1996

Your quilt, one of many

Stitched with tears, bakes in sunshine

National Mall grass

Enigma Machine

Doorways, hallways, coffins of possibility

if you press the buttons in the correct sequence

if you solve the enigma riddle

stop the cypher shadow mushrooms

lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate.

 

A small black bird

Turing, chained by love unspoken

never spoken.

He breaks his vow of silence

vow of fear, vow of thwarted need.

The lid will slide over his shrouded form

over the coins pressed into his eye sockets

gently smother his breath

as the raven mutters a prayer

scatters a beakful of dirt.

Café Lucca, Very Late, on a Tuesday

He pulls the handle, then a slow steam hiss

The priests, close by, converse in Tuscano

Biscotti, cannoli, mouthfuls of bliss

He pulls the handle, then a slow steam hiss

You pull me in closer, seeking a kiss

While I stir sweet, thick, precious espresso

He pulls the handle, then a slow steam hiss

The priests, close by, converse in Tuscano

FSPA 2022 Triolet Contest - 2nd place

Sunrise, Sunset

My son stands, hip deep, in the Atlantic

thin flowered dress plastered to his thighs

walking along the surf, pushing his curls

behind his ears, the long, thin fingers

topped by  bitten nails.

Delicate eyebrows shade his blue eyes,

the same shade of blue as mine.

I am mesmerized by his beauty.

Blessed with ignorance

that he has already started

weekly injections

into those pale thighs.

In a few months,

the blood will stop flowing

from his shriveling uterus.

My son turns, smiles,

blows me a kiss.

A wave drenches him

and he laughs.

For his 18^th birthday,

he changed his name.

I say kaddish for my daughter-dreams

and rock my new born son

in my arms.

2nd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2019

Published in Revelry 2019

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Every year

the chorus on the

other side of the veil

grows.

Numb to the oldest members’

tenor-alto-soprano, their buzzes

are a gentle sting at the base of my spine.

The newest addition, an off-key tenor,

with raucous glee,

chants his own version

of that ancient hymn.

His fingers caress my scars, pausing

against the shadowed fractures of my ribs,

as they climb,

until they cradle my naked skull.

He removes his kippah,

the one I made him

for some long-forgotten event,

puts it on me

to keep me warm.

The only voice I hear is mine,

chanting the kaddish

as I light the candles,

adding one.

The Joy of Cleaning

There were few things she excelled at, few things she was even good at, but, by golly, she could clean.

Properly outfitted in headscarf, pinafore, heavy duty to the elbow rubber gloves, a bucket of hot, soapy water by her side, spray bottles of bleach, vinegar and foam cleaner clipped to her utility belt, steel wool scrubbies and polishing clothes in various pockets, bathroom grime was doomed.

Stripping towels, shower curtains and mats, she sprayed the shower enclosure with one of her magic concoctions and poured some vinegar into the toilet tank before tossing them into the wash, set on a hot/warm cycle. She returned to the bath, the aforementioned magic concoctions having already done a good deal of the work for her.  All the doodads that accumulated on the vanity were placed in shallow tray filled with warm water and a splash of bleach.  The toothbrushes and combs soaked in a mixture of boiling water and industrial strength peroxide.

She scrubbed from top to bottom, rinsed the walls, then sprayed the walls with hot water to remove any soap residue. Next, she wrapped the shower nozzle in a plastic bag with a few tablespoons of vinegar to dissolve the mineral deposits that accumulated in the spray holes.  An old towel made the toilet sparkle, after a good scrubbing with foam cleaner and disinfection with bleach. She switched to a non-abrasive polishing cloth for the granite counter.  The drawer faces and pulls, the towel bars, light switch plate, door knobs, even the door hinges were subject to her attention.

The timer clipped to her collar beeped, indicating it was time to put the shower curtains into an extra hot dryer just long enough to release the wrinkles. She hung the curtain, now dry and algae free, then reset the dryer for an hour to dry the towels and mats. She went over the floor again, wiping down the coving and using a cotton swab in the corners. 

The timer beeped again for the towels.  She enjoyed folding the warm towels into thirds, hanging them so the seams faced the same way, aligning the hand towels on top of the bath sheets, folding and stacking the washcloths and placing them on the wrought iron towel rack.

The bathroom didn’t just smell clean, it smelled hygienic. 

Everything was neat and shiny.  The towels were crisp, the shower curtain draped just so, the doodads replaced, the combs were back in the hair accessory holder. Soap slivers had been removed and replaced with a new bar of soap. The antibacterial liquid soap container had been replaced with a new one, appropriate to the season. The artificial flowers in the corner vase had been vacuumed. The toothbrushes, floss and dental pics were in the toothbrush tray and all four tubes of toothpaste were in a row, the ends neatly rolled up.

She smiled, surveying her morning’s work.

The Missus walked in, gave her a cold nod, picked up one of the toothpaste tubes and squeezed it, right in the middle. 

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.

Black Thing

im going to stay here until they go away

im going to stay right here in the closet

oh stop smirking not that kind of closet

no one in this family is in that kind of closet

im in a for real closet                                                                                                            

my favorite closet way up on the top shelf sprawled across the hatboxes of military helmets collapsible toppers berets fedoras souwesters and bowlers where i can inhale the leather scent of the mans jackets  

its quiet up here with the good smell of leather and man sweat

i dont like the hubbub the crowds in the living room kitchen bedrooms

even the bathroom where the man keeps my box

the apartment is full of people

the mans sister

his friend

his friends siamese bitch

yes i know a bitch is a dog but i am using the other meaning of the word

you dont insult my intelligence and i wont insult yours

at least ill try not to insult yours whatever intelligence you have anyway

so many other people that i am dizzy with the smells

i am too old and fat to avoid their legs

keep their heels off my tail and their hands off me

i dont like when they touch me 

i dont like strange people touching me

i belong to the man

 

im not even sure how i managed to get up here

its been years since i climbed the coats but now i am here

up on top of the hatboxes in the warm quiet

so quiet up here away from everything everyone all over

im going to stay up here until they go away and the man helps me down

i hope he comes soon

he should be looking for me i think 

such a long time since he fed me

since anyone fed me even the mans friend or the mans sister

they give me dry food but the man shares real food with me and I bring him presents

okay I used to bring him presents when I was younger

he even made a poster for the door with a scorecard because he is proud of my hunting

ill just take another little nap while i wait

its late

its so very late

i know its late because im very hungry and i want down

when the man gets me ill pretend to be annoyed and hiss but i hope he comes soon

maybe when he gets me down he will be sorry for forgetting me and he will hold me and give me treats and stroke my fur and play make believe and put me in the hats and take pictures of me like we used to do before when we were young and sleek and not grey anywhere

hes gotten so thin

i wish i could give him some of my fatness

i wish i could

im so fat now i take up his whole lap and the rest of the sofa too 

he pushes me off because his stomach hurts all the time so I go up on the back of the sofa to nuzzle his neck and watch the fireplace with him

i know what ill do

ill call him and he will come and reach way up and say come here black thing you silly old black thing what are you doing up there all alone and pull me down and hold me and take me to sit on the sofa with him

im going to call him now

man

maaaaaannnn

oh man come get me man

if you get me down we can sit in the living room and i will do the firefly dance on the windowsill and play peekaboo with the curtains to make you laugh and i will bring you a present

oh maaaaaannnn my man come get me please

i wish he'd come get me

im lonely up here

i dont want to be up here anymore

why doesnt he come

he always comes when i call

where is he            

where is my man

i wish everyone would just go away already so the man can get me and sit on the sofa with me and watch the fireplace and eat sardines right out of the can and itll be me and him and everything will be okay like before

Wellwood D14

He’s pushing up daisies through the hedgerow
I waited too long before, too long since
The blip in my life that was us
Grey roads and heat wave ripple air before,
tree root broken sidewalks and tsunami wind since
I lie down, partly hidden by the bushes
Soon, I will take his hand and we will push up daisies together.

thing i wish would work for me

i'm a lousy typist. i'm reasonably fast, but inaccurate. and i'm an email addict, so i've lost the ability to capitalize. which is all fine. i write in longhand. i like thick pens with heavy black ink and lined notebooks, cheap 70 page college ruled notebooks, pack of 10 for a dollar at target. well, used to be price is now 7 for a dollar, still an amazing bargain. i'll also write in small notebooks [purse or car] on the back of shopping lists, margins of the newspaper, stubs of papers, whatever is in the console of my car, paper napkins [fermat's theorem? is that what was written on a napkin? http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fermat's_Penultimate_Theorem]
et alteri.

thing is, my handwriting is abysmal. it has deteriorated to the point that i rival my left-handed, dyslexic brother for illegibility.

and i'm prone to tendinitis in my right wrist and have a permanently dislocated right thumb. well, i think that's what's wrong with my thumb, i REFUSE to spend any more money on MRIs or x-rays [2007 and 200 total: over $2,500 out of pocket for doctors to look at my insides and say nothing is wrong, it'll heal itself. that was my out of pocket. none of this was covered by my medical insurance, if i'd gone through the insurance company it would have been $3,800 out of pocket. go figure.]obvious solution: get a mini-tape machine, talk into it.

only that doesn't work for me. i need to feel the ink, be moving my hands, my fingers.

okay, rant over, back to work.

Assorted Haiku, staring at the sun

Sun explodes. Eyes burn.
Soon, it will be dark. The sky
never light again.

Beloved, hold me.
You have to pull me because
I can’t push myself.

If I told you... If.
You say, “Your actions tell me
all I need to know.”

Dec 6 1994

It's empty, the rink. The eighty-four foot spruce casts no shadow at this hour. Soon, the street will be filled with happy, laughing families, or at least the appearance of happy laughing families. Does anyone know the inside of another's heart? Can you? Can I?

For now, it's empty. I have it all to me, this grey-pink hour between night and dawn.

I've watched it, cars honking at 4 a.m., plaza crowded with partiers, too much to eat, too much alcohol, too many drugs, drowning sorrows they don't know they have, filling their insides, their physical insides while I watch and compose metaphors. Hug themselves against the cold, giggling, going up and down the stairs, round the tree, and then?

Everyone leaves.

No one will see the sunrise except me.

I have no where else to go, no one to miss me, to wonder where I am.

Maybe when the sun comes up, I won't be so cold.

Maybe.

Sheloshim

Mommy died on April 16, 1986. The hospital called my uncle to tell him that she had taken a turn for the worse and perhaps we should come in to speak to her doctors. A turn for the worse? She'd already spent a week in the intensive care unit, had tubes running in and out of her, been robbed of her speech-oh that was the worst, being unable to speak! She'd yanked the tube out of her throat once too often and the nurses had tied her arms to the bed- and the use of her limbs. So what could be worse than that?

I had spoken to the nursing staff before I'd left for work that ordinary Wednesday morning, like any other Wednesday morning: "No change." What could have happened in the seventy minutes from when I locked my front door until I sat down and changed from sneakers to pumps? What?

Everything changes in the blink of an eye.

A child is conceived.

A person falls in love.

A truth is revealed.

A woman dies.

But that is all neither here nor there because tonight I want to talk about what happened sixty day later, twice sheloshim.

Sheloshim is the first thirty days of mourning. At the end of the month of mourning, the bereaved are allowed to wear regular clothes, uncover their mirrors and return to life, or the end of the world, as they know it, and are expected to function, to be okay with things, be normal.

I am expected to function and to be okay with things. But I know I'm not, I know that I am filled with slivers of glass. Twenty years in the future in a time and place where life appears normal, the bottom of my foot will be shards and I will leave a trail of blood, but I don't know that. I look into a shattered mirror and see nothing.

No one looks past the mirror, past the teeth of a shredder.

Sixty days and Jeff was admitted to Mt. Sinai for the first of many stays, the beginning of a too long, too short period of dying, pain and funeral planning.

I begin to count on June 16, 1986, like the counting of the Omer, long hot summer followed by a wet fall. David and Jeff went to the high holiday services at a temple near their home. We didn't have a regular temple, didn't have a congregation to support us for good or ill, a spiritual home where we could pad around in our slippers and drink tea with honey while analyzing the meaning of the letter ‘bet' in a particular word and why god chose to pass this cup of bitter to our lips.

Jeff carried the prayer book which had been given to him for his twenty-first birthday and had his name embossed on the cover in gilt lettering. Although his grandfather or maybe it was his great-grandfather, had been a rabbi or at least a big-macher in the reform movement, no one remembers the truth of family legends, Jeff was the product of a mixed marriage and not ritually observant. I have always numbered him among the holy thirty-six, but what do I know anyway?

He and David were reveling in exploring their Jewish roots and their new found spirituality. They shared Jeff's prayer book that year, the first time my brother had gone to services in his adult life, and struggled through the Hebrew together.

A year later, while Jeff drifted in and out of consciousness, David read the services to him and the minyan of friends who stood at his bedside in that small room at Mt. Sinai, or so I was told later.

When I spoke to them, to Jeff for the last time, from Hong Kong, I asked if they would meet me at the airport when I returned in a few days. Jeff replied, "I don't know. I can't predict what will be tomorrow, let alone a week from now. Little Sister, everything changes in the blink of an eye. You, more than anyone, know that."

Yes. Yes, it does.

In the blink of an eye, David read the services to Jeff, read them despite his inability to read Hebrew, read them as Jeff struggled to breathe, read them as Erica steeled herself not to cry, read them as Brian punched his fist through the wall, read them as Jews all over the world prayed for forgiveness, for repentance, prayer and charity to temper judgment's severe decree, and by the time the blink was finished, he was gone.

The next year, David carried Jeff's book to BHS, the home we'd found on Remsen Street, the congregation that adopted us and became our place of peace, took us in as we merged until we didn't know where one of us started and the other one ended, Meanddavid.

But that is still another story, the story of the lost years and I cannot bear to revisit it.

David carried it every year and let me hold it now and then. He'd hold Lizz and I'd hold Jeff's book open so we both could read.

When he died, I looked for Jeff's book with all of David's other prayer books, his tefillin, the collection of kippas, in the buffet in his dining room behind the left door. It wasn't there.

I looked in the bedroom.

I looked in the bookcases.

I looked in the garage.

I looked in the cars, woodshop, office, parlor, behind the wood stoves, under the loose tiles, above the kitchen cabinets, on the shelf in the closet where the cats slept, in the pockets of his jackets, under the mattress.

It wasn't there.

I sat on the floor in the dining room. "David, you need it? You need it so bad you took it with you? You're with Jeff now, you need his book, too? You're with your bashert, you couldn't leave me the book? You left me all the drek to deal with, the house of cards fell down, but you couldn't leave me the book. Fuck you, David."

He didn't answer. Not answering is also an answer.

I nodded, got up from the floor and went about my business. What choice did I have? At services, I used one of the books from the piles of books stacked all around the sanctuary. Every year when I took a book from the pile, I thought of Jeff's book and resented my brother for taking it, resented him for standing next to me, telling me things I knew, what I had to do or not do, to live my life without regrets or guilt, but not sharing the book. Being dead gives one a kind of omniscience or perhaps it changes one into an obnoxious know-it-all. I'm not sure which and who am I to judge anyway? Every year I did this, but I continued to search, moving furniture, emptying closets, cupboards, shelves of life. I enlisted all my friends in the search as we dismantled David, but it never turned up.

We contracted to sell David's house about five years after he died. All the furniture was gone, the cars, tools and supplies. All that was left was a folding table and three chairs, where we'd sat boxing up the last few things. I clicked the remote and opened the garage, looked around. I'd lost my brother and I'd lost a child and I'd lost years of my life. Gone. The echoes of sunlight were swallowed by this cave I'd wandered for so long, tripping over stalagmites of Stickley tables and knocked in the head by stalactites of log rules.

I sighed, walked to the table, stopped.

In the middle of the table was Jeff's book.

I reached out, touched it with a fingertip to see if it was real. Pulled my cell from my purse, dialed.

"Richie, did you find Jeff's book?"

"Stephen, did you find Jeff's book?"

"Harrison, Antoine, Micheal?"

No. No. No.

"Honey, Jeff's book is here."

"What do you mean? David took it."

"It's here. On the folding table."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

My husband pulled into the garage and got out of the car, walked over to me. Reached out and touched the book with a fingertip to see if it was real.

"Feels real."

"Did you....."

"No. I would have called you or brought it home. I wouldn't have pulled a stunt like this."

"So?"

"I dunno, hon. I dunno. Maybe David decided he doesn't need it any longer."

"Or maybe that I need it more than he does since we're..."

"He passed it on."

"How?"

"How? How do we know? Do we really want to know? Do we?"

We stood there, staring at the book, for bit longer. I picked it up and put it on the passenger seat of my car. We backed out of the garage and drove home.

Every year I carry Jeff's book, the book he received for his twenty-first birthday, the red "Gates of Repentance" embossed with his name.

Jeffrey H. Glidden.

I never did find out what the "H" stood for

Tazo Haiku

He drinks my tea, hot
not iced, when I am not there
to feel me inside.

The Cannibal King

It was more than time to replace the toilet. He had finished all the other work in the apartment and only the bathroom still needed doing. The sink and tub were no big deal if he didn’t finish tonight, this tenant could manage to stink for a day. But the toilet? People were not pleased when you messed with their toilet. And if you had to remove it, they really were not pleased. So replacing a toilet had to planned with great care and every consideration for the dignity of his tenants. Sandoval’s was the last one.

"So, Sandoval, I need to replace your toilet. Then I can install the new flooring. Tiling is already done. What day is good for you?"

"Yah man, Mr. David, every day is bad, bad, bad. I’m home now, all de time, Mr David. How you going to do this thing? Cause you leave a man wit no toilet..." Sandoval shook his head sadly, the beads on his ringlets and dreads clicking back and forth in sympathy.

"Look Sandoval, you name a time I can come by and do this. Because I really have to do this, there is going to be an inspection on the other work as well, before I seal up the openings. And I only have to take the toilet out for maybe an hour or so."

"An hour? Dat it?"

"Yeah, that’s all. Sandoval, you have a girlfriend, it shouldn’t require lot of persuasion on your part to get her to agree to you staying over for a bit. Hell, she’s a good spirit. She must be to have you hanging around. You go spend some time with her, I’ll do the work."

"Okay Mr David, you persuaded me, wit you fancy words and big ribbon on high. I gonna go to my girlfriend’s, I guess this afternoon, sah. Yeah..." Sandoval smiled. "Yeah Mr David, you just do whatever you got to do. I be goin’ to my girlfriend Maria’s house."

"I thought you were seeing Maritza.

"Oh Mr David, you just cannot keep up with my life, can you, Mr David? Maritza was two, tree week ago. Maria is the girl for me, now. How do you solve a problem like maria? You rub its tummy and a genie comes out!"

The two men nodded to each other, then each picked up his tools and prepared to leave. Mr David picked up a tote with plumbing supplies. Sandoval grabbed a pouch with the day’s ganga. He continued singing as he let the apartment door slam behind him and went down the steps to the sidwalk.

"Sandoval, I’m going to do this late afternoon, that’ll work today," Mr. David called to Sandoval’s back.

Sandoval waved and called back, "I see you tomorrow, sah! You have a good one!"

Mr David looked at Sandoval, now all the way down the block and shook his head. He picked up his tool box again and went downstairs. He needed some different tools and had to measure to make sure he got the right toilet. If the size was wrong, it would not fit the plumbing components. There were two toilets in the storage area in the basement, He hoped one of those would fit and save him the trouble of going to the store.

Later, he reentered the apartment and looked at the offending toilet. It works. It works fine. Still the powers that be had determined that old water guzzling tanks were to be no more. Since the rehap was extnsive enough to qualify as new construction certain aspects of the code had to be adhered to precisely to the letter. He bent down and pried the putty away, turned off the water line and flushed. He removed the now-empty tank from the base and looked down.

Using a putty knife, Mr. David broke up the seal around the base of the toilet, loosened it. Very carefully, removed the actual toilet and set it aside. There was a gaping hole. It smelled. Sewer fumes and gasses formed a ghost cloud over the toilet, a miniature typhoon. He shoved a rag in the opening to stop the stench from infiltrating the rest of the house. He measured the opening diameter and the distance between the wall and the pipe openings. There was one in the basement that should fit.

Mr. David returned with the new toilet and unboxed it. He set it into place. It was the wrong size. He sighed. This meant a trip to Lowes or HD or the local place, none of which seemed like a good option at 5:30 pm on a Tuesday. He would call first, make sure one of them had the size he needed in stock, before he started racing all over the world.

The local place and Lowes were out. HD had the right size, but that was a good forty minutes away. He sighed and went to the van. Gotta get it. No choice.
A flat. Perfect. A flat tire at six o’clock with rush hour traffic and then an hour of work ahead of him. Mr. David shook his head. Change the flat, get the toilet in the morning when HD opens at six a.m. He could have the toilet installed by 7, 7:30 the latest. Sandoval was spending the night with whoever anyway.

BRNG!BRNG! BRNG! It was five o’clock. Who calls at five o’clock?

"Hello?"

"Mr. David, what you doing to me, man? What going on here?"

"Sandoval?"

"Yes, Mr. David, dis be Sandoval! What you do man? What you do wit me toilet, man?"

"Um, I had the wrong size. I was on my way to get the right one. I thought you were spending the night at Maritza’s. I mean Maria’s."

"No, man, we have a little quarrel, man, I come home. And den, man, I got to use de toilet man. But there is NO TOILET! No! What cho do man?"

"Oh, Sandoval, I am so sorry. I took the old one out and I have to pick up the right size. I really am sorry."

"Oh man, you ruin me life! I come home, I had war wit me girl and den I had to shit in a pot like a cannibal man. Like a cannibal! I be telling you!" Sandoval almost squeaked as he talked he was so upset.

"Huh? Um Sandoval, I though cannibals ate people. I never read about them shitting in pots or anything at all like that."

"Well just cause you don’t read it don’t mean it ain’t so. Like a cannibal, I’m telling you! No bigger insult to a man than to have to shit in pot! Cannibals, Mr David!"

"Okay, Sandoval, the store opens soon, let me get the part and I’ll come right over."

"You do dat man. You do dat for me, Mr David. Yah." Mr David heard Sandoval’s beads clicking as he nodded his head and then a click! as Sandoval disconnected.

Mr. David stood there, looking at the phone in his hand. Cannibals shit in pots? He shook his head. This is New York. Why the hell shouldn’t the cannibals shit in pots if they want to? Who was going to tell them no?

Hemophilia

Don’t look at me. I am invisible.
Don’t want you.
Don’t want you to know me, find me
see me inside myself, all built up scar tissue.
Don’t touch me!
You’ll tear the scabs and I’ll bleed.
Oh, I will bleed and bleed and bleed
tears of blood stream from my eyes.

My brother cried blood when he died.

Hover over me
Heat touches me before flesh.
Oh gods
Settle into me so slow, so careful
Am I that fragile?
Every bone broken and set,
it hurts, it hurts to breathe.
Cry out. Not in passion.
In pain. In fear. I cry.

Why are you here?
Why you and not not not-
why?
No ghosts. Push them back,
back into their corners, boxes, closets.
Lock them up and throw away the key.
Huh. You can’t lock up ghosts.

Stop taunting me with kisses, remembered touch.
Ghosts. Shadows. Stop.

Help me forget.
Dip your fingers in the whitewash, cover it.
I am fevered, raw, exposed.
Kiss me, oh god, kiss me.
Make it all go away.

Please...

Jeff and Erica

It was Jeff's birthday the other day. And Erica's yahrzeit. She did not die on his birthday, no. She died the next day. Or that night, but not on his birthday. No.

It was a strange and terrible year, even as years go, following another strange and terrible year, a whole series in strange and terrible years. I kept my funeral shoes near the door. It seemed too much trouble to throw them in the closet when I'd only have to dig them out again a few days later. Timmy and I discussed snubbing each other. We were tired of running into each other in funeral chapels, cemeteries, wakes, shiva calls. Before that year, we were used to two or three years passing with only a phone call or christmas card. But that year? Never more than ten weeks without seeing each other.

Never more than ten.

I went to a lot of funerals that year, the year before I got married, moving guests from the "yes I will attend" column to the "deceased" column. Perhaps the wedding, wearing my dead father's necklace, my dead mother's scarf, Jeff's penny in my shoe, was a funeral of sorts, too, a funeral pickled on champagne and ice floes instead of whiskey and ice. Perhaps.

We all thought Jeff would be the last funeral. Who was left to die?

I, the bad sister-in-law, came back from Tibet to a treasure trove of mourning. My mother's death money sent me there, away from it all, and I came back a month later, spinning my prayer wheels, to find four more coffins waiting for me. Yes I'd sit and spin my prayer wheels, wood and ivory, with my little prayers tucked inside, sending them straight to heaven, straight to god. Every prayer was "Enough."

If I lined up all the coffins head to toe, head to toe, head to toe, counted the miles, I would be a fool. There was no relief that year. It was SLAM SLAM SLAM, body shots, gut shots, huge gaping holes of grief shots.

Still, there was nothing to do about it, except make whatever plans seemed to go with or against whatever grain there was and I don't know I just did and didn't think. Or I'd think and turn away from it. Twenty years later and I don't know that, that it IS twenty years later. To me it isn't, certainly not. When I let myself feel, let myself in, it is now.

The dragons have sharp claws, sharper than a serpent tooth, especially from the inside trying to get out. Dragons in full bloom that year, slowly circling the campground, waiting to pounce on the person that inadvertently? with audacity? leaves the confines of safe haven. They wait. Dragons can wait forever, they have no concept of time.

Dragons only exist in me. They aren't real. Everyone knows dragons are just more make-believe. Right? Right?

Jeff's memorial service was on his 30th birthday. That was his short range goal, to be thirty. And his long term goal? Thirty-five. This man, who had the courage to climb out of a bottle, climb out of the drug haze, this man who saved lives as easily as he snapped his fingers, this man who was truly beautiful, all he wanted was to be thirty.

Erica did not have a good day at the service. She'd spent the past sixteen months nursing her child, her firstborn, through illness after illness, as the ravening dragon inside him chewed his liver, his intestines, his heart, his brain. I stayed with her and we counted sugar dots. We even had the fancy ones with little flowers on them. Sugar dots and sugar cubes are a tradition in my family, a funeral tradition. I still have Jeff's sugar dots, a few. But we used most of them at Erica's funeral. Two days later.

Jeffrey Jan 17, 1958 to Oct 9, 1987.

Erica ???? to Jan 18, 1988.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Cemetery

I was thinking about my brother this morning. Yes, I realize I think about him every morning (I think about you too, Big Brother, but I do not discuss you here.) but a favorite incident has been tickling my brain the past few days. David was a character. We all have slightly twisted senses of humor, ways of dealing with our past that some may find a bit off-setting.

We have more dead than many people of our generation. Well, perhaps not now, not now that I am a little old lady, much closer to my demise, so close I can smell the cordite and treacle, than I am to my beginning, but when we were in our twenties, it seemed we were the only two who had more relatives in Wellwood Cemetery than in our phone book.

Every time ten people in my phone book die, I replace my phone book.

I have had many phone books.

I don't keep a physical phone book any longer. That is another story.

So, David and I would often talk of our dead, our ghosts, speak of them and to them. I still do. He still does. We had a nice little chat yesterday morning. He agreed that the new purple sheets were a really nice shade of purple and reminded me to wash them before first use. And I better watch out, the last time I had purple sheets, I was five years old and ended up head to toe purple hives. I replied, these are sheets, not sulfa drugs. Which also turn me purple, FYI. As do other medications, but not penicillin. I am such an old fashioned old lady. Give me a poultice of moldy bread, that'll fix me right up, good as new. But I digress.

Back to David, who was also allergic to sulfa drugs but took large dosages of them during the week before he died, blood pouring out of every orifice in his body, the morning after they would not let me see him, his visitor passes already in use, his phone line dead. I stood there in the hospital lobby, so desperate to go upstairs, making such a scene, hoping they would have rachmunis on me. They threatened to have me arrested, sent me out into the night.

The doctor called me at 6:15 the next morning.

I was already awake, waiting.

I was already awake, waiting when my mother called to say that my dad had died.

I was already awake, waiting when my uncle called to say that my mom had died.

I was already awake, waiting when Kay called to say Richie had died.

Is that why I never sleep?

Am I always waiting for the phone to ring?

Alright, Robyn, you wanted to tell a tale, stop staring at the computer screen. The flickering diodes hold no answers, no insights. The warmth and pressure of the laptop on my thighs will have to suffice as an answer, a comfort. It is the closest I get to losing myself in physical pleasure, the solace, my drug of choice to make it all go away for a while. It is the closest I get to not being alone.

David was widowed. After a while, he dated. He would meet men in bars or at clubs or wherever and decide whether or not they were worthy of going home with him. When the first throes of mourning had passed, the random faceless fucking of shloshim, he resumed his selective tendencies and decided to pursue a relationship. After a third or fourth or fifth date, he'd determine whether or not to introduce the person to his family.

"I want you to meet my family."

"Wow, I am honored. Great. When?"

"Now is as good a time as any."

The person hopped on the back of David's bike and wrapped his arms around David, thinking, oh wow, I am going to meet Kid Sister and Most Amazing Niece and maybe even Long Suffering Brother in Law. This is great, I must really rate.

And they took off. Down Eastern Parkway, Linden Blvd, onto the Southern State they'd fly, exceding whatever the posted speed limit was (you thought I was the only one who exceeds the speed limit? Daddy and David were each ticketed at over 100 mph.) until they turned in at the gates of Wellwood. David would continue, much slower, pulling up in front of our parents' tombstones.

"XYZ, I'd like you to meet my parents. Mom, Dad, this is XYZ. Okay, Grandma and Aunt Ettie are right over here and then I'll introduce you to Jeff and Erica. And Cousin Irving, he's in the front. Oh. You thought I was going to introduce you to Kid Sister? Maybe later."

Depending on whether the person politely introduced himself to the granite markers, helped trim the bushes, laid pebbles on the base of each grave, how the person responded to David's dead determined whether he would get to meet David's living.

Not a bad way of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about David and Vita's list of repairs.

Hemophilia

Don’t look at me.
I am invisible.
Don’t want you.
Don’t want you
to know me
find me
see me inside myself,
all built up scar tissue.
Don’t touch me!
You’ll tear the scabs
I’ll bleed.
Oh, I will bleed and bleed and bleed
tears of blood stream from my eyes.

My brother cried blood when he died.

Hover over me
Heat touches me before flesh.
Oh gods
Settle into me
so slow, so careful
Am I that fragile?
Every bone broken, set.
It hurts
it hurts to breathe.
Cry out
not in passion.
In pain.
In fear.
I cry.

Why are you here?
Why you and not not not-
why?
No ghosts.
Push them back,
back into their corners, boxes, closets.
Lock them up and throw away the key.
Huh.
You can’t lock up ghosts.

Stop taunting me with kisses
remembered touch.
Ghosts.
Shadows.
Stop.

Help me forget.
Dip your fingers in the whitewash,
cover it.
I am fevered, raw, exposed.
Kiss me.
Oh god,
kiss me.
Make it all go away.

Please...

"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"

This was written a few months ago, around the time I started this blog. I posted it, but I worried that it was too controversial, too revealing. Now, I read it to remind myself where I was, what I was feeling and to wonder at how far I've come. More than that, it warns me not to go there again, not to let myself fall into that deep state of despair, not to believe everything I hear no matter how much I want to believe. This was a cry for help and there was no help forthcoming. Only I can help me, can save me. The human spirit is a miraculous thing, a marvel. What the mind and body can endure and triumph over, how the soul can find one tiny spark of light in the darkest pit, it is truly Awesome. Miles to go...

July 5 2007

"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"

Tonight is First Thursday at the Orlando Museum of Art. I've gone to special evenings at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Met, but never here. I'd heard it was a big singles scene. Who told me that? K? S? V? Well I guess any of them and their respective husbands would know if it was a singles scene or not, would have noticed when they were here if there was hunting going on. Never been my thing, singles places, but I guess I'll have to find out about that aspect of being unmarried at some point in the future. In any case, tonight, the place reeks of couples and coupledom. Not coupling, that's a smell I enjoy. This was more....complacent.

Tonight's theme is illustration, artwork created for posters, publicity, books, newspapers, magazines. Diving into the surrealism of "Tsunami Moon", the genetic memory of "I'll Never See Another Butterfly", and that of a friend of a friend's work [www.briandemeter.com/], the work that spoke to me, that hit me, that hurts to look at, is "Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth."

Oh, I know that feeling. The cold steel, grey or blued. Slick and hard and smooth. Sliding between my anxious hungry lips, running my tongue around the sight and flicking it, sucking on the shaft. Cradling the grip in one hand, while the other strokes the chamber, making sure it does not slip from my eager mouth. Hoping for fulfillment, counting the seconds until it shoots into my throat, into my brain...

I cannot cry with a gun in my mouth. I will laugh with joy, but I will not cry.

There have been times when, speeding down a rain slicked road, the traffic poles were a beacon welcoming me, calling to me. If I swerved just a little bit... But the terror of not dying stops me. To risk, not death, but incapacitation? That I will not do. Trapped in a life I hate, a me I despise, is a sorry enough existence. To be trapped in a body, useless, my mind still functional? Who will pull the plug? Who?

If I cannot live, I do not want to be here.

I come from a long line of suicides. They would deny it, but they were subtle, as subtle as homicide can be given proper care and preparation. Driving a person to drink, to drugs, to self-doubt on a scale beyond imagining, making a person crazy enough to want to end life are all forms of homicide. If I have lost touch with this world, I might as well sever my links to it. This goes far beyond the anonymous ‘suicide by cop' because this is personal. Happenstance? Accident? Anything can be an accident. Brakes a tad squishy? Car push you off the shoulder of the road? Lump in the carpet at the top of the stairs? Allergic reaction to meds? Criminal intent? No, bad things just happen sometimes. But I say, there is no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents. I haven't lost touch with reality, with sanity, it was taken from me. And I want it back.

I will not die. I have a mission, a calling, a charge to complete. I have orders to follow and I cannot leave this world until my work is done.

I will not follow in the footsteps of my parents or brother. I am not a gambler, spinning the chamber and cocking the hammer. I will love it, I will make love to it, but I am faking every second. I will pull away and let it discharge wherever it will but not into me. Oh no, not into me. No.

"And I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."