indeterminacy is real bitch.

i don't know what i'll do
he says
if i don't get this job.

i  dreamed
he says
that i hung myself
in the middle of the lobby rafters.

i don't mean it
i'm not suicidal
he says

it's just i don't know
what i'll do.

fun fright night in a glass

ok, i admit, it's just i'm trying to make a title.

i don't want to write to you again.
you ignore me if i don't read it to you
and i'm all about silence. don't even move
my lips. hips are the only thing speaking
round here and their first language is tunisian.

sometimes the day starts with a whimper
boards clogged, roads accidentalized, sniper
on the board of directors takes a hit.
blood should be everywhere, but it was fake.
like this poem. like my quietness when you
want something to yell out. i'm just the cat.
landed on my feet again and pissed you off.

actually it was the tree i didn't climb.
actually it was the monotone of your touch
actually it was getting ready to catch that other shoe
and tie its pendantic laces round your pretty little throat
my dear. listen this has nothing to do with me
so why don't find some other fool to burn.

listen i know it's all about me so ok, light the match.
just get it over with. we won't be calling the rescue squad.
we won't be calling anyone with access.
we will be calling abc for delivery. they will refuse.
potato salad for everyone.


it's been so quiet in here, i've thought
a lot of things
 about how you might control
the situation. all of them erroneous.  hope
as a sleep aid
 is not working. we need
 a different pill.


i do have friends. one of them said once
when she still talked to me
i was born in a world without any.
i mean, really? none? show me
how that works. did we execute future
when we hit the snooze alarm on ddt?
come ON, i was just a kid then.
the smallpox blanket should go to my mother.
who is dead.





she won't mind.






























*(77



listen you want to be frightened? is that why you clicked here?
i have a story of reasonless guilt, a story with karmic payback so old
you forgot why you were whining four lives ago. it's all so gentle.
no parasitic diseases, no incurable cancers, no ebola in sierra leone
just general swirling devil dervishes and a case of jitters
that jagged your life into these overused ruts where your yoke
broke years ago.  your back's bent anyway, so you just keep plowing
even though the farmer died in the locust plague of sixty seven. keep
plowing and eat or stop and starve seems to be the gist of it.

if you want to be frightened compare yourself to ants or dung beetles.
.compare yourself to a scientist, a banker, general,  your girl next door.
compare yourself to anything else. the similarities should astound


































***(((((


what kind of glass is it?
lead crystal, imitation depression ware, hand
blown, machine blown/ there are a few versions
but mostly it's the reflective one
i'm using here. look in the mirror.
that's your neighbor's face. no, it really is.

  the mouth tilts to the left
  an eyebrow lifts, slant o chin
reminds you of a small bird, a finch
or sparrow on the morning you began
second grade. you took off
for summerlands on the back of that bird
then borrowed your nieghbor's face for the  fall collection.
tore it out of a magazine , waved your wallet
presto digito carbon on the street
in proper shape, undifferentiated from .


you once saw a something in the sky
you couldn't get there from here
so you called on mnemony for a clue.
she'd been gone so long your echoes
returned postage due. that's what happens
when you're not a god, but you hobnob with em.

that's the frightnight winkletter. it's the baggage handler's
left front pocket. hobnobs sound quaint like moll and shorty.
every duece has its wild time so don't be so precious thinking
you're shakespeare and if you were him that anyone
under the age of thirty five and over the age of three
understands you. the glass, however, is real.

romancing chemistry

you're brilliant but stupidly
outthink your next move
move over move on
before the thing's complete

i;m glad you're treating me like we're
already married so i won't have
to go through the bother


you bow to the gods of bad timing
  wring the chicken's neck
and still   can't get a same day appointment
with the dmv. traffic moves with
meconium's urgency, the dean will decide
if those marks on your record are permanent
or if they'll let you back in the lab again
and typically, the cops are no help.

nothing you can do but go sit over ln the median
with your cell phone  and some forms and fill them out.
the air conditioning stopped working when capillary twenty burst
but not to sweat it, there's a tree. august ain't so bad
if you like your saunas stifling. you have an hour
to get the names and dates right. go!















*




there are things  you can do for which
the world will forgive you
and you've added them all to your cart
the last three times you were in here.
left behind is your greatest fear.
actually that's not fair. remembrance,
that's the trauma you're never post enough for.

you gotta find your mojo, man, i know
you put it in here somewhere.
move that shit on the bed or you'll be delivering flowers
the rest of your life. kiss the nanoparticles goodbye.

listen, she saved your life three years ago, unbeknownst till now.
that should more than make up for the time she had you arrested
after she got her kid free weekend. if you'd saved some
of that patent money for lawyering up, this issue, this one
small little apres le nasty divorce issue would take care
of ten years' forced gulag by monday and the world
would right itself. that's when the cancer pops up.
it just happens that way. we don't know why
it's in the script. just follow the script.
you were in love. they  broke your heart
and buried you under a twelve million dollar grant
that did not even belong to you.
that's why cancer. duh.

























_____0000------











i have my own theories on chemical bonds
 they're written in  analogy
not in  a language
you'd understand. but that woman
who was dead by the time watson and crick
got their nobel is a good example of pure science
performed in   quotidian towers
and it's amazing what can be accomplished
when no one has to have the credit, a socialist cliche
 boomeranging back to anono because no one's
  that saintly, not even god  don't
believe me, read the first five commandments
in the Holy Bible and deduce the model.
song as old as time, beauty and the beast, yes disney too
 the company that spoonfed sugar
to an entire generation, has a credited
  in old dead cryogenic walt waiting
for resurrection like wile e or elmer or  wait a minute
those
 are the competition, fuck! if i can't maintain
one of the most hallowed modern saint's symbols
how can i ever explain the way gasses
move up, away, bupkiss over teakettle, zip
 round electronesque frilling spaces and holes
 trying to fill the whole emptiness of  vacuum
with speed, baby,  pure speed so fast
they sound vast a  laps at daytona 500
so fast they form strings of light
 at the end of lili's sparkler
fourth of july.








*(((



i may have wandered off subject there.

it's nice to have triangulation on a while page.
like a slope , or a gentle curve maybe to find
out where a life has been. trace the road
you and i drove during the night
sick kids in the backseat, going far away
from the midwest we grew up in, far away
from what was left of my family. you, asleep;
the children quiet; outside our covered wagon
the  forest was  covered in white. the moon
was full and we were so high up in the pass
i felt   i could swim to it were i bumblebee.
the trees shimmered, animal eyes blinked
around us. i drove slowly. i think that's what
woke you. when you found we   passed
the last town without stopping you began
to panic,went into attack, the jetscream
of your voice, the blame in your tone.
i machined gunned you with silencers on
the children stayed blessedly asleep in fever dream.
we fought in the bright glare of pupiless eyes
with the car running out precious fuel
that may have gotten us over the mountain
 you on time to a new job
me to the same place i was before,
missing something you should have given me
instead of children or flowers. i almost
left you then. well. i did. but you
being catalysed and self absorbed
did not even notice. besides,
where should i even go?













**((((


for this is your story through the female gaze
the one you wish adoration adorned. and it did,
for a while. i left my husband for you. twice.
oh sure the marriage was over, you and i were
exciting, the future looked bright. but you wouldn't
leave her. you wanted to save your dysfunctional family
when only god can undo what you two did.
you loved me as the woman d'affaire, the poet, the one
who should have borne your children. i imagine
you don't remember the place you declared
your love for me, or the walk by the lake
details reserved for old age, when passion
must be pulled into bed and given a good massage
with the oils of yesterday's faces.i do my best to forget
you as well. i still speak to your daughter.
i know you aren't dead. we once said we would always.
now you won't answer the phone.



the second time i left him
you were so new, so tall. who can say
what makes a marriage crumble
after so many years, what drives me
to sell off the place my babies grew up in
my husband was not there much
still he bought out my half and half a year
later you moved in the brand new house. man,
you treated me so well,
you treated me like a princess, i reacted
like a starving dog. i ate it all, till my belly burst.
a starving dog with a master card. we bought
it all,it would be the thing that bound us
a new business, so we shopped
 the  till the seams of the new house burst
with unsold merchandise. you were still reeling
from the shock of rhiananon, the loss of your house
the insanity of your kid. you were not a salesman
your bookkeeping skills are questionable
and when the credit runs out, all the color
and the fine glazes we fired upon each other
melted in the long slow burn of goodbye.
when you finally left. i wanted you back.
i threatened to kill myself. you wouldn't talk to me on the phone.
now i'm as indifferent to your fate as you to mine.
when you call again, i'll try to remember why.




****




still i pick you up again
wait for you to dust yourself off, i
didn 't want a housewife, you
didn't want to be one,so we settle
for giiggolo and debtor. your honesty
has me keeping my pennies for myself
but i'll pay for your company at dinner
just like the rich girls do. after all
when you get money you could do the same/
for me is what i hope. what i fear is sanity
will take hold of you again, have  you  dating pammies
wearing lipstick and pantyhose over birkenstocked
hippie girls spouting poetry on the noon break.
still i'll see you wednesday' and fridays for a while, right?
till you get on your feet and all the money you earned
pushes you into your next life
with a new wife
or otherwise suitable to your station honey
you'll have the money, earned all by yourself.

misunderstood spices

coriander rolled toasted
down rue le potat, holding a sprig
of cilantro for the party at chili pepper's place.
hot oiled, aromatic, perfect for
garlic cuddlling or cumin dusting
coriander felt ready for the night.

pepper's place was dark and cool,
all the spices liked it. they could hang
around  and chill, keep to the bottle
keep a lid on it or they could
get wild like sage who came
in a numbered bunch. the other spices
couldn't tell one from the other
so everyone treated as one,
the myriad willowy stems waving
patches of aromatic hair in pom poms
from   various heights .waving to all.
when the fire began, sage was the first
to rush in, hair smouldering,
across the coals. in an instant the air
was burnt sage. and sage the air.

there's always a fire. coriander knew that
from the bottle's temperature, sensitive
to hot and cold vibrations, home was fragile.
when the plunge came, the sudden freedom
from the crowd pushed together-behind glass, same face,
same color,same pressure-was quickly quenched
by the  hot oil sizzle, submersion, emergence
profoundly changed. ready for  mortar, for pestle

coriander knows what the fire means, what sage's
sacrifice portends. soon, garlic will have   skin peeled
from  glorious lobes, scallion(though not technically spices,
  these cousins' trials are much the same)
barely recognisable after the knife, follows.
and ahhhhh there goes cilantro
\into the watermelon thai soup/
 coriander watches  the leaves melt
 the aroma escape,the green wilt, wishes
for eyes to turn away,for tears to shed.

never mind my sweet,
 i will grind your bones
and make my bed.

into the river

rivers often scare  me, running
 wild , robbing banks after deluge
or spring melt. i fear drowning
swift water, rapids.. you stand
on the roof, awaiting rescue by helicopter
reflected below you  in what once
was earth, field,your driveway.
this is what mississippi means to me.
momma was eight months pregnant when
they lost everything to the flood. i was born
on the copter that saved her life.
we were evacuated to natchez . it was the worst of times
she says. i came too soon,
 she says. my daddy got lost
in the exodus, looking for a better place.
last she heard he was going  to florida
 to work construction. she says
i met him, but i don't remember.  my earliest
memory is waking up  most mornings
 before the sun , a bleary eyed
 trek to the kitchen where momma
cooked for thirty four women before
she sat down and ate with me.
i had to be quiet, she said. the women
were not to see me. i  played in the kitchen
with my raggedy ann doll. the potato bin
was a baby mine. i'd look through the day's
batch to be peeled.   momma let me pick
just one to pretend was annie's baby.
 when she was done preparing
 the rest, she let me peel
the last  , mine.
i could  play in the back yard
when the women were in class.
she said i had to be quiet, the women
were studying. i learned to hide when i heard
their voices. sometimes i saw them walking from
the school back to the house. they all had
huge bellies. once i asked mom why. they're
pregnant, she practically spit back at me.
  i didn't know what that was,
 but i knew i didn't want it
can i catch it? i asked.
that made her laugh. no baby, she said,
not right now. you're safe for a while.
















++)++








the last doctor who performs abortions
is speaking tonight. at the UU church on main.
there have been noises about protests
but we're mostly ignoring them.
brother tomas suggested we hire security
but the reverend said, and i quote
we will not bow to pressure. we will not
place violence on a leash in our chapel.
tomas said, half jokingly, how bout outside it then?
everyone laughed. no one agreed with him.
i ask the reverend but why now. why here?
up  the street, she says, is where rosa
sat down in the front of the bus for the first time.
i think it's appropriate not to mention ironic that the last person
willing to give women the same kind of rights
speak here. tonight
 just happens to be when he is available. we brace ourselves
for shouts of  "murderer!" and signs with aborted
fetuses on them. but apparently he's under the radar .
no crowds outside, no threats,all quiet.
at the after dinner we make polite conversation
about god's plan, how to get a calling, what time is his flight out?
he's so unassuming, this man. so compassionate.
i expect him to be murdered on the way to the airport.
but it doesn't happen. i begin to like god's plan.















*))*











becca came to me crying yesterday.
did he break up with you again? i ask.
she shook her head violently, no!
it's so much worse. ten minutes of sobbing later
the story was so common it was heartbreaking.
i thought becca was going to be the one
to make it out. she was on track
for emory. well, what are you gonna do
i ask. as if she has a choice. as if...


















(()))





i have decided to make my own little pro choice demo.
when the doc is in the clinic, people line the sidewalk
like a guantlet. i will be the first there, even if i have
to spend the night. i will be the last person she sees
before entering. my sign will have pictures of all the babies
murdered by their parents. it will be the largest sign there.
it will be carved in stone. i will wear it on my back, shaped
like a cross and when she arrives at last at where i stand
i will say there is no need for forgiveness. this choice is yours.