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

Reading Tea Leaves

Aisles of tea, pushing an empty cart

staring at shelves, paralyzed

the wrong tea, the wrong tea

small bags and large bags and loose leaves

and distillates and

single servings

and and and

if I take the wrong tea

 

I drive, gas gauge blinks

empty alert

but I drive

backseat trunk passenger seat filled

every tea

strainers filters water boilers

Strip mall parking lot, empty except for

homeless shopping carts and

third shifters of the dark

temporary haven

I can’t go home

There are crackers waiting to be dunked

crushed salt for the wrong tea

 

Safer to sleep in the

shadow of the lower bagmen

who haven’t scored notches

who don’t have teardrop tattoos

 

than to face those hands

pantomime communion

wafer in wine

bread in hemlock

crackers in tea

Chris Dance

The first thing I saw when I woke was Chris’ face

Eyes still shut hovering on the inside

That bright orange; a Warhol Chris

Pressed into my eyelid

Haloed with blues and fours

Chris’ face, before the accident

Before the crush of metal

Before the diesel fire melted

The asphalt and flesh into one

Chris’ face, and a slowly turning wheel

 

There is a ghost bike there

A tree swallowed part

Gardenias drape the rest

At the turning of the year

I clean the leaves and spin

The wheel

Still see Chris’ face against the inside of my eye

 

I am old now and clippings are brittle

The ghost tree is tall grown through

The wheels don’t spin

I sit on the roots

Chris dancing behind my eyes

 

Chris dancing …

The last thing I saw before I slept

Was Chris’ hand

Reaching for me to dance

Winner, 1st Place FSPA 2021 June Owens Memorial Award

Published in Cadence 2021

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.

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.

House Arrest

The blinds shake and he flings open the door,

“You, I should have known you.”

A former roommate slides past me,

empty sounds, that he’ll be back

in a few days,

with groceries.

Trading places with me, ceding me possession

of the vestibule and life within,

we’ve danced this dance before.

The call of ‘change partners’

with a nod to me or him and a puzzlement

to others.

Where would I be if not here, if not now,

folded into arms that pull me to

the comfy chair

head resting against mine.

We sit, quiet together.

We are very good at being quiet together.

After a long while, I ask if he’d prefer

donuts or muffins.

He replies that he limits himself to

half an espresso per day so

It doesn’t matter,

as long as I come back,

come back soon.

With comfort silence in this cacophony nightmare,

I kiss him, on the mouth, and pinky swear.

Celeste

“Unfortunately, there is no mistake,” she said, closing the file.

“You can’t do anything? Anything?”

“I can call around, see if there is space at one of the courtesy hotels, but we’re booked.”

I looked at my friend. She shrugged. “Fine. We’ll stay. Two beds, right?”

“Your reservation is for a king.”

Celeste whispered, “It’ll be fine. A king bed is huge. Let’s stay.”

But I didn’t want the bed to be huge. I was going to be in the same room, the same bed as Celeste, for three days. Agony. 

“It’ll be fine. Chill. We’re going to have a good time here, I promise. You’ll pick up all sorts of new skills, meet lots of people. For me? Please?” Celeste smiled, the dimple in her right cheek peeking at me.

“Okay, fine. Let’s just do what we came here to do.”  The desk clerk handed us the keycards and vouchers for complimentary cocktails to compensate us for the inconvenience.

Great.  A conference I didn’t even want to be at because I’m not a writer or a poet or an agent or anything.  One room, one bed, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Celeste had picked up a few boxes of cardbordeaux, some white zinfandel, sangria and a case of some limited edition IPA for me.  Our plans were to get plastered together, but not to be plastered together. Man plans and gods laugh. Ha ha.

She put two six-packs and the white zinfandel in the mini fridge. “I’m going to donate the sangria and the cardbordeaux to the greater good, take them down to the office later,” Celeste said as she lined up her toiletries in the bathroom and hung her clothes in the closet.  “Two big towels, two hand towels, two washcloths.  That’ll be fine. I’m going to shower. Be a doll and get some ice, I don’t think five minutes in the fridge will do anything for it.”

I filled the ice bucket and returned to the sound of running water and singing. Celeste liked to sing in the shower.  She claimed it muffled her atonality, but that wasn’t true.  The atonality, not the muffling.  I loved listening to Celeste sing, in the car, on her porch, and now, in the shower.  It was a nice change from listening to her cry.

Celeste cries a lot. With me, anyway.  Guess I’m the shoulder of choice for this girlfriend did that, that boyfriend did this, her parents sucked, her job was meaningless, her friends were thoughtless, yadda yadda.  Singing was sweet.

I filled a large glass with ice and zinfandel, opened an IPA and drank.  The water stopped, but Celeste continued singing, something about a hippopotamus for Christmas, then segued into Rascal Flatts’ “Broken Road.”

And then she opened the door.

Celeste was naked except for the towel wrapped around her hair.  A pair of Dias de Los Muertos skulls surrounded by roses were tattooed over her mastectomy scars.  She smiled.

“I told you there were just enough towels. Oh good, I’m so thirsty. How ‘bout them Mets?”  She picked up the glass sipped, and winked at me.

It was going to be an interesting three days.

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.

Life is Rolling Thing

I’ve found I can live with anything
Pain
Grief
Scars
Torment of a broken soul
Seizure of a schism heart
Yes, I can
Yes, I have
but I can’t live with fear
Icicles in my eyes and paralysis of my hands
and pulse of blood slower slower and so cold
oh my god, the cold
No, that I cannot live with
So
I can live without you
a bone splitting I can take, take easily, take fine
just fine, everything will be fine
but the powerpoint possibilities you flash
hypnotize me to sleep, perchance to dream
of a place I cannot, will not go.

Never Ask a Question If You Don't Want to Hear the Answer

"I really like that purple lace." He reaches over and strokes her thigh, high up, then cups her ass.

"You know, these panties have a story." She wriggles down towards him and puts a pillow under her chest.

"Yeah? You're pulling my leg. No, I'm pulling your leg. Will you tell me?" He bites the back of her thigh. "You never tell me your stories, it's always, ‘Oh that's history, you'd be bored,' or ‘I don't want to discuss it,' or ‘It's unpleasant remembering.'" He bites her again. " Did that hurt?" She shakes her head. "Not even a little? You never tell me anything, you're so need to know basis I wonder if you're actually a CIA agent."

She shrugs, as much as it's possible for someone laying on their stomach with their head propped on their hands to shrug, and turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Of course not, I don't speak Russian or Arabic, I can't be a CIA agent. I just like to horde my words. I don't waste them. Watch, I want to turn over, my shoulders hurt." She flips over and puts the pillow under her head.

He flutters his eyelashes at her, ducks his face into her groin for a second and then looks up. "Please? Please tell? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Fine. I went to every Wal-Mart around here looking for my size, every single one."

"You went to Wal-Mart?" He hyperventilates for a few beats, holding his hand over his heart. "You went to all the Wal-Marts? To buy panties? And you admit it?"

"Stop or I'll stop. No, don't stop. Yeah, that's better." She pushes his head back down. "Good. I was there grocering when I saw them on the rack near the umbrellas. So I looked for my size. That purple lace, how could I resist? Of course, they didn't have my size, they only had extra-extra large, if they did have my size there wouldn't be a story now, would there? Wal-Mart, home of the uber-queen-sized. Stop, I'm talking!"

"Mmmfffle mmmfffle. I thought you didn't want me to stop."

"Men, you're all the same. No, you're not, you're actually surprisingly competent. Anyway, I looked the next time I was there. And the next. And the next. It became an obsession, a quest, a purple lace Holy Grail. Oh, god, that's good. I looked for these panties every single time I went to Wal-Mart, every single one of them, and there's how many around here? Three, four?"

He sighs, sliding his fingers under the lace trim, sliding his fingers along her thigh where his lips had been moments before. "Three in a five mile radius, four in a seven. That's devotion to the cause. So much trouble for a pair of panties, but so worth it. They're really nice."

"Yeah, they are. It's kinda almost a pity." She reaches down and strokes the cotton covering her lower abdomen, snaps the lace band a few inches below her navel. "It is."

"Oh?" He walks his fingers to the hipband and starts to tug them down.

"Only wearing them for maybe an hour. They're so comfortable, too."

He pauses in his ministrations and smiles. "I'm sorry, but much as I like them on, I like them better off. Maybe next time?"

"That would be a first. I've worn them lots of times. I've had them about two years now, but every time I put them on, before I know it, they're off." She smiles a dreamy half-smile, eyes almost closed. "The color's stayed so true and the elastic still has snap."

He does a rapid calculation. She's had them two years. They've known each other for about eighteen months. He's never seen them before although she's worn them ‘lots of times.' How could she have worn them ‘lots of times' and he's never seen them before and ‘before she knows it, they're off'? When did she wear them? Where? Why? What memory put that smile on her face? And most important, who? He starts to open his mouth to ask, but clamps it shut again.

There are some questions you don't want to know the answer.

Too Close for Comfort

She doesn't understand what is right in front of her
How could she? She's too young too small too innocent
but they are ... distracting
It disturbs her, the way they fall into each other
heads almost touching, an intimacy thick as buttermilk
their voices softer than the fall of her hair
eyes flickering in the ambient glow of respective laptops.
He shifts his legs so they encase her knees, leaning into him.
She squints, absolutely sire there are sending little bitty tentacles out,
and she doesn't understand it at all.

Christmas in Florida

This was no Rockwell Christmas, no roast duck, no tree, no presents, no family. This is no picture perfect landscape, not here. This was Florida, sunshine, tourists, heat, where the snow is as fake as the hospitality industry camaraderie. This was a bleak, sweaty landscape just like so many other bleak, sweaty landscapes he'd faced before: quiet, dust motes floating in the warm air, solitary.

Only this year, the nuance had changed, making it both more and less harsh. This year, his Christmas was not quiet, but filled with rapid breathing and hiccups of pleasure. This year, it was hotter and he wasn't thinking of the temperature as he crested another hill, one of the many he'd conquered that day in the wilds of Lake County. And this year, although he wasn't alone for the first time in a very long while, he was lonely.

He skidded around the corner, scattering gravel but still upright and powered up. Ghosts of Christmas past stretched their claws to grab him, send his delight into the gutter with all his other Christmas disappointments, from missing weenie whistles to sweaters that didn't fit to rings thrown back at him. Memory of waking fought with resentment of separation. Whoever said parting was a sweet sorrow was an ass. There was nothing sweet it. There wasn't even anything sweet about the anticipation of reunion, because there were no sure things in this universe, not his universe or in his life anyway. Nothing sure ever, uncertainty and unpredictability was the only thing he counted on.

Snowflakes of joy melted into soggy disappointment.

He switched back into the big ring. Downhill rush sent a tingle to his groin, sore from his earlier exertions. He shifted back on the saddle, pressed down against the nose, tucked his knees tighter against the frame and watched the indicator on the speedometer rise.

Why did she leave?

Why did she have to leave?

Over the last few months, she'd cracked his isolation, pealed the flesh from him like vernix from a newborn and now she'd left him, lonelier for the knowledge that he was truly alone. Knowledge is a terrible thing, joy tasted and revoked. He was Tantalus, thirsty, hungry, and could barely graze her life giving wetness with his tongue, nip at the flesh swinging just beyond his bared teeth. Once you've tasted ambrosia, everything else is sawdust.

Another hill to climb, more sweat, more hot wind. Christmas was supposed to be cold, snowy, family gathered round the crackling log fireplace and he had aching muscles, sore knees and exploding lungs from the sucker punch her words had landed. His guts wanted to spill out, leave a trail for the ever present turkey vultures. Sisyphus and Prometheus now. He knew a few bits and pieces of classical mythology, but now he could mix and match gods and demigods with ease. Another set of trivial information she'd gifted him with, along with all the others.

How could she leave?

Was she thinking of him?

He turned towards home, the place that held him. "And I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep."

Truth

Until you accept your ugly
have faith to let your guard down
Until you know you can let the one
see what you bury under the broken toys in the garage
Until you stop inflating, glorifying, lying
trust the mirror in his eyes won't slit your veins
until then
until then
until then
you will look, try to stay above the high tide mark
and pray no one sees the clay feet inside your Armani shoes
when you stop
when you let the demons out of the box you call your heart and know
know
that the one will slam the lid so Hope stays,
then you'll have truth.

Tears are Salt Rain

When you cry, voiceless
How can I? What do I? [deep breath]
You rip my heart out,
Chasing yours, trying, wanting
anything to be your net.

My Right Foot

My third toe, right foot,
It's name is Bill. It still moves
any way I want.
But one day, maybe
soon, or not, it won't.

Fragments of the Future

She could see it, staring up at the sun, fragments of a future silhouetted against the swirling orange light.

Not a waltz or a promenade, how trite those would be. Everyone saw their future or past as moments of glory or fame, but not her. Instead, she saw them turn, walk, reach out with splayed hands, their fingertips close enough to feel the air currents pass between them.

Nothing special. Her visions were ordinary, routine, every day mundane. Kissing her shoulder while she washed the dishes, the search for keys lost in a pile of mail or putting down his hex wrench to watch her type, oblivious to anything except her own words.

Fragments of a future they were cheated of by an oil slick and a rusty 92 Civic.

She saw it until they shut her eyes and zipped her in.

Crumbs

Silent ‘I love you's
so many. You follow them,
shimmers and shadows.

They might as well be
crumbs eaten by birds,I sigh.
That's fine, you tell me.

I already know
my way home. I know inside.
The crumbs are extra.

Welcome Home, Love

May 18, 1993 at 2:18 am Emily Alexis

June 17,2009 at 10:15 am Luke David

Welcome to the world, sweetheart.

Size 5-1/4

My fingers are bare.
Last ring, one I gave myself, passed on, leaving a sun mark
other ring marks faded, the callous of my wedding band long gone
only ring left, a toe ring given by my three year old, to hold while she used a Phillips head
so long ago my flesh has grown over it, sealing it to my foot
I wear gloves to cover my nakedness.