Severed Dreams

publ. 12-18-2013

The snore that severed me from peaceful dreams

Was his zipper, ragged as the pull stroke of a chain saw.

Though the act was six thousand and many nights ago,

The sound still rips through me as I edge toward sleep.

The cruelest wedge he drove forced comfort from my bed,

Where I might have healed when the pounding stopped.

My duvet of down and sheets of Egyptian weave don’t soothe

The girl of twelve, sobbing, shattered, on her closet floor.

The graft never takes; split forever, my seam is open to the world.

From dark to dawn, till I stand up, fully clothed,

I count the hundred saplings around her grave

And, weary, guard that little forest with my life.

FAMILY TIES

From www.nairaland.com

                           http://infectiveink.com/ for Aug 13, 2013                                             

When young Fancy came to Master’s Big Place, his birth momma, Emma, had him all hugged up in a buttercup yellow blanket.  They glimpsed each other sometimes after that. Emma sometimes found a reason to come up to the Big House and rest her scratchy palm on his head, for a second.

Betsy, the cook, took daily care of him.  At night, she would tell him ‘jump on up’ to the lumpy soft mattress behind the kitchen. Emma slept cross the yard in the Quarters with the hands.

Due to Master’s whim, as he grew, Fancy learned to eat when James, the Master’s son ate, at the low blue table, near him.  He had to be finished whenever James was, so he had to eat quickly.  After lunch, they played hoops and with the red ball.  Soon he was allowed to practice on his own slate, while Tutor Foster lectured and examined James in Master’s study or in the screened porch, if it was very hot.

Fresh Start

He dumped you; hard.  You decorated his smell out of the apartment.

Later, as you chased a rag up and down the new heron-leg stools and along the front of the Uba Tooba counter; as you polished the rubber plant; gave the prayer rug a shake; combed the sand on the end table with a tiny rake;  artfully managed not to disturb the bonsai or knock the crystals from advantageous points in the high corners while you dusted;

Married Love, July

Sticky warm, he left work at the crack of the last whip.

She stuck the paintbrush in the freezer in plastic like a lollipop for use tomorrow.

Wide flung doors and windows admitted a bit of cooling air. They stretched their paycheck on the rug for a picnic.

A little chicken, pasta salad, thank you. They talked about the news of job cuts and her long days. They each ate half a watermelon.

Out of the smoke of hills on fire, the full moon climbed the trellis emitting pure catlight.

During the night their stomachs talked like foghorns. In the morning, they met in the middle of the wiggle room before work.

There was still time to walk the dog.

Published here

Hummingbird

I had to make it easier to whip out Wishes and show I was up to the next level. Up to the Miracle Corps light-before-the-end-of-the-tunnel standards. I don’t have to be another Jenny; just good enough to set up a trip to a waterfall with wheelchairs, or some other midsize Wish Fulfillment.

Jenny’s great, no doubt. Except for that one parent that one time. She can set up families of ten coming from eleven states arriving at twelve different times with thirteen different food allergies and all sleeping over with Mickey and Minnie in Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

Maybe A Shift

Are we island tips of cowering seamounts?

On the surface, we contest the submarine facts, decline to plumb the depths.

Our closeness is tourism: umbrella drinks, a lie on the beach, a taste of shrimp.

What if friction means moving toward, like tectons shoving obstacles aside?

Maybe we can archipelago.

Published here

Rare Book

White gloves and no sudden moves. Limited access. Conditions. Steady breathing. Filtered light. Slight buzz of humidity. Careful spine. Paging your butterfly fragility.

Your illuminations are remarkable: crisp and bright as back light. Too clean to laugh; too cool to cry. Your value is vaulted. Innocence preserved.

Jump in my gym bag, dog-ears and all. Pickup-and-gun-racks, girl, lets dance the silverfish, stumble and fall sloppy drunk, write in the margins muddy.

Naked in my garden, contagiously foxing. High as tigers. Cuddly as lambs. Discharged. Worthless. Experience preferred.

Through Lisa's Eyes

You’re five now and you can help me with Lisa. Mommy made me take care of her since I was five, so now it’s your turn to help. I’m six so I’m going to have to go to big girl school soon.

They can’t fix Lisa’s eye until she’s older, like nine. Then maybe the doctors can make her see better. I know why. It’s too bulgy. And she already has one gone. They want to save the left one, later. The light hurts her. She screams. You know; she has to. That’s why we keep the shades down.

Don’t open the closet door that blocks the light from her Daytime Nest. Keep the towel scooted up to the bottom of the door and pretend the light might get under it like water, so do it right. If you want to go in there to give her carrot sticks or cheerios in a baggie, knock first so she can stick her head in a corner.

Keeping Time

It was close to 9 A.M. when he hoisted his case and stepped outside. He felt late. The day had started badly. Green Bay was out of Super Bowl contention already. Shake it off. The street was filled with black grit and slush and snow lay like old manna on strips and patches of grass. Up the street, pitch and run. Sell. Tune in. Make it.

“Look, just bear with me a minute,” he told the short, shiny man wiping the snow from a parked car. “How many ways do you know to boil an egg? One. How many ways to chew it? One. You sleep, you wake up, you chew your eggs the same way every time. Do you want to just hang around till you die of old age?”

The little man was listening. He was buying, Diskus knew. 

“Break your wife out of the ordinary. Surprise her. No occasion. It’ll mean a lot to her. The gold in this chain is worth $15.00 by itself.” Diskus proffered a delicate pendant and chain.

High Water

Willy was born delighted in the middle of a rainstorm that threatened to flood the root cellar where they were hiding from the lightning. She had wide-open blue eyes. Her tiny expressive face soundlessly oohed and aahed and grimaced and startled with each feeling from the very beginning and, soon, she had a coo of contentment that nurtured her mother and then a three-tone song of a laugh that always made her siblings smile. Thunderstorms and floods threatened them so often but Willy’s birth let Mama engage with them easier from then on.

By age two, she had become the sixth oldest for the second time when her mama got sick in child birth and by four she was fifth oldest again when she stopped seeing Ezreel, who used to feed the pigs. She knew every inch of the farmyard and garden, had her own names for every chicken, pig, cow and horse on the place and could boil water on the stove, if mama was there.

Life Off the Cliff

Lessons that we all have learned from Pete:

Be blunt: rip the Band-Aid off the truth.

Share: it makes your ownership complete.

And laugh: some days refined, some days uncouth.

Bad news? Scream ugly once, then turn the page,

You are the writer at this theater, not the show.

No bragging rights unless you scar with age;

Drive off the cliff, if what you want’s below.

During the blink of light, the gasp of breath, that’s life,

Some brothers lock their doors, seat belts secured.

Back from the edge, to stay unhurt, to just survive,

They never climb the railing, jump the curb.

Bull Headed

If I squinted, the farm looked pretty much the same as it had when I left, 9 years ago, blinking back tears. The pond had shrunk; the bluegrass had grown longer and gone to seed.  The fence lay halfway down.

Frost bleached the roof, yet no smoke rose from the chimney of our farmhouse on the knoll.  The front field that the goats used to clear was now overgrown with larkspur, ragwort and blackberry.  No sign of livestock, chicken or ducks.  The horse barn was leaning at an odd angle, as though reeling from a strong wind.  Between the cow barn and the house, the dust seemed as untracked as the snow-powdered mountainsides of the Rockies I had just seen day before yesterday from the train.

I walked over to the corner of the cow barn.  The tall splints Pa and I had fashioned were still in place, still straight.

I remembered the young black bull, Napoleon, no higher than Pa’s shoulder, in a sudden burst charging at the big Hereford bull that was temporarily sharing his pen.  When the other bull leapt out of the way, Napoleon’s amazing forehead had cracked the eight-inch square post that formed the corner of the barn up to the hayloft; hence the splint.

Butterfly Love

The butterfly lit on the end of my ring finger near the passion vine.  I pulled the little lasso tight.  She fluttered up to the length of her new silk leash like the loveliest of rising kites.

I sensed no panic, no fear of captivity; her buoyancy teased against the weightless tether, somehow knowing I would wine her on nectar and dine her on pollen and bed her tonight in a blanket of thistle down.  I’d thought it through.

We roamed the garden planted for her, reviewing the long sprays, sampling the bright clusters.  She was content to ride with folded wings, princess-like, in black and orange velvet.

Toward dusk we settled on the lawn for the night.  Neither of us could eat.  We went in when dampness reached my bones.

Now I will support her as long as necessary, hand on my heart.  I will let her stitch my fingers together with her sticky thread and wait with her, while she slips into something else.

If only I could see the swelling of her tiny heart and hear it beat.

Binnacle UltraShort H.M.

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