Sunday, October 29, 2017

Provisions

At restaurants my father ordered food
yet seldom ate. Instead he boozed,

occasionally beer though mostly hard liquor —
martinis, manhattans, whiskey sours.

I often wanted to steal his appetizers
— clams casino, oysters Rockefeller —

& wouldn’t, because even tasting provisions
he chose seemed to imply participation

in his hostile warped depraved universe
of which I wanted nothing except release,

passage to far away where he might
no longer try to impose his will on my

juvenile rebellious outraged self.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Lessons

I grew looking back — looking forward? —
at lives older than mine & still going,
my childhood span a detour
in my bachelor uncles’ stories. Tommy
taught me plant names, dog walking,
shopping at the dairy farm — buttermilk
for him, cottage cheese & sweet milk
for everyone else. Charlie taught me driving,
tennis, & kissing though maybe he didn’t
mean to, his mouth open, me thirteen
& surprised, not ready to like it, not
knowing why his lips were soft, even
wanting to like it & liking him still
more for doing something odd.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Indulgence

Never if I can help it do I think
of you, your squint as cigarette smoke

swirls the wrong way between sips
of each night’s first martini, first step

toward grim inebriation. How she
stood it I don’t know, the red cheeks

amphetamines gave her, the one cigarette
she’d take, she said, merely to cooperate.

Dinner a formal minefield we children
traversed, piloting polished silver & Tiffany

plates in proper order, knowing what
he required of us: to be neat, clean, quiet.

What I learned was how to eat
everything — liver & kidneys & sweet-

breads, anchovies, oysters, roast goose
for Christmas, Saturday night hors d’oeuvres

including antipasto, herrings in vinegar or cream,
salted seeds & nuts, deep-fried prawn,

weeknight legs of lamb, asparagus from a jar,
canned potatoes, hard-boiled egg with caviar.

So many years you've been gone
I confess, I share your taste for gin.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Your Garden

Lightly scattered
ash, do you
recognize soil’s
beneficent species?

Beetles, worms,
touch-sensitive
star-nosed moles,
wintering queen bees,
their spring wakenings,

most such creatures
smaller than birds,
less colorful, if audible
hardly, & not
particularly musical
or perhaps they are.

Naturally I expect
you will notice,
inform & surprise us.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Score

A sharp, a diamond or awl
scribes an irreversible line
into metal or wood or glass.

To press to express
to make a permanent mark
on a hard surface.

To score is to keep
to measure, to cross
from one place to the next.

Someone enters a parlor
asks to be inked, to be storied
on skin for life.

Someone stabbed & sedated
as a way to stabilize
to start to heal.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Serve & Take Away

Yesterday evening @ Padrón Lunarda
ceviche, mussels, red prawn risotto —
the mussels plump & dripping
with broth I dredge warm rolls through,
red prawn a sticky dissection sugary reward,
raw fish in lemony avocado-green sauce.

Sumptuous restaurant food repels
even as menus evoke desire,
exalt ingredients to sacred
— chilies, olives, green onions, padrón peppers,
lettuce drenched in gorgonzola —
ceremony of serve & take away.

This morning in the privacy of the airbnb
I fry an egg in brown butter,
brew supermarket coffee
& pour over skim milk warmed in the microwave.
There will be no croissant this morning,
not even the seed-sprinkled wholegrain.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Tapas

At every meal we order patata,
& oftentimes cheese.
Today's included squid & sardines,
sausage & ham — we’ve failed to eat any greens.
We don’t stint on alcohol.
For lunch it was two glasses of cava.

The waiter said one tapas platter per person.
We simply shook our heads
& ordered one for two instead.
We’re cocky broads
— steel willed —
sure we won’t want more than our portion.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

A Rental on Hubbard

My first house after college was a rental on Hubbard
in Concord, Mass — dingy white, two stories,
& green grass, something close to an acre.

Right there’s where I became a maker —
second son, retriever pups, morning glories —
at my first house, a rental on Hubbard.

We trenched a 3,000-square-foot garden
to grow organic food. Yes, we were hippies
on green grass, something close to an acre.

Carrots, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes. Sugar
snap peas we wolfed raw & green beans
& onions in the white house, a rental on Hubbard.

I bought a Hammond loom, became a weaver.
The children fattened on custard & cheese
& green grass, something close to an acre
in my first house after college, a rental on Hubbard.

Monday, October 16, 2017

I Could Have Been Carol Hotchpotch

Fr. hocher: to move irregularly up & down,
                 to shake
Br. hotchpotch: variant of hodgepodge,
                        a mutton stew with vegetables

Because my grandmother began as a Hodge
I was given this unfortunate middle name,
the origin of much ridicule all through school —

not Georgie Porgie but Hodgie Podgie
puddin’ ‘n pie — to my recollection
no one ever tried to kiss me. I wore

dresses sprigged or plaid, smocked & sashed
so the boys could yank loose the bow
& force me to ask the teacher to retie it.

My family told the story of a stowaway
orphan who arrived in New York from France
& how one of our fathers looked at the satin,

ribbons, & lace & chose to adopt her.
Just like a fairy tale the oldest son
fell in love & married her despite

everyone’s objection. They blamed all
subsequent family flaws on this nameless girl
including the cousin they called a Jezebel

whose neglected daughter had to be adopted
& even then turned out badly. What’s worse —
to be mocked or not to be noticed?

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Balearic Blue

cantaloupe-
colored sky
feels so warm
inside my

fleece sweater
three pieces
of bacon
inside me

pan-scrambled
egg without
avocado
I’m plumb out

packing to
fly to Bar-
celona
goggle art

sip vermut
ferry to
Joan Miró’s
studio

in Palma
Mallorca
put fork to
bacallà

sea Bale-
aric blue
Dalí &
Gaudí too

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Mine to Hold

the scent of smoke
                               seeps underneath
my bedclothes —
                            bastard crows
snarl at a squirrel
                            sailing from oak
to jacaranda
                    struck by sun’s
blinding blows
                       a hummingbird tastes
trumpet by trumpet
                               shivering petioles
this morning’s majesty
                                    mine to hold
fair friend
               today & forever

Procreation

My older sister, unsexed, died
aborted, my mother unwed. What
does my father admit? Unknown. She says
his fellow intern performed it, then mopped
up the hemorrhage. By then my father had fled.
Their later reunion — who arranged that? —
led to one miscarriage, two boys,
me, & once nearly a second sister adopted.
My father’s love didn’t include children —
he wanted us unseen, unheard
& made sure we were frequently beaten.
Because my mother began to fight back
he mixed another wife & drugs into the drink
& lost his job. Lucky for us he’s dead.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Female Line

Carol’s indisputably an Old Gal
rhymer — she favors a capella
to make her feelings sound.
The grandmothers she’s found
are Lucretia, Alice, Gabriella,
Charlotte, Mary, Lillian, Esther, & Carol.

Add a Helen & one more, Nancy.
The sisters of Gabriella were called
Augusta, Florida, Georgia, & Eliza —
Helen liked names ending with “a”
& must have map crawled
to pen the invites for that Maypole party

leading up to 7-year-old Tova.
Women from Brunswick & Boston,
New York City & Blue Hill, Maine.
Esther a nurse, Gabriella read Braille,
Charlotte became a Yale librarian.
As yet, the young one’s still terra nova.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Ma Jones

My grandmother wore black-leather
ankle-high lace-up shoes,
the uppers pricked with tiny holes, these
on a woman who in my memory
never walked, a solid body wedged
in a chair, wearing a cotton print dress
of some pale color, flat fronted,
legs in skin-colored stockings, her flesh
unseen beyond her face & hands.
Three or four unmarried children
also lived in the Charles Street house
on the Charles. My uncle Charlie must have thought
he lived his life in an echo chamber.
Aunt Thelma lived a mile across the river.

Aunt Lily got Ma up & dressed her,
took her to the toilet, bathed & undressed her
& put her to bed, & gave her shots
because Ma was diabetic. Lily called
my uncle Tommy to help with lifting.
I tried but couldn’t imagine these things.
Ma dropped tiny white saccharines
into cups of black coffee. Lily ran
the house no matter who lived there,
& Ma was Lil’s even though Ma was everyone’s —
Ma & Lil were that close. Lil would say,
Ma would like that, or Ma wouldn’t like that.
Tommy & Charlie might look unconvinced
but they didn’t go against her.

Ma wasn’t mean, & she wasn’t friendly,
her mouth a straight line, & if she smiled,
the smile looked phony. She might have liked
children once, but that was before me.
She had great-grandchildren older
than I was. She crocheted dresses for stiff,
small, plastic dolls that weren’t gifts
I appreciated. She would play Chinese checkers
& Parcheesi & beat me every time, easy.
Lily said Ma had false teeth. Her mouth
opened & closed & chewed. She liked to hear
the latest news about everyone in her family,
cousins I’d never seen or couldn’t remember.
Around the time I went to college she died.