EmmaLee

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere

Change, deny, anger, grief. Cannot escape, still

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

Remember tears of a time when every hair

you lost trailed hope by the pitchful

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere.

 

And apricots and placebos and clinicals were

the daily dosage locking up the door.  Still

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

Moonface,  bloated Sobibor.

your purpled flesh, bones now fragile

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere.

 

Counting months, counting up to safety year

drop and shatter the magic eight ball

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

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

Borrowed Pajamas

You borrowed a too big tee-shirt

when you spent the night

so big it grazed your knees.

It shrank in the wash.

Now, it barely brushes your hip bones.

It shrank

over the long years

of borrowing and

not borrowing.

The neckline which hung off your shoulders

settles nicely on your collarbone.

Your face fades from the mirror

while I brush my teeth.

I fold the shirt

place it on the closet shelf

shut the door.



3rd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2020

Prospect Park 1973

It was a long ride on a warm spring afternoon

when no one was home anyway to miss me

The meadow grass called, Reading Time!

I was fourteen and alone, gloriously alone.

I lay there on my belly

deep into Jane Eyre

for the fifth time.

A young man stopped running

sat down next to me his hands on

mythighswaistass talking

asking questions as I tried to read.

Confused, resentful, scared,

he threw a leg over mine.

I was fourteen and alone.

Two men on their bicycles paused

called to me, “Hey, miss, is that guy

bothering you?” I was silent, motionless.

“Punk, get your hands off her. Now, punk.”

They stood there, waiting as he

rolled away, walked away, muttering

about strangers bothering people.

The men came closer as I put my book

in my knapsack, picked up my bicycle.

“Miss, it’s not safe here, not for a young girl.

You’re what? Fourteen? And you’re alone.

“We have daughters. Please be careful.”

They rode with me to the avenue.

I went home, still alone.

Baby Shoes

The clearance rack way  back

near the restrooms

is filled with mismatched shoes.

The worn display right foot  

the pristine boxed left shoe

shoes who’ve lost their mates

under some coatrack

and the odd sizes

rejected by parents

‘because kids grow so damned fast these days,

it ain’t worth buying shoes that fit.

Just size em up.’

I browse the rack of toddler shoes

white cowboy boots

faux patent leather mary janes

complete with taps

light up sneakers.

I slide my hands into the sneakers,

dance them along the shelf, the side bar,

bins of public domain DVDs

wishing I could make

starlight

with my feet.

And there it is! A pair of

purple fringed sandals

double buckles

and a pale yellow flower

over the big toe

like a gaudy cocktail ring.

They are size 11.

I imagine them on my baby’s feet,

her painted toenails wearing

That Big Yellow Flower.

They even have glitter.

Every little girl wants

purple glitter

double buckle

yellow flower

fringed sandals.

Every mommy wants to see her baby in

purple glitter

double buckle

yellow flower

fringed sandals

with tiny green and pink toenails glowing.

I take them out to Long Island

and leave them on aisle seven

instead of a pebble.

Road Trash

Sparkles of early morning light distract so I stop,

pull out of traffic onto the grassy embankment

wondering what tidbit discard  did I find,

there, on the edge of noisy busy nowhere

with no pedestrian access.

Only cars trucks buses exceeding the posted speed limits

by a radar detection margin

and the occasional bicyclist, traveling slow enough

for aberrant markers pass along  this byway to tourist heaven,

littered with fast food debris and other:

Shattered keyboard from a child’s computer

keys scattered, wires and circuits and

chips loose, curly plastic connecting the stylus.

A few feet away, a stuffed dog,

chewed, worn, weathered, loved, at some past time.

Which was the anger and which the revenge?

And who how much more I have had it up to there!

did not stop for wails of regret

to retrieve these precious

because it was lesson time?

The dog is missing an eye.

I reassemble the readalong,

tether the dog with the stylus,

and mark their passing with wildflowers,

another roadside tragedy.

What I See

I ride, a steady A pace,

of eighteen to twenty miles per hour

serene in the early morning

absence of traffic,

considering the tasks and pleasures

the day ahead will bring

the projects I’ll work on

once the endorphins kick in

clearing the week’s debris from my brain

the spectrum of stress and

Too many demands

Too many shut doors

Too many lost in space requests.

I see things, details that only a red light allows

but on a bicycle, the constant head swivel

ensuring safety

lets me see things a

two ton fiberglass shell hides.

I wonder why, who, leaves these markers

relics of Some Life, lost or abandoned,

Some Life changed in some way

from what was yesterday.

I see things. And stop.

A bicycle can stop anywhere.

Pull over onto median, shoulder, curb,

stop and reflect

at the growing crop

of roadside memorials

crosses and stakes, draped with ribbons,

dried flowers, stuffed bears, empty beer cans.

They spring up like daisies

victims of DUIs and drive-bys.

Every day I see new ones

replacing the abandoned, windwrecked

tides of only I remember what was there before.

Spreading, popping up, they send out shooters

and increase exponentially.

I stop, bewildered, by the creek,

water level a fraction of a few weeks ago

when the hurricane rainy season

had water lapping the trail.

Now, matted grass edges the creek bed revealing

an old child’s carseat,

and perhaps fifty feet on,

A stroller. On the bank, a matted blanket.

Where is the child that held these?

Is he safe? Is she hungry?

I see things I can do nothing about and ride on.

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.

The Median Divides the Here and

Another night to forget

another night with the man who will not be named

Hamelech Malchai Hamlochim-

or so he acted, and so he thought-

Another long trip back to the house-not-home because

I was never asked to see the morning

car redirected, traffic crawls past flashers

battalion of emergency vehicles

even Jaws of Life! slicing open a belly up Civic,

wheels still spinning.

And then I

And then I

I know that car

Where’s my phone and I’m pushing buttons and

I Don’t Know

And my ex answers.

What the hell are you doing calling at 3 am?

She’s upstairs, asleep.

Like you care.

Bitch.

Pale ribbons, soggy bears, rivulet ink paeans,

marking a long ago night to forget.

Families move away, move on,

The crypt island shrinks, as the road is widened

“to facilitate more, faster, travel”

Now, barely large enough for one faded cross,

crooked with years,

three new crosses join it.

My baby is asleep in her bed.

The hand-me-down Civic is in pieces.

Shadow reaches from my stagger

I find my keys and drive to the house-not-home

But still more of a home than where 

Heated Arguments

At 105 degrees, the body shuts down.

The blood has boiled away, leaving skin tight to sinew,

Oxygen starved muscles and bones.

Mine boiled away long before that,

Mine boiled away on the long trip here, seeking a wet savior

Every movement frantic, every movement slower to stop.

The pointless journey of self flagellation that put my heart

Through a meat grinder leaving a pile of scarlet mixed

With pieces that do not pass FDA approval.

I stand in judgment, fun house mirrors of me,

As jury, defendant, prosecutor and gavel pounding judge.

Order in the court.

The folded note, passed from trembling hand to trembling fingers,

Held by me, for me, waiting to be opened and read

Suicide by proxy, running into a hail of bullets,

Jetes and plies punctuate a full split on the floor and

An arabesque .

Overpriced macchiato that I won’t drink provides a shield,

I will watch and I will wait and I will fall and I will fail

To reach any conclusion except I am lost.

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. 

Cutting the Cord

Your long silence

You could be dead.

But, so could I.

Awake alternatives a stately reel

in quarter time. The fiddler

switches to a dirge and a

rotating paceline parades

through places I have lived.

It passes your door, pauses.

You do not emerge, not even

for the cymbals, not even

for the hurdy gurdy man.

Glass Slivers and Glue

Ship in a bottle, relic

Of a visit to a whaling museum, relic

Of a relationship once

as whole as the spigot,

small piece hidden

under the carved wooden stand,

bottle turned to conceal

its unwholeness.

Glass slivers and glue

Applied with fine brush

toothpick

canting needle

But all the precision

Concentrated in his fingertips

Cannot make one

That which is broken.

Tommy Salami

Unaccompanied, she wanders into

The children’s room,

Violating rules written and unwritten

But the Librarian doesn’t stop her.

She wanders into

The children’s room

Takes a seat at the low table

Opens books at random

Disarranging the piles.

The eighth book, familiar to tears,

Scarred into her memory,

Tale of a lost child,

abandoned

taken by strangers

rejected

returned to the grocery store.

over and over,

until he is claimed by his

rightful mother and

carried home to tea.

She has no child to carry home

And brews her tea with the

Warm salt water streaming from her eyes.

It is closing time. 

The Librarian asks if she would prefer muffins or

toast for breakfast tomorrow

The House on Orange

My fake blond beauty sits, on the curb, head on her knees.
Open the back door, get into the car. Please get into the car. Please get into the car.
Please.
Get into the car.
Can you stand? Can you crawl?
Sway against the car, mascara smears, matted hair and a bruise on her collarbone,
visible through the tear in her shirt tell me more than I want to know
but not enough that I need to know.
Do I need to know?
Does it matter, will it make a difference if I know what nightmares are coming?
She curls into a ball across the back seat, thumb in her mouth,
as if she was still 18 months and not 18 years old.
The more things change the more they remain the same. Trite but too true.
Don't waste your breath apologizing, I know you're sorry, ever so sorry for everything,
for fucking up, for getting into trouble, for costing me so much in time and energy and money
and some parents would say the money is the last of it but they don't know.
This is just another 5 a.m. emergency pickup after too few hours of sleep and
if it takes too long and I'm not at work on time I'll be terminated, no questions or explanations.
The job market takes no prisons and gives no ransom.
Any absences or lateness are automatic cancellation and I don't know whether I'm more afraid of that,
of losing this crappy job with the only redeeming quality that it keeps us from homelessness for a few more months or if I'm more afraid that I'm not going to have a daughter to scream at any longer for being a stupid fucking idiot who is wrecking her life with her self-destructive behavior, that this emergency pickup will end in some city-run, Medicaid accepting hospital instead of a ride home and soaking her clothes to get the vomit smell out.
I just don't know.
I don't know anything, ever.
I make a U turn and head for home.

Life Beyond the Blowtorch

Three icebergs float in my veins, sleet attached to steel like white cells attacking virus,
floating there as long as I've been floating here, away from my other life.
Metal worked crosses mark their passage
blood broken glass sheared fiberglass are visas to hostile territory.
Every day for so long I didn't see even them
except from the corner of my eye.
Tonight, three years on, I'm glad the street lights are out.
I'm glad its too dark to see the teddy bear menagerie flower garlands
and boxes of broken chocolates, creme filling removed by various feral beasts,
homage on the median.
But the streetlight comes on just as I hit the underpass.
Spotlight on trois prei deux.
Baby, take a bow and exit stage right

Unclean Title

The hibiscus are in bloom.
There. That place. Where I used to live.
Engine running, Jackie-O sunglasses and scarf, I resemble a 1960's starlet in disguise.
But if they came out, they'd recognize me.
I hope.
I dread.
Its not yellow any more. My favorite house color.
Every house I ever owned was some shade of yellow,
Porch, shutters, gingerbread, window trim, if not all.
The sun bouncing off the clotted red hurts my eyes. I blink a few times to focus.
The crepe myrtle is gone, and the palm
-I don't know what kind it is, I never cared about that-
is so tall it shades the optional bay alcove I paid extra for.
Its just a place I used to store my things and pace the halls because I couldn't sleep,
hornets stinging, subdermal demons writhing,
while the voices threatened to trap me in between the sheet rock and cinderblock.
It was never home.
I put the car in drive and ignore the stop sign at the corner.

A Roving We Will Go

Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.

She sang as she picked the roving apart, but it wasn't soft, safe, wonderful cotton, despite her assumption, despite its appearance.

It was fiberglass.

Carcinogenic, full of slivers that weaseled under the skin, shimmied into the lungs and brain, and set up housekeeping, eager for spouse, children, third cousins twice removed to come along ans expand the compound.

Fiberglass.

That miracle substance so pervasive in the housing industry that it was regarded as the lead paint of the new millennia and no one was sure whether the better approach was to remove the contaminant or contain it in walls and spray foam polyurethane.

Fiberglass in toys and drapes and attic insulation, where she sat, fluffy piles around her. She liked the way it glistened, the hologram effect when she held a piece to her eyes and pulled, until the light coming through the tiny window was a rainbow. It was her favorite game, that fall, hiding in the attic and singing, a pretend princess waiting for prince charming to kiss her into forever-never land.

Years later, when the doctors told her she had ‘white lung', the fiberglass version of asbestosis, she wouldn't remember that fall.

Who remembers the innocent games of childhood, anyway?

Foibles of Youth

My daughter, joyous in the newness of love,
rifles through my closet,
evaluating shoes and doodads
taking into her room this that the other.
I smile and pass the baton.

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.