A poem about...

 
The Salvation Army cot  
was scary as shit.

Not the cot, it was  
unassuming,  
and not the worst  
bed I’d ever slept on.  
 
But being in it,  
hearing the snorks  
and snores  
and cries  
and night noises  
from the other lost members  
of the  
loser  
tribe  
triggered a  
flight instinct that  
I had no way to follow through on.  
 
But it was better  
than the crank rage,  
broken walls,  
and screaming demons  
in bloodshot eyes we’d fled;
 
fled for now.  
 
Fresh out of rehab,  
or prison,  
or a binge,    
or wherever she  
went when she  
was gone,  
she’d make a manic  
effort to clean up  
and look like a  
good  
single mom  
 
which generally involved  
a different couch
in some  
shitty place that didn’t  
account for kids  

It’d usually end with  
me alone for days  
with no phone,  
no electric,  
scraping mustard  
onto a crust of old bread  
in a strange world,  

until social service  
would invariably pick me  
up and take me  
to my grandparents.  
 
Their home was the  
only place I always  
had a bed.  
 
But the first night,  
-- I was 9 --  
that I woke up on  
a cot in a shelter,  
is how I  
identify fear now.  
 
Things I can’t run from.  
Things I can't control.  
Things that reduce me to no one.  
 
I hid under the green blanket  
and just counted, and  
chanted, and did the  
weird things small  
children do when  
they lock up  
in their own heads  
 
to pass the night.  
 
In the morning,  
we sat at a long  
church-style social table  
with clear plastic over  
the stained tablecloth,  
and ate plain cornflakes  
with watery powdered milk.  
 
It was the worst cereal I’d ever eaten.  
 
I grew up in the cereal glory days  
where everything was so sugar-  
spiked that you could rot your teeth  
looking at the box,  
and there was always a puzzle  
on the back, or a  
strange plastic gizmo  
at the bottom.  
 
So the soggy, plain  
cornflakes  
were alien to my little palate.  
I looked around for sugar  
but a woman with  
unwashed hair was  
shoving the packets in her pocket.  
 
I choked them down,  
the bland taste turning to  
ashes and coating my  
throat with dread    
as  
she
prattled brightly  
about how we’d go back  
because we  
overreacted  
to the couch  
going through the  
sliding glass door.  

The couch I slept on.
 
I associate things with trauma.  
Like everyone else on the planet.  
 
And I eat  
plain  
cornflakes  
 
every  
fucking  
morning  
 
as a reminder  
that flight is  
an illusion.

Boffins are finding such strange stuff        
lurking inside tiny Atoms,      
Why' there just don't seem room enough      
for Electrons and the Neutrons        
without those Protons and Bosons        
Fermions, Leptons and the Quarks,        
tight packed, like paired Dolly Partons,        
now, I'm spinning towards a lark.        
        
When they've stripped Atoms to the buff        
and found even the Tachyon,        
and the one which keeps us handcuffed        
to the ground, the glue, Graviton.        
My hope then is that they'll keep searching on        
until they find some tiny spark        
of the Chronon and the Morton        
because, the truth of these is rather stark.      
      
Ghosts from ages past might sigh, " tough...        
enough,' with this drab carry on,        
why,' in our day death's good enough        
and what's with Mortons and Chronons?"        
Ah, dear ghost, I made these up from        
Mort(death) & Chronus(time) a lark,        
I'm tangled in these, my swan song?        
but, fast spinning towards my dark...

In blackened dreams
a mist descends from the hills

Unsuspecting

Only the dust moves,
like a funeral veil of melancholy

Sorrow

The traveler of unknown plains
through darkness & light

Confused

Flowers of desirable bloom
Lethal in touch and smell

Death

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place

“Ash Wednesday” -T.S. Eliot; after “The Hollow Men” T.S. Eliot

Not with a bang but a whimper we discover on
the eve of our fourth anniversary, following years
of a conception improbability. We surrender
our dreams of having a family for Icelandic tours, and
 weekly Manhattan martinis. What gives you away
is three weeks of nausea and an incessant craving for lime.
We pee on a stick and start scrapbooking promptly.
We cottage with parents, still keep you a secret for
weeks tenderly observing your growth; I find it sublime
and precious because I know that time is always time.

Trimester two, there is so much to do.
The furniture rearranges, necessities ordered:
a carrier, a car seat, a chemical-free bassinet.
Fireworks expel into tiny pink stars, revealing
your gender at our family picnic. I miss them while
throwing up near a brush of the mean Herb-of-Grace.
Your Nannas start knitting warm blankets, and
sweaters in pastel palettes of pre-softened cotton. We
want the best for you, buy more for our space though
we know place is always and only place.

Auntie Jane hosts a baby shower, by now I’m quite
tired. We scrub adulthood from our apartment and call
that child-proofing; our home fills with locks and stable gates.
Check our car brakes, pack carriers for the day, we can’t wait.
Dad gains fifteen pounds with me, for sympathy, he says
though admittedly I’m jealous of him still drinking wine.
Others tell me I’m ready to birth, very heavy, swelled
ankles, poor strength, waddling, carelessly succumbing
to hunger for sex and sweet treats on a dime;
aware that what is actual is actual only for one time.

Afternoons liquifying before your arrival.
Some blood and an accompanied ride to the hospital,
one overnight bag, and the sorrow-filled faces of
nurses and doctors and dad and your grandparents
and I couldn’t remember for even one moment you’ve
stopped breathing in your space.
Birthing a corpse like we have no connection, maternal
me dies with your little blue body; I fail you, I fail us. If
only we rewind time, change outcome for this one case.
Just for this one time. And only for one place.

 
.
  .
    .
      a
         s
              I  
                  watch your descent into the madness
I feel blue for whatever is happening to you
Seeing you fall deeper into that blackness
Makes my heart ache for the person I once knew
 
Thinking I should extend a helping hand
As I watch your decent into the madness
I really try to sympathize and understand
Hoping you will come out of this badness
 
But you’ve gone too far into that sadness
I can’t climb down or jump into the abyss
As I watch your descent into the madness
I feel helpless at the edge of the precipice  
 
So in the image of you in this psychotic state
I see your soul has been stripped of gladness
Wondering what will be of this dire fate
As I watch your descent into the m
                                                          a
                                                              d
                                                                  n
                                                                    e
                                                                       s  
                                                                         s
                                                                          .
                                                                          .
                                                                          .

 
You swam a splendid race, my lad,  
as fast as any fish!  
The gun went Bang! and out you sprang  
and gave your tail a swish,  
 
then moving swiftly, up you went,  
the leader of the pack!  
You led the field, you did not yield,  
and never once looked back;  
 
but tragedy, alas it came,  
as it is wont to do,  
you banged your head against that egg –  
a sperm had beaten you!  
 
A mournful tear rolled down your face,  
the saddest sight to see,  
but had you won, not been undone,  
I wonder who I'd be.  
 
 
🙃

She waits for the seduction,
for his hand between her legs.
All lemon verbena
and wires buttressing her limbs.

She swallows carnations.
Beach glass.
Is plagued by the fluttering
of finches beneath her dress.

When he arrives it's a symphony,
breathless and contrived.
The dark choreography
of his fingers in her,

her thighs that ache to spread
like wings.

At dawn he'll leave her sprawled
on the massive four-poster,
all sequins and feathers,
one glassy eye.

The scar on her belly
where the cotton slips out.