August Shower

I watch you, a view
whose angles trip pictures up
beneath the footing of our daily passage.
Above, parted, are our stars.

One, singular, falls --
a smoking jewel wondering
and sluffing off the expanse of night.

The willows shudder, and we make our wishes

beneath the stars which haven’t fallen.
I look for anything worthwhile.
I search constellations
hoping to find out how and why it is
I’m here with you.
 
c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009

Testimony

Your body is bound in time, cords of colorand streaks of light.  Pressure points
and painful lines converge
and this is your testimony. No witness
to bear their thoughts
as you gently come undone.


This is the first day of spring,
and you its first humble wren of sorrow.
You dare look into the sun.



A tiny earthquake rattles a new earth.
You shake too, knowing it will not be forever
and there will certainly be rain.


c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2009

Slipping Away

I slipped away to Texas and was invincible,
I had no middle name, nobody knew
I was already twenty-eight
or that I preferred martinis at the Ten Club
because of the chocolate strawberry
hanging on the lip of the glass.

I was living here and there,
touching bases called Easter
Christmas and my father's retirement party.
Holiday gifts from Mexico,
but gray space in between.

Living there and here it's easy
to get caught in the middle.

Slipping away was having
no last name or favorite color,
going from Tuesday to Saturday in one breath
and never recalling small things

like the smell of home and the old tavern
in Spring Lake where you can still get a drink
for two bucks any day.

(In Reynosa the margaritas are only fifty cents.)
At three a.m. drunk on good tequila
when I stumbled to my door no one knew back home
that I had driven blindly on a foggy night,
seeing patches of road but missing my exit.

It takes twice as long to get somewhere
when you can't see what's in front of you.

This is slipping away.



c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2001

Crux, 1992

I am not comforted by knowing
that he bleeds from his hands and his side
while I rest two thousand years away.
It doesn't make tears stop coming
to think of him with arms
stretched wide as darkness
falls over everything.

I cannot be reached by promises
nor by crucifixion. I can't be bought
by words I've memorized and never understood.

My knees bent I
cannot take this drink. Too much
wine already runs my veins
and holy blood is not shed
to mix with mine.

I want to listen
to whispers that have fallen
silent. I know now
how the shallow breath of prayer is deep
and grace is not a word I hear in church
and write off with a grin and wait
for gods to fall over me when I
cannot pray or hope or hate.

The words I want to feel are alive
but not in me.

A golden cross
strung from the ceiling
reflects the lights from the sanctuary.
I approach the altar pray
I will be strong enough to fall
on my knees again like all the others
and believe.

When the wine
touches my lips I am changed
if only for a moment; I am part god,
part anger and I can taste only wine
not blood.
                         Let this cup pass from me.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1992

Ash Wednesday

I am wearing your shirt
and it smells like cinnamon, sweet
vanilla, Chianti. I watch the clock, humming the minutes
till you come home.

The moon is fighting
with winter’s wilting hands, threatening spring.
I am warm and nearly blind, staring into the fire, one ear

always listening for the welcome whir
of the garage door opening, your footsteps
shuffling across the cement, the turn
of the doorknob and the occasional
accidental setting off of the burglar alarm
cutting through the easy night with cries
sharper than the screams of an angry woman.

Tonight, I’ve offset the alarm and you come in
smelling like bread and beer, cigarette smoke
and draw me to you, weak with hunger and with thirst.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

Behind the House

I planted marigolds
to soften and color the perimeter
of our shed. As they fade
to peach and die I lay my heart down
written in stone and weathered
by the unrelenting seasons.

My love lay like webs
curled and half buried
with empty husks where baby spiders
emerge, primitive and hungry
and the words can not be read anymore but it doesn’t matter
as the branding never fades.

It never fades. I kiss the sweat off your shoulders
as they shudder and I taste the salt
of dusty boat launches, of hours alone
with books and pens and paper,
of televisions blaring the same movies and dreams.

You sing the low down you done
cheated me blues and chased a million

stinging bees into the mists
fast as an electric hummingbird sucking
liquid meth out of a feeder covered in
DARE stickers hanging off a tree
out behind the house.

Your fists rock

and you drum
the beats of the margins and lines
and in your rhythmic
staccato blasts out behind the shed
you sing to the only angel you'll ever know.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

University Park, Chicago

In a field of statues, you
and I are laughing at the pigeons, breaking open
a warm, ripe pomegranate which you tell me
is the fruit of good intentions. We eat to fill
but the seeds are small, and we are starving.
It’s spring and everything is flowering.


We talk about this, and about the end of courses,
a wedding, a distant dream of Europe.
All this hope, our very best


smiles fighting off this darkness coming up in me.
I can barely see its face, don’t know its name, yet
I welcome it as a friend, become enraptured
in the idea of blackness, as in love.
I am in love


and nothing here makes sense. We drink another glass of wine
and toast the skyline, disbelieving.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1994

Turnings

for my father


In gardens he still

works the ground until it gives
and turns beneath the steady weight
of the till.

My father, stronger than the devil, never
knew to whisper soft to daughters
who needed him.


But to the fields
of dill and strawberries and sometimes
rows and rows of giant
flowers I never could name, he
spoke gently, making everything turn
softly toward the sound of him.


On summer nights he let me
ride the tractor wheel
and I watched earth turn
while he sat silently behind,
the statue of my childhood,
whispering soft to the rising stalks of corn
while guiding the course of the tractor
and my life.


A quiet northern breeze always came
gently from somewhere beyond
dark red blueberry fields,

blowing his breath into my hair.

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1993

Confessional

Fresh cut flowers on my bureau

scatter your breath around my room.
Each day I am astounded again
by my silence.


I have not spoken for weeks


though I have whispered angry prayers
and I have borrowed sighs from the wind.


Joy is a word rusty from neglect. I am
the Holy Mary of Remorse, lighting candles
to your absence and sending out a prayer
before snuffing out your memory
and damning you for your sins.


I stand in paraffin, my feet steadfast,
my blood coursing, dancing
beneath my pale skin.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

Composting

Mid-summer I ripped up all the brown-eyed susans,

imagining your brown thumb's reproach
as I fed them to the tiny heap.
Self-seeded poppies join the growing
mound by bushels in September,
along with rhubarb, corn stalks,
over-ripe tomatoes. I dump out


exhausted soil from indoor pots,
impatiens dreary from the summer sun
and yards and yards of grapevine
topped off by cabbage heads
reduced to stench and slime from early frost.


When winter came so did the flu.
I was sick with it most of the season,
dreaming deliriously of being barrowed out
to toss with the pungent brussel sprouts.
but finally spring came, and my fever broke.


So here I am at the pile, and I
with you, am gloriously overcome.


The trash we sorted has nurtured every root
and my strawberries are coming up like ants.


c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

Nine Months

Nine months has come and gone.
Nothing is what it was and
too much is the same.


I look out the kitchen window
at the yard, full of boxes and yesterdays
and zinnias and sunflowers too
not knowing at the time how important
the sprouting of seeds could be.

The backyard is spotty, patchy
where the dogs had come in after the geese.
The house has become empty walls.

You’ve unearthed the trueness of yourself
and I am having your child.


Inside, the walls hold me
weeping every time you let me down
and they no longer sustain me.
There are cobwebs, dirty tiles.


You step into the morning
and speak with eyes
your misgiven love for what those walls gave
when we needed it the most.

Who do you love, baby? Who do you love?


c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2005

Silences

Summer


My mother gave me diamonds
when I was nine. I took them
with clumsy hands, emptied them
from the blue satin satchel, then
took them outside to see
what colors they made when
the sunlight settled over them.


Wanting to see a pathway of stars, I
tossed them into the drive
and delighted in the way the streams of
light danced across the yard, and all the rocks --
even the gravel -- changed from gray and brown
to silver and blue and gold.

I called to the window for her to come and see
the heaven of stones outside, to come and feel
the way a sack of stars scattered
made the whole day seem part of a dream
when you wake and find your pillow damp
with tears, smiling.


But the look on her face
when she set eyes on my rapture
of rainbows rising over the drive --
when she saw the gift thrown away, just
tossed outside like yesterday’s trash -- told me

I had wounded her by failing
to see what she meant.

      The silence between us now
      is like the silence between us then.
      My delight is her dismay, again.
      Opening my throat is like opening a bottle of sand
      and pouring it over the words
      I almost said.
                               I couldn't speak.
                               Not then, not now.


Autumn

Autumn always brought geese, v-shaped flocks
flying south. She would take me outside, point

to the sky, show me
the wonder there: she saw it


for a second that flickered like a falling leaf, caught it
like one catches a glimpse of a diamond
before it is swallowed in the sand.


And then she sad that the wind was cold
and that it was no wonder the birds went south.

My mother hated fall.
The browns, the golds, the rusts
could only mean one thing: death.
Summer was dying
and soon the windows would be covered with frost.

I bathed in the leaves
that had drifted into beds of color.
I could taste life
in the smell of them, could live there
forever.


          The silence was cool. She was inside.
          I was here.


Winter


The world was white with wonder, and I
was no better for it. I watched from within
while the wind howled at the windows, while Jack Frost
etched diamond secrets on the panes.


Once the last black cloud had drifted eastward, she dressed me
in my warmest, wrapped me tight like a tiny Jesus so tight
I couldn’t touch my boots. Then she took me
to the outside magic land of wonder, all new.


Her eyes sparkled like icicles, warming in the sun,
and she seemed so much a part of the masterpiece
until she ran inside
to escape Old Man Winter’s cold hands.


                                            But I let them catch me.


          Sometimes I lie in the snow
          and talk to Orion.  The geese are south;
          I am older.  She is inside.
                           There is no silence like this.


Spring

The April lake is still as cold
as frostbite, but the air is changing.
I can see her changing.

Her face is brighter, the color of new roses

blossoming on her cheeks.


I am sure that spring is here.


There are no patches of white on the ground, no ice
hanging from the roof.  Easter lilies
are growing by the clothesline.

Resurrection is blooming like geraniums
and I feel it breathing in my hair.


She has given me her diamond necklace.
I take it with slender white hands, tie
the silver clasp tightly around my neck.
 
She says I seem so much a lady.
 
I feel the cool of diamonds burning on my neck and wonder
at how they are so cautiously strung
                                                         never to be scattered.


They glisten like a circle of stars
about my neck, though I’m not so sure diamonds
were fashioned for daughters like me.


c. Melissa K. Dalman, 1993

Gone Fishing

You’ve never been one to fish,

but you wait patiently as I do.


We’ve been on the boat for hours
without one catch. Not a single snapshot
to tape to the refrigerator, Caught that walleye
at the Willows, I might say.


Not one catch.  


I work at the bait shop

to pay for my fancy for trendy clothes
and for your addiction. I look good in blue.
And you’ve got that new tattoo on your right arm.


You buy my worms and hooks.
and the fish take it all for free
but avoid the hook.

The water turns from clear to cloudy
as the sky darkens and the horizon is bright with endings.


I make my way to the back of the boat, to the tackle box
and the cooler. I wish I could say why it is that I come
and bring you here with me.


The water reflects in the murky bank.
The sun threatens to disappear.

Behind the walls of the willows
is a backdrop of cottony clouds.
I can see the fish in the river
peering at me through the moving tide.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2007

Humpty Dumpty was PUSHED!

(Before reading, please consider and please, if you would, comment: would this be too disturbing to turn into a kind of children's storybook?)

Humpty Dumpty was an eggwho had a brain and two strong legs.
An expert climber, Humpty found
his feet felt better off the ground.
He scaled the walls of Nurseryland
with a karabiner and a rubber band.

The highest wall was twelve feet tall,
(which is monstrous to an egg, and all),
and Humpty, who was very brave,
tossed up his ropes and then he gave
a whoop, a yell, and one loud Helloooo,


and Nurseryland watched Humpty go
and up and up to the top
and when he got there, well, he stopped.


Nurseryland cheered and shots rang out
until they heart Miss Muffet shout,
“Oh look! Look out! Oh someone, quick!
It’s Nimble Jack with his candle stick!”


And sure enough, the whole world saw
Jack with Humpty on that wall,
and Jealous Jack, now filled with hate
had been the best pluck show to date.
Now Humpty’s gig made old Jack’s leap
seem small as a twitter from Little Bo Peep.


And before Mother Goose or any King’s Man
could warn up to Humpty, Jackie Boy ran
and gave Humpty a shove, and threw up his hat
and hooted for joy when Humpty went SPLAT!

So you thought you knew the nursery rhyme well,
but no one there would ever dare tell
on whom lies the blame. We called it a fall.
But Humpty was really pushed off that wall.

c. Melissa K. Dalman-Furbush, 2000

Second Thoughts on Creation

I will bring you to the oleanders,
gathering in the arbors of my dreams.
I will guide you into that sullen meadow
through vines and ivy, loosestrife,
thriving upon its own destruction.


I will wrap you in goldenrod,
gossamer mists and blossoms of cherries.
Sunken deep in the murk, a lullaby.

Down by the night-blanched willows
a slumbering cougar waits.

I slouch, knowing scars
are forever. But without destroying
the sweetness of pale and perfect skin
how can I possibly hope to create?

c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2007

Dawning

The yard is landscaped in autumn.
I catch sight of myself in crushed leaves,
embers and the haze rising off the lake.


I am alive only in fields
of fire-orange poppies and the occasional
accidental brown-eyed susan.
I watch for Mars out the screen door, drunk with hope.

Every thought I have is brilliant
and years passing are no more
than minutes scurrying through the woodpile.


***

The tempered light spiderwebs,
leaving a round bruise in my otherwise perfected life.
What can I offer? A life


like an accident scene, a barreling freight train now derailed.
The season outside my window becomes winter.


***

It occurs to me that I am no longer delicate.

I lap water from the dog’s dish, an option
on the way to heaven.
                                    I can’t answer to love
or death; the two are symbiotic now.

But the fish in their bowls are coming to
after months of swimming in sludge.


c. Melissa K. Dalman, 2007

A Song so Small

The days now are like trying to remember a book
read years ago, beloved but elusive now. I’ve read books
that have changed me forever, and I can tell you titles
but not words or why, maybe not even who wrote them.

For over half a year we were the same girl, a communion
not really holy but perfect nonetheless. You were a little stranger
who I loved, thriving on me and reaching your spirit outward
to your father’s, your brother’s, becoming us at once.


The first time I felt you move was at a Springsteen show,
my little rock and roll doll. Some say it was the noise
just startling you, but there is music in your blood
and I think that’s the day your soul caught fire.


My darling bygone baby, this world is mean
but I would have sheltered you. You
in your incubator with tubes and threads
I forgot how to pray but had you stayed
I think it might have come back to me.


There was only the one time we heard your voice.
We strained our ears to hear you
and you hit each note just right
and composed your sweetest and singular song.
Your voice has gone with you
to the earth, to the sky, to the stars, to the air.

But your song is not too small to remember
or too short rise up, arms stretched to the wind, to sing aloud.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

Sonnet for Molly

for Molly Michele Furbush
                      2.2.08 - 2.8.08



You moved in me like butterflies, light
and tumbled stories of your would-be plights.
You rocked to Beatles and rolled to Brahms

and often woke me to kiss me goodnight.


But little bird, you came too soon
to this city covered in ice and snow.
My little hand-held tinker-doll,
you clung to my fingers and the earth turned


so slow. Your eyes were sealed
but in dreams they are blue
so like your father’s. I saw him in you.


My sweet little should’ve been, I held you to me
and felt your last heart beat sigh with what I wanted to be


but like all perfect things, you had to be free.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

Beloved Remorse

Is it wrong that my grief
outweighs the child?  I have sacrificed
my sound mind and have taken up
a cup so bitter the ants turn away from me.


I did not choose her lilywhite casket, and had nothing to say early on
whether to bury or burn, whether to speak or remain
mute. 
            I was unprepared
for the wind, the earth
quake, the tide, the rumble in the sky and the tired
old earth turning
up the grass.

                     I think it’s my spirit
I heard when the lightening crashed.


                                Crackle Shoom Damn.

Don't be afraid, my raindrop baby
and don't you fear what comes next,
my sweet little never-kids.  We are free

after all.  We are together
and we are Home.

c. Melissa K. Furbush, 2008

Playground Rules

I knew the Ten Commandments and The Golden Rule before I could spell my name. I knew the twenty-third psalm. Not just memorized, but absorbed---like extra ribs in my chest. I was reminded of them whenever I saw others committing forbidden acts. I recalled friends who sneaked into the coatroom at school to pop their outlawed bubble gum, and the filling station man who always told my Aunt Teddie she needed a quart of oil when she didn't. She would just smile and say, "Thanks, I'm about to get it changed anyway." I figured her answer was sort of like turning the other cheek.

I think I did just fine with those Eternal Rules, honoring them to the fullest as the years went by. Yes, all was close to textbook until that one day at Spider Lake. Spider Lake was my getaway. It was so different from the fast pace of Chicago, and it restored me with its calmness. It was like a secret elixir with its muddy shorelines and caramel-green colored waters. The fern glades were so open and inviting, like alleys into a happy realm I had long since lost. There were mushrooms everywhere, bright-colored and poisonous. I bathed in the coolness of its waters, tasted its purity. It was the rekindling of my sleeping little spirit.

This day, my uncle Duncan drove me to the lake and left me with a dollar seventy-five to buy ice cream and a soda. I found my way down to the pier that led to the dock. It was a hot and humid August day, and my thoughts drifted back to the advent of another school year, less than a month away. I was reminded that summer was fleeting, like sleep being interrupted by shards of daylight through the blinds.

I sat there with my root beer and plain vanilla ice cream, mesmerized by the things around me. The river swept by, curling itself around the pine knees then dancing away with its trail of leaves and algae. At my foot, I noticed a cord tied to a post on the dock. I pulled at it, and felt something heavy on the end. My curiosity got the best of me, so I hoisted it up. It was a net, and it contained a six-pack of beer. Had someone left it there to cool beneath the dock? Was it a gift from some devil who tempted teenage girls with the stains of adulthood?

Playground rules came to mind. Finders keepers! Oh, and no one was there---no one to see, no one to tell. I stared at the cool dripping cans with a strange lust. Surely this cannot be me, slipping into the woods with my prohibited fruit. I found a resting-place in the forest, away from prying eyes. The sumac leaves obscured me from anyone approaching the dock, and there were no sounds except the distant staccato of a woodpecker and the drone of the cicadas.

As I sat beneath a towering spruce, I cracked open the first can and drank deep. The bittersweet taste of my father’s beer. It tasted illicit and sharp, but I swallowed hard and took big gulps till my head began to spin.

I drank four cans before being dashed away on a magical carpet ride. My body was vacated as I rose aloft. I could see everything below, as if perched among the tallest trees. My view was spectacular. Below me were my old schoolteachers and my principal. They convened a class without me, but all my papers were in order. The principal spoke to the assembly of beaming faces. I relished the moment he named me "Class Most Creative." A peculiar young girl with a precocious talent for sketching and poetry, and I wanted recognition for my hard work.

Then, in a flash, all these things vanished, like a vacant stage after the second bow. I felt something at my side. It was my Uncle Dunc, nudging me with his boot. I remember thinking his face wouldn't hold still. He had two of everything.

The ride home went swiftly. There was no conversation. Lights in houses flashed by like a midnight train. Abruptly, I recognized the cottage front porch, with its painted wooden floor and the glider nestled in its grapevine canopy. Dunc lifted me inside the house and lay me down on the sofa; my awareness still swooning above me like smoke from the chimney. My grandmother came to my side. She stood towering above me, her face obscured in the dim light. She seemed at least twelve feet tall.

No bathtub could contain the amount of shame that I bathed in that night. My grandmother made it worse. There was no lecture, no scolding. There was only the look of hurt on her face. What had happened to my commitment to those Eternal Rules? There I had been, drinking forbidden elixir, and worse, stealing from some thirsty fisherman who returned to find but an empty net. He would have harsh words to say, and no one there to hear.

Despite my misgivings the night before, there indeed was a dawn the next day. The sun was unusually bright as I sat at the breakfast table with blueberry pancakes and fresh honeydew. The scolding I dreaded never came. My grandmother rushed about in her usual way before Sunday services, and my Uncle Duncan arrived on time to drive us to the chapel.

That morning, my place on the hard oak pew was unusually comforting. I suppose it was because I had survived a double-sin. But something else was different now; I was listening, and I was hearing. When the pastor made his invitation, something seemed to lift me out of my seat. I found myself at the front of the church but my feet never touched the floor.

30

Thirty is here, rusty
ghost, dumb thumb suckerfish old maid card
in a losing game.

I am mad. (no really mad          gone
for the longest hike    screws falling out dark scary elevator marbles
long gone blood curdles skin creeps)

Already thirty and still alone, wasted time lies
like roadkill behind me.

A promising young woman at nineteen becomes
the lumpy old hag at thirty.
Becomes a wasteland of old toys and memorabilia
that should have been chucked at twenty-five.

I fight strange urges every day,
to rainbow stripe my hair
or break my leg. I’ve had two concussions this year

though I hardly think they are to be blamed
for this walking horror show zombie doll
tired and also dumb. Slightly sad
blowing out candles on a cake decorated with stars.

My Message

Bland scarlet birds scatter
across the grotesque late March snow.

The fiery warning of sunset grinds closer
to the dunes, who cringe from its flames.

I draw the blinds, but looking out the window
all I see is my reflection, a pebble face
with snow for eyes.

A carbon monoxide song, I can’t
hear it, cries danger, cries loss, cries shame.

I count my fingers, check my throat.
I put my hand in front of my mouth,
feel the heat from my breath.

It’s warm, and smells like frost.

August Collection

Eventually everything falls into place, into slender white arms collecting loosestrife and lace.Carp rotting on the shores of the Grand, a stench pungent and flowing into the gentle grass. The river starts inland on the hills from where it divides into rivulets like a crying child.I cast my lure, timing the hum of the reel.
I wash myself in the murky waters of the river.
It sings a song, bearing new things to come.

It is finally alive
with cattails and willows and reeds.
A turtle tumbles off a rock without a splash.
The basement of this river doesn’t want to be touched.

It is muck and algae and catfish and leeches.
But from above, it caresses me

and speaks words reliable
as the wind, or as a rock on the riverbank. The sun begins to set. Fish jump at dragonflies.

My reel spins. The river is spinning. You are a river.

Fishing for Bass

My sneakers go well with my long legsand my jeans from the thrift store.I ride shotgun, not minding the gravel as it bounces us around
to Indian Channel where we put the boat in.

I hold the ropes. You step around to nobly offer
a hand, which I bypass and step to the grey and white carpet of the boat.

I dip a delicate hand into the waters –it is warm, good for fish. As we speed to the bayou
I am flying, imagining Viking ships
and roaming cruise liners alike.
I would wear heels and a satin dress, empress waistline and a slit from the calve to the hip.
I think the color would be bright blue
as the waters over which we glide.

We settle near the lily pads to fish for bass.
You are an expert; I, your apprentice.
I have not caught one thing. But you untangle my lines,
teach me to thread the worm onto the hook
and cast, and I know that I am loved

because you brought me here.

Ordinary Things

(Second Place winner in the Winterfest 2005 Poetry Contest, Grand Haven, MI)


She peels off her day, slip, brassiere, panties, layers nurtured for an audience.
At the open window she strips off nylons, the cross at her neck, flings hairpins
onto her bureau then leans naked over the sill, and stares down into the city.
In its bat blackness and stark white lights, blinking, she balls up her stockings
and takes aim.

Below, a man snatches a sheer-dangled leg, rips the ghost
of her foot as it catches on the dumpster's open gap.
He sniffs the remnants of her ordinary day; ankles crossed
under a desk, imagined feet clacking
on pavement as she runs. She wears a pink scarf flared
at the throat as she tries to make the bus, her heel slipping
in and out of her toe.

This man has stumbled across the history of a woman's foot scribbled to the quickened draw of his lip, upward to nostril.

His pulse quickens as she turns out the light.

No Need to See You

for Michael


How many lifetimes have I listened
to the waterfalls of your voice, the waltz
of your laugh? The meter of your steps, measured
and sure, the sigh of your breath, the sweet
slam of the door when you are coming home.

When it’s you on the line, I know
that draw of your breath before you speak.

With you near, the air turns to cinnamon,
vanilla, willows breathe grass and everything
is suddenly early May.

When you leave, you scatter
the scent of mimosas and rain.
I’m left with the aftertaste
of a fabulous tawny port,
my ears -- they sing!

If I were a blind woman in a crowded room, I would know you.

Highway 9 at Midnight

Anymore, I don’t care so much
about speed bumps, stop signs, fifth floor ledges,
you.


I watch your eyes like stoplights, the warnings
always present, signaling when to stop
or go or take a turn. I can hear you, can see
you there with warm arms and promises; but

with you I could never be
what I needed to keep me
strong and upright, could never
hold what I knew it was
all burning inside where the anger
and the cool lamp of what it is I love about you
are the same.

I never tire of this,
trying to find you where you are not.
I will keep moving, keep my fists tight
on the wheel, knowing that now

there is just this road,
this long flat of Indiana
empty fields and a sign
telling me to stop soon.But I keep driving, zoning
into the yellow lines drawn to keep me
from passing,

and the wild shoulder of the road sprinting by.

The State You're In

Look now, the midnight wind is laughing
because you are wild-eyed crying over something
you want but can’t have and have
but don’t want.

Did you think it’d be so cold
when the snow is melting in rivulets to the gutters
and the sky is breaking and sometimes, even though
it is still January, the sun
pokes its head through the ashen clouds
to get a better look at you -- The Fool

who thought she could take on a king, become more
than a bitter little girl, ex-con and ex-
rambler, dozing on roadsides and popping pills
while the fortunate ones and this king in particular

cruised past in their sleek silver
cars, speed of light, while you
tasted exhaust and felt the dust, that old grit in your teeth, coming out
your pores and spilling over onto the earth, filling in
your footsteps and washing them away.

Stay in. Listen.
The wind is crossing over, coming through your screen
and the laughter is fading. I hear a whisper.

It says your name, and it sighs.

The Red Shoes

I always knew who I would be. Not a fair maiden, goose girl, crone; no waitingfor some prince to come jogging in a white Spandex suit and kiss me awake.

In my bedroom mirror, I faced the wall and mapped out my world, examined my body
for quirks and bumps, pondered the ways to power. I learned to sit like a lady, stand tall,
walk evenly and swing dance gracefully in tilted, pinching faux leather red shoes. I painted my lips red, lowered my eyes to eyeshadow and mascara, then raised them to see
not a princess, but no old crow.
I’ve imagined myself a wedding dress, simple
and unique. I stood before my mirror and spun.
Sunlight came in through the drapes and sliced
my green bedroom floor. I had a plan. I was dressed in silk walking through a field of wildflowers and he came riding on his horse, milky white with eyes black and full as oceans. You, he said, draping his hand. We touched and then he galloped away. I woke in a cold sweat
because this time I had seen his face.

All that winter I tried to teach myself
to waltz and mend, tried on heels and corsets,
dresses with matching gloves. I walked barefoot
through our hardwood halls, my white cotton
gown clinging to my young body.

Once, I said lightly, it’s so bright in here, and drew the shades.

I spent my mornings this way. And in my bed late, my father snoring in the next room
I’d sit silent as I undid my necklaces and pulled off my rings. I’d stand and lean my body into the mirror ignoring the freckles on my nose. I traced my profile
and watched my heart-shaped face float in the mirror in the obscure candlelight. I’d breathe, remembering your touch.

That same year we saw bulls fighting.
I retched on the car ride home, but you did not.I tried to learn how and when and why. I tried to take in everything. No good.

Through taupe, beige, shabby brown, mud-black bruises, rags – I glowed, inhuman, pale and sweet as apple flesh. I stood it as long as I could. I could wait no more and
I danced that night, alive, in new, pinching, painful red shoes.

In the Willows

This is my regret:
that the air is cool and quiet here
and geese line the riverbank like guards
and the sun is setting red and orange
and grey over the dark shadows
on the horizon and I have kept this
all from you: this silence of solitude,
this dance with what I know of death.

The deer come to this clearing
to evade the hunters in the woods.
But out here they are wide open
with no trees to hide them.
And I with my long white legs
and the last rays of sunlight
glinting in my hair
am a beacon.

Notice me.

I am frightened as a young deer.

Notice me.

Fill your eyes with my nakedness
and loose your fire over me.

Things You Press

Look at me now, so pretty

and so bright. Nevermind
that I am brittle, a jaded girl
with skin soft to look at
but so dry it crumbles at your touch.

I am no shy little violet, no baby
rose or easy, silken butterfly.

I'm a girl trapped inside
a gift from you, an emptiness
that wraps itself around me like cellophane.

I'm not an Easter lily, or a daisy
for that matter. This is to you, my dark singer, carrier of evenings and moonlight and art. You did this to me; you made me frail.
You spread your suffocation on my body.
You made me into someone else.

You folded me into a book
and put me on a shelf.

Walking the Dogs

On a busy street, on one of those
mid-autumn afternoons
your black lab is barking
to oak branches above
and a murder of crows.

They stare at each other, black eyes
blacker bodies and speak
the private languageof swift black things.

Is it the season or the birdsthat make the trees seem
so skeletal? Do the birds come only after things have paired down
to muck in the street?

My dog barks her agreement heavenward. Only when
the unclean undercarriage of daily life sees day
do these things congregate, call out, speak to one another.

Indian Giver

In our garden, you are blossoming. You give
and you take you take so much.
You are still an angel, the boon giver.

I lay you down as sweet as honey and you
are only for me, all mine.

When I tune the violin the music moves like waves.
And in our separation, my eyes flow like rivers we’ve fished.
My eyes become the boat, and we glide through the rough waters.
The shining moon still sees your face, even through haze.

You are an Indian giver. You give, you take. I want you
to return to me, and stay. Your gentle smile has become the taste for me.
But the darkness your eye-brows sheds seem to be nightsand I cannot wait till morning
to lay you down sweet as honey, and for real.
Don’t take it away. You gave it to me.
I want you and I will stay.
I need you
And I will obey

Because you were mine, Indian giver.
You were mine and you can’t take that away.

Late Memorial

Electronic speakers replaced the rusted bell at St. Mary’s;
on my way homethe synthetic clang
sounded for a funeral.


The Keltasaurus is dead.
I felt rain on dried blood
as panic thundered and my mind flooded
with wet leaves; heavy green memories
dripping with the fragments of a ghost.


He was thirty-two when he choked on his vomit
after mouthwash and beer for eight days straight.
His body lay in the cemetery for eight months
before we took time to remember him.

Loss preaches loss over the initiation of raindrops
cruelly pummeling oak leaves. I arrive home
to a squall of sobbing branches, rain soaked
neighbors with cell phones and concerned faces.

The yard was submerged in green,
surging with each sheet of rain.

I still hear the old church bell, damp and blunt,
startling our neighbor's calico cat. She was hunting
wet rabbits in the uncut grass, oblivious to the death toll.

There is No Wizard of Oz

There is no man behind the curtain,
no diamond in the rough.

The X doesn’t mark the spot, only sand

tossed by the Lake Michigan’s waves.



The shooting star has long ago fallen
so turn round back on the road
paved in hope of asphalt
to chase this spinster’s sorrows.

I see him there, behind smoke and screens,
glamour and half truths
and a curtain to reveal
an empty space, unyielding to this stranger.

But, beneath it’s lofty folds
the curtain has shaken loose its bindings
to expose a man; just a man
who does not exist.