wordweeds

When Lewy
bodies in the brain
locked his arm midair,
and I lifted the forkful
of eggs to his open lips,
my mouth opened too,
the way mothers’ mouths do
while feeding their infants.
The unexpected gift:
I finally learned
to forgive him
for forgiving
himself.

2018

For Derek

The sonnet makes so many students groan
As if I’ve offered them a bowl of mud
If they were cats, the sonnet’s a dog bone.
No love of artful language fuels their blood.
Shakespeare’s long dead, no use to their rich lives
Of spending every minute on the phone.
“Off and away,” I say; their eyes are knives,
Perhaps the tiny screen is their hearts’ home.
I get it—know the small black mirror’s lure,
The raunchy memes, the vines, the sexy text!
But still, such techno banter is manure
In which to sprout a bard’s mind, so complex.
Groan as they may until the couplet’s done,
Some even say they had a little fun.

2018

Dad gives me this:
Please remember
If I ever forget you,
I will never forget you.

2018

Money auto-deposits monthly.
After years of milk-struggle,
Salary freeze, and now, slow gains,
Finally, a small measure of security.
Why would I give up
Living small and safe on the plains
For a new people and place.

I’m not rich but.
I can over-tip.
I can buy art.
I can save for braces.
I can fear loss of comfort.
I can remember something
I used to know about being poor.

Magic was free.
Rooms of grandma’s furniture, free.
The forgiven land loan, free.
The majesty of Friday night pizza,
The sound of a generator powering
A VHS movie on a mountaintop
For my two kids, nearly free.

Poverty gave me preciousness.
That power is gone.
Now, sickened by
My own miserly arrogance,
I recall once knowing
That not even a president
Could rob me of peace.
Like a hermit in a cell, I was free.

2018

To provide an illustration of her well-built home,
My new friend– tall, lean, salt and pepper hair,
An early Harvard girl when Harvard girls were rare,
Said she likes to hop up and down in the shower

And shake off water before stepping out into the towel.
Her husband of over forty years brought it to her attention:
Have you noted the house doesn’t shake, he lightly mentioned,
When you jump in the shower? Nodding, they both grinned.

2018

Grandpa’s final breath
Found its way into the lungs
Of my quiet son

2018

Big headed, he said,
too large to pass through,
before the vertical scalpel,
before pulling me feet first
from my mother’s riven womb,

hanging upside down
like a bloody, sleeping bat,
my mother’s warm body
for one moment–
my first lost hat.

2018

Unless rain. Campus always spotted
with students
on the lawn in solitude or small groups.
I’d walk
to the art department, a low-lying brick building.
The usual vague joy or dread
rising, not knowing
what problems I’d face before the canvas,
human sized. The welcome smell of turpentine
primed the hours ahead.
I loved that poison. Toxic anticipation.
In my corner, on a rolling shelf, a huge glass palette
the size of a table,
dried paint layered in colorful scabs,
an archeology of wounds of the current painting,
brushes thrusting
hard-end out of a mayo jar of turpentine, real turpentine—
not cheap mineral spirits for house painting,
nor the nontoxic
citrus solvent of motherhood, stealing minutes
from children—
Long hair bristle brushes gooey
with the grey sludge of oil paint sunk to the bottom.
Too lazy or cool to clean them every day or week.
Leaving brushes in that swamp—
a good way to warp or kill expensive hog bristle.
Fascinated with pseudo self portraits,
I painted many women
who vaguely looked like me with better breasts, standing
in various depths of murky red seas,
lost in vast space,
knee-deep in the horizon, crucified, Tao- or Shiva-bound,
avoiding the gaze or turning
from various men. Decades of living the paintings inside,
I took myself out of that space to
drag huge swathes
of juicy blues, whites and creamy yellows over
still large canvases—that much hadn’t changed—
to recreate clouds from above or below,
blue punctuated by sun or moon.
Now elemental light. The between in here.
As if the wooden handle is a conduit routing sky,
lit spheres and space from the body.
I disappear.

In a weary voice
The night before
A nuclear stress test:

“That’s the way it goes.
First your money
Then your clothes.”

2017-18

If a man were paddling down the Canadian River
and he lost his paddle,
how many pancakes in a doghouse?

Seventeen, because ice cream has no bones.

* * * * *

What’s the difference between a duck?

A vest, because a bicycle has no wings.

* * * * *

Why is an elephant grey?

Because a blue bird is blue.

* * * * *

How many philaramics in a platicus rex?

Six.

arkansas river
by behemoth cottonwoods
swirls of water
agitate thoughts
until a rock
or peculiar pattern
of persistent
water somewhat solid
where the eye might rest
but off I go
mosquito stings soft skin
behind the knee
to slap me
into tiny reveries
of resentment

2018

Oh, to slow, to draw,
To draw perchance to poem—
Either way: the line.

2018

with thanks to Sheila and all who tended her garden

I wasn’t exactly happy, chopping back Russian Sage
Along the carport and rock-lined drive, piling
Dusty twigs, coughing. It had to be done. Happiness
Would only come in later summer days with fresh-
Branched acrid blooms. A pay off for my pruning.
It was cold at first, then warmer as I worked. First
I shed the hat, then coat, so stopped to don a bra.

Inheriting another’s plants, you learn
How she or her renters pruned. Or not.
By ragged or planed edges, I see where women
Broke or cut back growth with hands or shears,
Or simply let nature prune with years. I guess
The ages of all those women’s backs by how
Tenaciously established is the matted grass
In crowded strawberries. They anticipated me

Or perhaps their own flagging memory by leaving
Names: be grateful for brittle plastic cards
Next to crispy plants: Bleeding hearts—Dicentra,
Virginia Creeper—Parthenocissus quinquefolia,
Silvermound—Artemisia schmidtiana nana.
And mysterious red barked trees, only one tagged:
American Red Plum—Prunus Americana.
I get out garden books and look them up,
Marvel at what sisters are willing to give space to grow.
A lover of useful medicinals, I learn to accept
Other women’s medicines of color, texture, scent.
Not all plants must be ingested. The eyes, the hands,
The taking in of nose-breath—these are mouths too.

I learn the messy logic of their winding rock-lined paths.
I learn their vision of layers—ground huggers to towers.
I learn the shapes of new leaves nestled in the clutch
Of last year’s deaths. Some stalks break like hollow straws
In my grasp, woody others need shears.
Bleached skeletons give tiny greens from their hearts.
I learn backwards, how death looks before life,
The way my sister’s face gave me a life-face.
I sprang from the center of her fade, newly bodied.

Faced with death, I try not to tug. Instead, I break stems
Flush to soil. Sometimes I do pull, examine and bend
Roots to see if they are wick, supple, rhizomes sending
Shoots. Most, if perennial, do not easily give up their grip.
In early April, some, like me, already whisper green.
Others do not. They need more wet and heat. I wait.
If they pull easily, my guess: simple annuals who carry on
By sending out black seeds. Who knows in which bed
Or designated path I will meet their lawless offspring.

2018