monetize an entertainment culture of violence and not expect it to sway the unhinged.
If we want “better” gun laws we have to enforce the ones we already have.
Andhow many of us know there will be a fatal gap between when 911 is dialed and when help arises?
Without civil accountability in public safety
There is no safety at all.
When I tell you I found the old mushroom-colored sweatshirt which saw us through thick and thin you will know I am talking about the way the Romans used to have it done, long pole, wad of cloth, vinegar soaked as we raise it to the real hero, his naked pain, the way he eschews ordinary safety for a stretched-to-the-limits agony
I take the brush, add the cleanser, wipe it all down with an uneasy litany
Drab for color
Old for young
Plain for beautiful
Forgotten for remembered
He says
Me for you
Death for life
Life, everlasting.
I had not expected you to be
Consumed in a blast of politicized mambo-jumbo
Then just as suddenly
Reduced to silence
when the wolves got what they came for
You–downy layer of protective hair
Beating heart, the ability to grasp and suck and distinguish
Light and the way things taste
Orange-sized child
If I could have pressed my face close
To your mother’s belly
You could have picked out my voice
Telling you how much I wanted you
To live.
Carrying Light 