Air Brakes Cranks

One more thing you took when you left:
Simple pleasure of turning the cranks.

The shop smells of rubber
sweat, molten metal, grease
crowded with every kind of
bicycle possible
standing in racks on the floor
suspended from the ceiling
leaning against each other
in a beautiful disarray
of type, size, color, purpose.

Jersies, vests, shorts, bibs
socks, gloves, shoes, clips
water bottles, bottle cages
tubes, tires, pumps, wheels
tools, levers, lights
baskets, panniers, racks.

Helmets.

So much joy in this little shop
Another home, back then
in the beginning
in the middle. 

Now?

In the aftermath of the end?

When lava tears fall
melting
choking
obliterating
friend and enemy alike?

 It is just another place.

Alienation.

Anomie.

Upheaval.

I leave, without buying anything
without saying a word.

So How Should I Presume?

I will roll my pants above my ankle
like the old man, his hair getting thin
wading out at the shoreline
sand rising between my toes
then falling away, with the pull of the tide.

I, too, am old
and walk alone, like the cats
barriers only I can see keeping me apart
the observation space of garbled sound
fractured light casting yellow fog
the taste of tea in the galleries
served with honey
thinly sliced lemons translucent as
the morning smoke that licks the brickwork.

A wedge of crumb cake, taste it
the smoke whispers as it traces the helix
of my ear, so soft I cannot tell if
the whispers are English or Italian
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse
searching for synapses
closing the pathways
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo
nestling down for the long winter to come.

Sundays with Margaret

Three o’clock on Sundays
before the two-hour drive home
or longer, if there is traffic
I’d turn up
on your doorstep
balancing a plate of cake
or box of doughnuts
and a bottle of semi-decent rum
(if I’d gotten paid)
or rotgut (if the week was lean)
with one hand and
my daughter’s hand clasped in the other.


Hugs, and yes, child, you can play with Candy
Don’t worry if she takes a dog biscuit or two
They’re safe for humans, too.
For me, an ancient cup
filled with tea some sugar
Perhaps a splash of whatever high proof dregs
was left from the week before.
Cigarettes, lit from the embers of the last one
butts filling the plate your teacup nestles in.


We’d sit at the Formica table
and reminisce about people I’d never met
times I hadn’t lived in
places I’d never been
slowly sipping and refilling our cups
until the dog and the child
and the menfolk
decided it was time to plate
the roast or the lasagna or the beans and rice
depending on if it had been
a good week
and how early we were in our cups.


You gave me an apron
a velvet beret
a set of teacups
for my birthday
Christmas
Mother’s Day
when we knew the sun was setting
on our Sundays.

My daughter tucks her child’s curls
into that velvet beret
I tie the apron around my waist
and pour tea, mine laced with spirits
into the fragile cups
for our Sunday tea party

The Ring

Tonight, I sleep with a cadaver.
My husband, the denier, as the CLL
strengthened by long term COVID
consumes him, pound by pound.

Your wedding band,
indestructible titanium and carbon,
surface marred and scarred
sand blasted, acrylic chipped,
ungloved victim of some abandoned project
lies in the dirt, flung from fingers
shrunk, shriveled, from
hands once full and strong, thick with muscle,
now trembling.
Even the swiftly shipped replacement
two sizes down
spins freely with each movement.

I slide the pristine ring
onto my left pointer finger
so close to mine
so far from mine.
It knows this is not its place.
I move it to my other hand
settle it on my right ring finger
My flesh seizes it.
I can fight no more,
knees crumple and I
rest my head on your chair.

It is cold.

I light candles, adding one
Confused by the array
Who are they all? Who do I remember?
Who still lives in the life after life
as they are remembered by me?
Does my confusion erase them?
Does it erase me?
Who am I if I am not?

So many doors locked behind me
abandoned homes
sad dreams
distorted memories
overwriting some truth
that no one knows any more.

I feel your hands take mine
I see you, and so many more
waiting for me in the forever
home that will be a home
I drop the key down the sewer grate
and walk into your embrace.

Sunset on a Wheelbarrow

Dust road shimmer, another dry afternoon

cloudburst just enough for runnels

and rotting spilt grain

a week’s worth of grain

on the ground, near the coop

but not enough for new corn growing

or unshriveled beans.

 

She sends the children

barrow tippers of grain now

mixed with rotgut bottles in the

knobbyshade tree roots

to a neighbor, watches

the chickens peck peck peck

at precious scattered gold.

 

Yellow marks and cigarette ‘O’s

on her arms, neck and thighs

wait for new color.

 

There is no money to

paint the house

but

soon

she will be vivid as sunset.

 

For William Carlos Williams

Published in Deland Museum of Art 2023 Collection

Bed's Too Big

No more boxes.

Pack the rest, disgusted, detritus, debris.

Toss it in a pillowcase, doesn’t matter anyway. 

A striped yellow and pink pillowcase. Hers.  

Stripes worn and faded, from the double bed. 

Before they upgraded to a king. 

A king size bed, so much more room.

Life was good.

And when life was not good? 

So much more room to hug the ends of the bed.

Avoid ‘accidentally’ touching each other. 

In a double bed, you always bump each other. 

Can’t go to sleep angry in a double bed.   

In a king, the hurts can lay there.

They lay there, right in the middle of the bed. 

The hurts send out suckers all night long,

Grow new branches, push the root systems deeper. 

How many piles on the floor?

Splitting a household is much tougher than merging. 

Merging was gradual, books, clothes, pots and pans. 

Separation sudden. Picking apart who got what?

Figuring out what gets kept, what gets sold?

They did not have the luxury of time for that, 

Each eager to have a new life. 

He looked at the pillowcases, her pillowcases

filled with the sheets and towels he was taking.

His new life wrapped in a bit of her old life. 

And no bed to put them on.

Rejected sheets, towels, clothes, sundries

heaps on the garage floor. 

He kicked them, then walked through the piles,

scattering them down the driveway.

Sometimes.  Just sometimes.  But sometimes

Love is not enough.

In the Mulch

She finds things in the mulch

Finds things everywhere, she is gifted that way

But mostly, the most interesting things,

Are in the mulch.

‘Look, mommy, looka dis. What dis?’

Crayons. Photos. Keys. Half a sandwich.

Half a key.

Hair clips. Money. The Maltese Falcon.

Once, a passport from New Zealand.

Fodder for stories she writes every night.

‘Baby Hippo found a crayon and a passport

And made a picture in the passport and went far away

And lived happily ever after. The End.’

Yes, fodder for the stories she writes every night

Wherever we are that night, wherever we find ourselves,

And once or twice or a hundred nights,

We find ourselves in the mulch,

Safer than a shelter or doorway.

The police keep the druggies and pimps away

But they let us stay

And they listen to her stories and

bring her cookies and

chocolate milk

And happily ever after is the greatest story of all.

Vacation 1963

No matter how much gas you put in the tank,

it does not mend a broken piston.

Two or three or four or five days for a

replacement, here on the northeast side

of We-Got-Lost, Canada,

or a local farmer might maybe make

alterations to a tractor engine

sufficient reshaping for a

Sturdy American Sedan, crammed

full of adults, teens and one

small child, who wonders if the bats

flying against the window

are vampires and if they

break that window,

will they kill her?

The small child, wrapped

smaller still, huddles under the

bed, so she can’t see those

fluttering wings or hear the high

pitched squeaks, just like she

hid in the backseat footwell

to avoid her brothers’ pinches.

Perhaps the farmer can reshape her

small enough to box her

and ship her

home.

The Future is Invisible and So am I

     "You know, we’re at a crossroads? That things are going to change, evolve? Whether we want it or not, change is inevitable. Trite, but true, and the changes outside are going to impact us. How we deal with them, cope, in the end, it’ll be okay, we’ll be okay."
     I hear his voice, words I wish I heard, but it is all imaginary. He says nothing, staring at the papers, document sets, email chains, the bottom piece removed from a Jenga pile and the resulting crash.
     He says nothing.
     That is my position, silence, not his. My standard operating procedure, mode du jour. He has no right to usurp my place in the relationship, no right to mystery, circumspection, privacy, reticence.  How am I supposed to respond? Do I take his role, wiggle my ears, turn cartwheels, cajole? I am clueless. The endless ramble voice I wish I heard strangles whatever my tongue might dance.
     "This is a good thing. It’s time, more than time and now we’ll be able to move forward to another level, we really will. Just think, baby doll! No. don’t think, babe, feel! Let yourself feel, babe! I love you and this is good, it’s all good. You’ll see. I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, more than fine, better than ever."
     But the fantasy in my head, whispering sweet nothings, protestations of eternal love and rose strewn silk sheeted beds and microchip diamond rings, the voice promising tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, stays there, in my head, hammering my brain, not swirling down my helix to caress my tympanic membrane. The ossicles spin, measure and cut in a padded room.
     He says nothing as he folds the papers back into their standard sized envelope, adorned with a certified return receipt required edge, nothing as he scrolls the numbers in his cellphone, nothing as he fills a duffle bag with pants and shirts and socks but not the photos he took of me.
     Nothing as he throws the bag into the back of the car.
     Nothing as he turns the corner.
     Nothing as he gets onto the Interstate.
     Nothing as he watches the odometer climb.
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     The air conditioner clicks on and the temperature drops a few degrees, startling me. I lift the needle from the scratch, worn through to the turntable, on the 33 rpm. I suppose I could burn it to a CD or MP3 player, but what would be the point?
     It will still be stuck in limbo.

Return of Who?

Bad Girl stood there, silent, eyes downcast, pink leather collar dangling from her left hand.

Master stared through the pier window. She couldn't see him, not only because her eyes were down, but because of the crazed one-way glass. Even if she had looked up, stared right at him, all she'd see was a kaleidoscope reflection of herself. On his side of the glass, inside this house, he could be any denim clad statue, himself, the housekeeper or any of the train wreck of roommates he'd had since she'd disappeared three years ago. He opened the door.

"So who are you today? Cassie?" chucking her under the chin. "Alice, maybe? No, you're not. Are you Bad Girl?" She flinched, shook her head. "Are you Bad Girl come to see me? Come back to me for whatever god-forsaken selfish reason you could have? Come back to me to fix whatever nasty mess you've gotten into this time? Hmm? What now?

"Drugs? Alcohol? Work? Mick? Jerkwad still hanging around? Cynthia? Some one else? Someone new or shall I just go through the list of usual suspects? Stop your crying, I can't stand your BS. Come in, you're causing a scene. I don't need Gladys Kravitz calling the HOA on me."

She shivered as the air conditioning hit her, so much colder than when she was in and out all the time. He never ran the AC when she was there, called his bedroom "the little rain forest" but with only himself to please, or himself and whoever wasn't her, he had at a more typical temperature. The in-line skates, the orange and brown sweater draped over the chair, so not like him, alien to her memory, added another layer of cold. How much had he changed?

Master pulled a throw off the sofa and draped it around her. "Stop shaking. Come on. I'll boil water for tea. Cassie... please." Filling the kettle, fear and disgust played ring around the rosy in his mind, desire and love, yes, love, played in his heart. What was she doing here? "Why don't you put the collar on? That's why you're here? You need me to tell you? Put it on, go ahead."

She stood there, still except for the shivering.

"Yeah, you know better. Wear it with anyone else, no, no. Mine, that's it, right? You returning to your rightful owner? Huh, yeah, rightful owner. Sure, tell myself another lie. I never owned you, not even a fragment. Bitch owns me, though, heart and soul, she does. Did I say that? Here. Drink your fucking tea.

"So I guess you're here just because you missed me? I already lowered the AC, don't worry about hypothermia. Drink."

She looked at him, then into the mug, trying to read the leaves but could only see the stains left inside by long ago nights. They were all Greek or Serbo or anything she couldn't read anyway. She took a sip. "I shouldn't be here. I have to go."

He says nothing, but takes her arm and leads her into the living room. He removes the orange and brown sweater, pushes her towards the chair. She curls up in it, sips the tea. That chair, the same chair he was sitting in, reading "I am a Strange Loop" the day she left, closing the door with a gentle click of the knob. Her toothpaste and nail polish were still on the bathroom vanity.

In the few minutes it took to register that she was gone gone gone, no answer to email phone letter, he even sent flowers to her office, everything marked ‘return to sender unknown' he lost his taste for philosophy. He left the book on a fast-food table.

More and Other HBKs: They are Everywhere and They Look Just Like Every Other House

"Hey, Miz W, what's gone on in your life since I saw you last? How are the girls? They working? Both still living with you or has Gwen moved out again?"

"I'll tell you, they are a blessing. You know, Gwendolyn has a great position at Price Waterhouse."

"She got it? Oh that's great, she wanted that so bad."

"Mmm. She loves it there and they love her. She is getting it all there."

"Well, she should. Smart, hard-working, talented, beautiful, good tempered. Lot like her momma, if you ask me."

"Thank you, child. All Jesus doing."

"Amen. And how's Genny? She back in school?"

"You know my Genny. She, she jess needs a little more time to get acclimated than some folk do, a helping hand on her back to guide her a bit, but she do right once she gets points that ways."

"Leastwise it's a helping hand on her back and not on her backside, like some need."

"Child, you do make me laugh! But yes, a gentle push now and then to keep her moving on her track, plenty of others could use the same but no one to give it to them. She's in this program, part work, part school. Likes it well enough, pushing papers around and around. Don't know how Gwen or I would feel about that, we like talking too much to real people to push papers or do that Internet frou-frou stuff, but it suits my Genny just fine."

"Be proud, momma, she hasn't had it easy. She is doing so much with what she has, be proud. And what's going on with you? Teaching, selling, training? Where are you living now, every time we talk it's somewhere else."

"I tell you, child, that is true. I have had no luck the past few years with living places. We've know each other five, six years now and I've lived in more places than that but right now we're down in Kissimmee, real nice two bedroom apartment."

"What about that big house you were renting, over down the street, the one that was all redone for you? Gwen told me you had new carpets, appliances, a garage even..."

"That house? That house! That was the Original House of Bad Karma, Hunter's Creek! You know they had to repaint the outsides three times cause the red kept bleeding right through the grey, cream, whateverall color they were trying to paint it!"

"Wait. You mean the house you moved into last year was THAT house? The one across the street from the park? Back of the fence, I mean the divide?"

"Yes, child, that one!"

"Oh no, Miz W, if I'd known that was the house, oh if I'd known, I'd've warned you right then that place is evil! I rode past it, sure, but on the other side of the street. I didn't even like driving past it, could feel it clawing out at me. You know it had two major fires? You know people died in those fires?"

"Yes, they told us before we moved in. More and more on top of what was already there. Getting new blood to feed it on top of the old, pulling down on itself anyway it can. That second floor they added, it was not right, not ever. We looked at that house, we went in through the front door and said, this is nice, this is very nice."

"How long were you there? Wait , as strong as you are, how'd you ever move in?"

"Few weeks. Work was still going on when we saw it, that's why we never did see the garage til after. Place had been empty for a year or so, we got it all new and shiny.

"And then we went up to that second floor. Whatever it was in the garage, it came right up through the floor, cold cold cold, room was so much colder than the rest of the house which sounds like a good thing but no, believe me, no."

"You know this whole area is built on Indian burial grounds? Or so I'm told?"

"I believe that, why not? That house, the fires and the stains... My Genny, she swears something slammed the door on her hand and one time she was going up the stairs and something grabbed her and pulled her and she fell over backwards, nearly broke her neck. We moved out after my Genny got pulled that night. Next morning, we just packed right up and called the owner and told him he could keep the security."

"Smart. Expensive, but smart."

"You should've seen it, like the Amityville horror all over again. Stuff dripping down the walls, nasty mold growing up from the floor. Course, that could have been from the hurricanes, they went right over although maybe the hurricanes were more and the same. Mm-mm, the noises... All hours of the day and night, there were these noises that came from the closets.

"We didn't move any stuff up to the second floor, that was going to be Gwendolyn's own private apartment, but then she decided to room with Genny, that it just was too much trouble to be going up and down the stairs when she works such long hours. I don't even want to think what would have been if Gwen or my Genny had been sleeping up there. I don't want to think about it.

"Miz W, that scares me, you living there, even if it was just for a while. Please tell me the new place is better?"

"Better and boring. Boring is good. I don't know why folks is always badmouthing Kissimmee, it's old and sturdy and boring and the rumors of it being full of crackers, well, I'm from New York but I have family from Ocoy or and my kind don't live there."

"Ocoy?"

"Ocoy, up past Colonial, where the Turnpike crosses it."

"Ocoy? Ocoee!"

"You say Ocoee, I say Ocoy, that's how the Cherokee pronounce it, or that's what my granddaddy claimed anyways. Me, I still wouldn't live in that part of town, but some black folk do, now. Yes, child, that house, surprising to both of us that I didn't smell the angry in it."

"It was hiding."

"I hope it stays hidden, good riddance and far away. Meanwhile, we all gots to live while we can. More air we blow here, good air that is, righteous air, rich oxygen air, more air going round to light God's candles and snuff Satan's right out."

"You burn bright, Miz W. You give those girls of yours a bit hug and kiss for me. Let me give you some articles I clipped for them, but you bring them next time.

"Thank you darling, I'll say a prayer for you, too."

"Amen, Miz W. Can't hurt, especially an old reprobate like me."

"No, can't hurt, child, can't hurt a bit."

Houses and Homes and Promises

I'll build a home with you and we'll never need a king size bed.
We've both been there. We've learned.
I think so anyway. I like to think so, that we've, that I've, learned.
And I promise to smile when you come in,
no matter how busy I am,
no matter how distracted,
because.

Hobgoblins can be a Good Thing

If I could do something every day,
If I could actually stick to it, a la Julia Cameron,
If I did... because, to be honest, I can. I'm quite capable, I've done it.
I've buried myself in it, in the past.
If I did, still, where would I be?

Sounds easy?
Hardest part is what is obvious.
The time.
Finding the time.
Oh, observer says, you've got time, you've got nothing but time!
Looks that way, right? You, there, examining my life, here.
But think.
With all the time in the world, all I have are empty hours and dripping fangs.
It is at the door, gnawing at the baseboard, prying at the hinges, talons tripping lock cylinders.
Time cedes to terror, passes the scepter and disappears into a tornado,
leaving rubble and shards of vision, shovelfuls of debris.
I bend down, pick up a scrap of paper, struggle to read the faded ink, water smears.
Find part of a CD, a fractured keyboard, another scrap.
This one is blank.

I close my eyes, draw the blade along a vein and leave bloody fingerprints where words want to be.

Victoria Falls

He hears me calling in the water rush, door very deliberately left unlocked
Translating the storm to ‘help me', he breaks my solitude, appearing through the steam mist
Knowing he'll find me fetal curled, scalding the lunatic day off my skin,
skin covered with scars over scars over scars over scars, he squeezes inside
Picks me up. I cling, blind and weak as a baby opossum
Words spoken are lost in the susurration of the shower, grief swirling clockwise down the drain

Yard Sale

You can tell it was precious
someone cared
once
cared lots
Now, it's relegated to the yard sale heap on a tattered blanket on the lawn
with limp stuffies, windup clocks and mismatched ersatz tupperware,
"As-Is, your choice, $1"
I wonder how long it took to work
to pick out the fabrics, threads, padding
if it was a child just learning to wield a needle
or an experienced grandma listening to the radio.
They have new, printed ones at Target.
But I'll take this one,
drape it over the sofa, and when asked where I got it,
lie, claiming it in my bloodline.

It's All About the Crackers, Still

I avoid the rain
Symptom, not cause,
But no longer.

Lost and Found or Not

Lost and Found or Not

All the things I've tossed away
Careless vicious afraid, most forgotten.
A photo quirk of memory recalls
Oh what ever happened to...
But a few choice items hurt
a book
a scissor
a hammer
smell of turpentine sawdust linen rags brings it back

You'd give me wooden chests tables a desk for my precious
I give you words
We wear scraps

What Once was Whole

It was, instantly, an alien place, devoid.
I was afraid,
not of what I'd find,
of what was here,
but what was not.
Not any longer.
The air was damp and too warm, shuttered feeling,
despite the hum and click of the air conditioner,
loud in abandonment.
I look around. Bookcases, knitting, kitchenware.
Shoes. Walker. Wheelchair.
Gauze pads and Betadine.
I calculate how many boxes I'll need
to empty this already empty place.

Left Right Straight

All roads lead you somewhere
if you put one foot after the other, turn the cranks,
with an eye on the sun to keep track of the time/space continuum
All roads lead you somewhere
and when that somewhere isn't here,
this crime scene where I am reduced to a chalk outline on warn carpet
and the forensic team measures the splatter pattern of regrets and guilt
on walls, furniture and bedding,
they still lead you.
All roads lead you somewhere
I can disinfect the wounds, stitch them, cover them with gauze
and kisses and prayers for forgiveness.
All roads lead you somewhere
maybe even home.

A Bowl of Cherries

She holds the bowl, scant amount of cereal and milk inside,
holds the bowl with two hands, laps at it, laps at the dregs.
Then turns it over into a hat, so proud, as a few drops of milk crawl past her eyelashes.

"Oh baby, why'd you have to go and do that for? Look at this mess!"
Hush, I say, hush.
Look at her, not the floor or the counter or the shirt.
They'll wash, they'll be fine.
Look at her.
Look at her before you crumple her face.
The shadows of those creases will always be there, haunting us.
Hush, now. Give her another bowl to wear. Let her have a layered hat, a confection hat
And another to be a different drum to beat with her forgotten spoon.