Reimagining Mother

She wore a nurse’s cap — white cotton

hand washed & dried flat, ironed

with spray starch that left the board cover

sticky. She folded side wings, positioned

pearl-headed pins to make the shape,

tacked with bobby pins to the permanent wave

she paled & hennaed to stave off gray.

Below the cap a white shirtwaist,

a gold pin from Framingham State,

tidy nameplate. Never fail

she wondered who might have died

overnight. I saw her off — Bye,

a slight wave — then dressed & ate,

walked the two miles alone to school.

Mind's Eye

I ask her what I look like when she closes her eyes, & she says, “I can’t see you because my eyes are closed,” so I ask her whether she can imagine my face when her eyes are closed, whether she can see me in her mind’s eye, & she says, “What’s my mind’s eye?” & I tell her it’s not a real eye, it’s the idea of an imaginary eye that lives inside your head & sees things when your eyes are closed, & I ask her again, “Can you see me in your mind’s eye?” & she says, “Yes,” & I say, “What do I look like?” & after a short while she says, “Lots of wrinkles & really big eyebrows.” It’s not what I expected, it makes me feel peculiar & old, & it comforts me because now I know she sees me when I’m not there.

What Is a Bed

Inflated into parallel tubes, a rubber float, pillow prop, body prop, lacks propellors.

Beneath beside a window, middle of the night an arm reaches up to pull cords to raise the shade, elbows prop to raise the body to pane of sky, vapor moon.

After the long sleep the long lying awake in a dream, not in a dream state, lying in bed is sleep whether you sleep or wake, outside the bed the room the house the night world.

A rectangle periodically dressed, pills & lint, crumbs & shells, authorized & accidental — both spontaneous — emissions influence the periodicity of fresh dressing.

Mornings the open window remains open, sparks recollection, draws the eye out the window non-solar orb into the non-night the light of repeat day repeat cherry tree repeat robin under broken clouds the day gray.

Comforting space onto which the body is thrown on which the body reclines, whiles away, the bed disappears as a value, recurs later as a bay.

Enveloping arms, a lap, cradleboard, bosom of a wave, sand hollow, inner curve of a hip, a bow.

4:30 am

A fox barks once, twice

then twice again, clear cry

from an open throat, the sidewalk

not too trafficked (yet)

for foxes to survive, too dark

to see it peering from under an oak

calling its mate for one more

trolling of night’s carouse.

Sunday Ride

We are the ancients, bicycle & I

wheeling along the Daniel Island non-

motorized leisure lanes by

parks, schools, shops, houses, condos.

I cross a dusty verge to a walkway

beside a spouting pond, two ducks

too far & sun-spangled to name.

A great egret standing tall looks

up at an osprey looking down, circling

circling high above the water for fish

it's not finding, not today. Wheeling

I go alongside a field — whish

into the air two rising wheeing pairs

of wings — kill-deer, kill-deer.

When I was a girl

old women were large & square fronted,

upholstered, wore stiff black shoes

cut open for toes & bunions, showed

traces of powder at temples & chins,

moved slowly, smelled of Jergens lotion,

pulled handkerchiefs out of sleeves

with oversized hands, their hair pale, thin,

tightly bound, skin bruised purple,

spotted brown, they held purses

with both hands. At rest they knitted,

crocheted & tatted, drank coffee, served

homemade cookies, iced cakes,

kept candy in covered glass bowls,

fed stray dogs & cushion-curled cats.

Celia never rose from her chair.

My grandma Jones almost never smiled.

Men walked by or around them

as if they weren’t there. Now we four

are the old women, titanium jointed

in dark cotton slacks, loose curly

hair, at least two wear slip-on Clarks.

Each one sips their favorite drink —

wine, Dr. Pepper, & unsweet tea,

soup for dinner is vegetable beef,

homemade. Two of us huddle

with multiple remotes next to the TV

determined to find the broadcast channel

showing tonight’s NBA —

when we succeed we leave it on for hours

as if it were the great outdoors

instead of a charity documentary

on cleft palate repair. No one else

looks up or seems to hear

until I ask to have it changed. These

could be blown-up children, run over

or shot at school, at the mall, in the street

& doctors trying to make them whole

while I’m looking away, putting them in the poem.

Old Birds

Once more I’m sleeping in a different house,

Helen’s this time, two old birds

in a nest she owns, paid in full

as of yesterday. I’ve never owned anything,

she said last night. You own yourself,

I told her. She’s solid for someone

going in for a new hip on Monday after

a week of appointments with eye, skin, & gut

doctors. She hates them all. We agree,

they’re casting in the dark, merchandising

pyrite. They know too much

& too little while we know we live

until we die. Helen survived a brain tumor.

A hip should be a walk in the park.

Welcome Sight

There a cluster of meager hayricks

(a scatter of middling boulders?)

seen dimly through rain & dusk.

Or wings, the rounded shoulders

of beasts unfathomably older

than words, feeding in fields ampler

than sky, fifteen turkeys wilder

than earth’s gradual & cataclysmic

events suggest, grounded survivors

of winged fingers soaring Jurassic.

The welcome sight of four black ducks

winging up from sleeping quarters

deep in salt marsh, metallic quacks

barely heard, silhouettes conjuring

hidden nests — spartina shelters

for ticking eggs, pocked shells harboring

next generation sons & daughters

primed at hatching to swim concentric

rings through waters mirroring

winged fingers soaring Jurassic.

Charleston’s feral population shrinks

season by season. We lose neighbors

as permits are granted, new construction

whittles down the open space, plunders

what gives me courage — plant matter

& wild animal grace. City folks off kilter

pay no mind to habitat erasure.

The I-deserve-it human pandemic

year after year augurs the ignoble halt

of winged fingers soaring Jurassic.

Polluted dawns rise even golder

over earth without singers & grazers.

Earth before progress was ecumenical.

What will stay to lift our hearts after

the last winged fingers soar Jurassic?

Crazed

My car stolen, my bedroom trashed,

I'm still in pajamas, no one blinks a lash

at my chattels traded for someone else's

junk — fluffy Disney toys. Moshe's

lounging on the stair. Moshe, did you take it?

He smirks, the woman beside him nuzzles

closer. Roderick counsels patience. I rage,

hurl stuffies out the door. Roderick's draped

not dressed — I glance, he accuses

though all I see is elastic-jockstrapped hip.

Police in the kitchen, Esther missing her head.

We rush to the boats, they're crazed with ice.

If you want your gift, go now, Ben advises.

I bail. The truck nails it, driverless, red.

Spelling Test

My kindergarten teacher guides me out of our classroom

down the hall to another door

where more teachers wait. This is the child,

my teacher says. I stand looking up inside

a cluster of tall women in many-buttoned dark dresses.

My teacher tells me to spell a word, something to impress

I suppose. I spell two or three words from pictures

I see in my mind. Every word I know has a picture

that appears — black letters on a white ground —

when someone says the word aloud.

The women stare at each other & shake their heads

at my teacher & at me, the four-year-old redhead

standing below & between them. I know it’s something more

than good favor, they find me odd, they’re keeping score.

Phase Shift

Rain gentles surrounding space, erases

the freeway drone, softens darkness

before dawn, extends my time for play

before the tasks begin — breakfast

& waking the child for her first day of the second

half of second grade, her first day

in public school — teacher, classmates,

recess though rain may keep them in.

She’s prepared her lunch, her clothes, asked me

to wake her promptly @ 6:45

though given the deep hibernation

she sustains, nothing short of the German

Shepherd's kiss will break the spell, inspire

the next chapter of what she wants to be.

Culinary

Gray to peach to red to gold,

a new morning finds me newly old

& cooking long-forgotten meals

I learned from TV celebrity chefs, the tall

ones — James Beard & Julia Child.

My 1960s Cambridge butcher rented space in his cold

storage. There I kept lamb shoulder

& sirloin steaks, a basketful

labeled with my name.

He collars me once, bolder

than usual (the man was pudgy, bald,

a lecher copping a feel)

& squeals, They’ve come from New York to buy my veal,

his eyes boring into me, wild.

I follow him into the cooler — Julia & James.

Fools' Canzone

we are fools

for thinking we can live

new day, new page, new stanza — fools

you’re a fool, I’m a fool, both fools

at our age to want

ship of, game of, gown & cap of fools

pendejo, she says, what fools

to think someone might listen to

your remnant self, listen to

someone who fools

themself by making every new day a new song

poesis, ποίησις, making song

word machine singing a song

oh merry band of fools

whistle the hemi semi demi quavers of our song

hum & dance the color of morning song

as long as we both shall live

bluebird song

purple martin song

no matter how much we want

thou shalt not want

as long as we dance & sing our song

tip an ear, bend a knee to listen to

rain on light, oh bard, listen to

stirrings of beasts at night, listen to

dusk for owl’s sacred song

when sleep won’t come listen to

sacred om listened to

by sager fools

than I — Chinese poets listened to

jars of wine down to the lees, listened to

rivers & stars to learn to live

without the means to live

to make words we still listen to

about want

how what we want

surpasses even what gods who have everything want

sounds of the earth they listen to

pedestrian commotion they want

mortal creatures they want

to touch, to taste, to transform into song

chaste laurel Apollo wants

gadfly-pestered heifer Zeus wants

idle shepherds chortle & fart at such fools

for love, fools

pursuing what they think they want

this morning’s gold dawn is where I live

bacon, fresh egg from a live

chicken, bushes alive

with small brown birds that want

merely a few seeds to live

can mere words suffice for the rest of my life to live

by? listening to

the child who sings to live

listening to her sing the days she lives

whatever fills her head is song

not carrying a tune makes no difference to her song

the middle of her singing is where I live

no fools

like old fools

machinations of blind listening fools

we write our poems to live

the only way we want

every morning wake to listen to
new song

Natural Causes

hard rain on the skylight a surprise

we dearly hope will keep up 'til dawn

an earthquake wakes us up in the night

for citizens of California skies

earthquakes most days are mundane

the hard rain on the skylight a surprise

drought means succulents thrive

& wildfires scorch brush dry as bone

an earthquake wakes us up in the night

no one's hurt, no fallen freeways

seismologists study the fault zones

hard rain on the skylight a surprise

counties pay locals to swap grass

for vegetable plots & native greenery

an earthquake wakes us up in the night

no one jumps out of bed or complains

our lawn's scheduled for demolition

hard rain on the skylight a surprise

an earthquake wakes us up in the night