returning to dream of understanding only to forget

it is my time to return to the mountains.
those winding, unguarded paths sing
like twisted angels or guarded sirens
pulling me back with a tug to my hair
a yank to my soul, back into the mountains.

it is my time to dream of the vineyards.
those lush, trailing fingers curl
like pompous snakes or an infant's tendril
tempting my drying tongue with wine on
lips to the glass and vine, i dream of vineyards.

it is my time to understand the fields.
those undulating, tawny grasses laze
like flossy, yawny lion tails
bedding my bones down to rest a while
on a pillow of breath, i understand the fields.

it is my time to forget the shoreline.
those lapping, crystalline waves dance
like clapping children or drunken sailors
waving farewell to my weak blue eyes and
the last of my tears on the shoreline.

enchantment. relocation.

what is magic, if not fleeting?
when the twirling slows
when the twinkling stars set
when the last tide rolls
i am left in the broken silence
with my flushed heart still beating.

you can not know a breaking soul
until you feel the loss of being whole
as the waves slip from your fingers
as the north star pops and fizzles away
as fairy dust becomes just pebbled sand...
i am a haunted island in this sea

lift me up and toss me away
i'll land here again to nestle
deep within the forest and the bay
when my clock stops counting
when my adventures start waning
when the snow surrenders to melting

this magic is fleeting
my soul is breaking
lift me up and toss me away

into the fox den

hurry scurry
turvey topsy
Peter the furry
Flopsy, Mopsy-
and what of Cottontail?
sneaking, peeking
magic seeking
speaking namby pamby
and so curious of the den?
it killed the cat
(the fox that is)
and the rabbit is next-
a foxy grin greets
her sallying prey
as he dilly-dallies...
when he prays
she steals his
breath, tongue
but gives them back,
(kisses on his back)
to ensure he sallies back
lippity-lippity
hurrying scurrying
dilly dallying
sneaking, peeking
hot to (fox) trot
lickity- split
right into the den
again, again
(unless Peter tricks her first)

"Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir tree." ~1983

leo the lion

that northern sun was hot today
(sweltering, hazy)
its elusive face hung over the bay
behind a curious summer cloud
(peeking, winking)
through its curious summer shroud.
i didn't drink too much today
(sipping,lying)
i kept those chilled boys at bay
my quiet pen stopped lips too loud
(chattering, kissing)
i scribbled and sang and swam and vowed.
a lazy lion loped along today
(pawing, yawning)
to my clever camp along the bay
napped in my sun though he was not allowed
(tip-toeing, hushing)
in my absence he was anything but proud.

howling in the buzz of storytime lamplight

this is the fork where we break.
i broke away in a reflection
of the tipping point
but that was four miles ago
in the place you grew up with
a bendy straw in life elixer
bends in a road away from home.
you will touch my small fingers
and i will sprinkle your cheek.
cupped hands and downturned lips
meet the sun's sword unsheathing
on the curve of the our earth.
call it a marriage if you must-
it all cuts and sets in time.
what is this we call our time,
when yours has become mine?
when we've run our course
it was beautiful, of course
(see we are blind, see how we run)
now we finally see it all,
a clarity through your howling.
i'm moving up to the mountain
straw basket on hips, in tow
while you're growing tomatoes
you're grown up and reflecting
starlight onto my mountainside.
the frostkiss burns your harvest
this year earlier than ever
in the valley where your garden
grew with your flourishing manhood
in the shadow of my mountain home.

sticky countertops

dear honesty,
i've hidden you in the cupboard. in the back next to my sugarless cereals, as neither of you have proven to be very sweet. what's left in the kitchen? sticky countertops and stained wine glasses from two weeks ago. when a stranger's strong hands collide with the whole lot of my blonde curls, i'm closing my eyes to forget you. when a playmate's phone calls are silenced with my dirty fingers, i'm opening my eyes to check the time and you are still in the cupboard. four o'clock is a filthy time of morning and then, i am mourning you. i am hoping for breakfast but your face peeks out from behind the boxes and i'd rather starve. i'd rather lay in bed.

of leaving and small magic

in the woods and by the shore i stumbled upon it. that's what we all seek in places- that small magic. to feel something apart from cars and grocery stores. in a field surrounded by puffy dandelions, we are all clinging. about to take flight into that northerly breeze. we can feel the magic, or begin to feel like we know something of it. from mountains to plains to the lake i wandered here and learned of it, though it was small. now i can conjure it when the sun slants this way and the dandelions sway. i can carry it in this small pouch at my hip. i can carry lilacs and paper scraps to help keep it alive. i will beckon to it at the perfect time. here, off of lonely 13 and 2, flapping pigeons and a splintered bench and sweeping sunlight hint at it.

the fat robins remind me that the snow is at bay and the bay reminds me of the day i arrived: small and afraid of the isolation. i skated the icy highways while he was away. while i was left here to make my own heat. in a kitchen too small for my mixer. in a town just vast enough for my footprints. to make it my own was my journey.i wandered to the market for strawberries and to the bench by the bay for sunsets.sunsets and ice roads in turn.

in the light of a sunday June glow i have found my tears. it is magic after all. what canvased my heart is beginning to tear and the skin underneath the artwork is smooth and plain. the indians and ice and insensitivities somehow served me well. housewives pot marigolds and herbs tonight, rushing slightly to keep up with the sinking sun. watching me with my windy hair and concealed stories, they glance my way here and there. their children will dance along with me down the sidewalk. curious as to why i am the same age as their potting mothers, yet spinning to their tune. it is safe here and my path is worn. fate is pushing me to a wider road. sidewalk chalk and spray paint where the grass pushes it's way through the concrete. soon all will be strangers to my feet.

to stay is to plateau. to leave is to grow. i teeter, playing this game, rolling dice of my own desires. swinging madly back and forth in the quiet of June.the jungle is only a playground game for me here and so now i spin atop the merry-go-round and hope to be propelled to greener lawns. it is my turn to leave. i can tell you something of leaving and the nervous un-choices..what stories are they? if not fairytales, they are, at least, my own.

this is not about you

this story is not about you.
it is quiet and smooth,
like the curve of a shoulder blade.
the painted words
seep deeper into the pavement
like the last moments
of waking or déjà vu
but they are not about you.
i came home
with mint and hot words
on my breath,
to a watering can and a pinecone.
i was not alone.
you're moving back again,
to the seamstress' bench.
you're a hanging button
on a coat sleeve.
i'm dipping into ponds
green like clover in springtime.
artesian kisses
on the brim of the pipe.
this is my signal to leave
and this is not about you.

on the corner of 3rd and st. claire

im not sure who i'll be when the lake winds settle down again. spring sunsets suit me well for now and lake sounds are my only company. i come to this bench every night. in the shadow of our fathers, we are paralyzed and i hear the frog and duck songs. my wings carry me above the clouds and tidal waves. i don't know when i shed those feathers. i was twelve and eager to be older when i saw your first glances. i plucked a few leaves of lamb's ear and let the softness against my cheek cradle me in my fear. i'm near a northern pier and somehow when the waves crash around me i am not afraid. when i lost that small child i was only afraid in the face of commitment and mother's days are hazy now. mothers eclipse fathers in the brightness of sacrifice so i wonder how i would have fared that storm, how i could have stayed afloat. you are a ghost today, as she is and so is he. i drowned each of you while i was braving the waves. maybe you will drown me while you swim in the sheets of another. maybe i will lose my lifesaver. you were here once when the skies were grey and frozen, when we were flurries.i should have prevented that blizzard. caught up on the trail that is 3rd and st. claire i am warm and my toes are safe but i am no saint. i take muffins and tea to the dying couple on 3rd and alley and feel as saintly as i ever will. brain infections and cancers steal their lives and they will be swept away on the northern wind soon while their ashes crash along the shore of the bay. i would bake you pastries if you were well enough to visit my kitchen in your moments of sobriety. but again, it seems i only clap floured hands for the ill. i will clap for your magnum opus. serve your drinks and i will serve my purposes. it will serve us well. maybe i will find you on the corner of 3rd and st. claire in the gentle heat of a distant summer, in the distant heat of our healed hearts.

welcome to waking, earthling

it's a little like falling.
off of a cliff, not out of bed.
heartbeats slow to a line
sons are bleeding,
weeping over their mothers
sheets to bones tomorrow
it's time for dinner.
salted waters sweat
in holes and currents
catheters funnel blood
from vessels to ships together
cracking life from scales
in the wake of dinner.
matadors thrust swords
ribbons to ribs to shreds
160 degrees of comfort.
Garden fingers pull roots
seedling hearts of daughters,
mother's gather dinner.
pastures nod to sunset
calves call again
a splatter in the pan
eyes roll back to head
black to white to red
going home for dinner.
they fall from cliff and bed.


* also, i have just made a short video from this poem. if you would like to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVjeXXlk5bk

razor shoes

for his mother

a run through the dew
misted breath
sopping shoes

mornings are razors
taking breath
stealing shoes

it's too early for wine
and the clock ticks
to the beat of my shoes

dirt to shoulder to horizon

A companion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dwsima21JY&feature=related
Dear Trail,
I wish that you did not terrify me. Though you would not know it by the smooth assurance in my blue eyes, you swell my stomach with aching fear. The path behind me has been demolished and so my trek must be in forward motion. A lonely slow motion. From your head, the cement seeped up and settled hard into my running shoes, laced with anxiety. How far have I come? The meager calculation is sad. How far to go? The vastness of that number is daunting. I can not be sure that my weak breath will float me the distance. Will my mind be able to shed these heavy, cemented doubts (and shoes)? You refuse to carry me.

In bedtime stories I have heard of your end. Velvet moss and gentle leaves. For fleeting, enlightened (or light-headed) moments, drifting to sleep or panting hard, I have seen it clearly and felt that I could be close. In my dreams I am a fox and I elude you and my toes soften and pad underneath my soul- the downy fur becomes real and i step and leap and trot and weave and dance. To your right and left. And your miles are only a game.

Clear-headed or in waking, I am slow and careful. Your curves and slopes are ominous to me and for now, I let my tears splatter on your face. One enchanted evening I will defy your taunting gravel and concrete and sand and dirt while kicking my shoes to your shoulder. I will spy the red sun on your horizon and it will become my home.

fox in the pantry

when i left you
i left my breath
inside my water glass
i left my arms outside in the snow
where did you go?
i cried behind a tree, chased a mouse
while spring bloomed around me
(you're all around me)
cool rain falls,turns my nose blue
i'll turn around for you
when the galaxy strikes midnight
when spinning away isn't right
when i leave
burnt leaves on cement
to taste snowfall gritty and alone.
a scarlet blur in a gilded field-
i'm a fox in the pantry
breaking up the dishes
should i even love at all?
the waters bleed to skies and melt away
in your hands (sand in your eyes)
i've never breathed, melted or had clue.
strike a match.
i could turn around for you.

Calvino's Wave

waves remain separate
for only so long
whitecaps crash apart
for mere seconds
rolling in as millions
in the black of my eye
so quickly a flash
they crash as one
onto the line of sand
commingled and salty
they become me
they become you

fleeing and receding
fleeting and misleading
the new wave
hikes her skirt
and rushes back to the moon

what is a wave?
is it ever more than Id?
fated to remain
countless, swirling parts,
she is never whole
in the wild peaks roll
part by part
in the final seconds
she succumbs to the sand,
and becomes One again
waving from the open water
she rushes back to the moon

you're alive. happy birthday.

Dear Daughter,
Happy Birthday.

I do not know who you are or what you have become. I don't know how old you are. Today, you do not exist. In fact, perhaps I should have said "Dear Son." Though, I have a sense that regardless of your existence status, you are a daughter. If I am ever destined to be a mother, I feel as though it will be to a daughter. Whoever you are, I am sure I love you.

Tonight I found myself down by the lake at sunset, eating pretzels alone in the sand. I talked with your grandfather because it was his second non-consecutive set of fifteen years of marriage to his second wife who is not my mother. Love is complicated and I have just wrapped up my first marriage, only three years deep. Relatively unscathed. Sure, I have told you about him by now.

I walked home with my groceries and pretzles and nearly lost my sauce in a wicked splatter on the sidewalk. Tomato sauce and wine were both fine. I live in a small town. Please take a kitchen knife to my right eye if you were A. Born in this town or B. I am still living here or C. Have a go at my left eye as well if both A & B are true.

I am positive that you are beautiful. I have popped plan B's like PEZ. I have laughed in the face of the idea of you. I have prayed that God would assign you to another mother. So, I suspect that if you've made it here, I was desperate for you. If you are reading this, I am happy that I did not miss out on you. I also hope that I don't have stretch marks. Maybe you're from Malawi or Guatemala. Maybe you are a son.

Where ever you came from, you're the song on my lips. The stripes on my Adidas. The missing rhyme in my sonnet.

Chapter- "Manufactured Tails"

He stayed up late into the frosted night, basking in the strange blue glow of his father's computer. He shone in the window, reflecting into the woods. The night noises of the wild valley were muffled. But he knew and felt the reverberations of the wolves' hymn. He used to know the forest well. He sank, foreign in the blue glow of technology. He leaned back further and allowed himself to break. With eyes like icy Norwegian ponds, he wept and stared bitterly at the tragic screen.

He resented the injustices that had clear-cut the wilderness of his once untamed heart. He felt weak in the aftermath of my destruction.

Futilely, he attempted to click the keys. The words would have lept out of his soul and into the realm of thought had he thought to hold a pencil instead...
Had he inhaled the grainy air of an open field...
Had he drenched himself in the damp, misty air of a waterfall...
Had he felt the itch of the hay bales in his grandfather's barn...
Had he heard the quiet chirp of peepers in a country summer...
Had he been enchanted by the glow of fireflies behind his father's shed...
Had he drowned in the mooing of the cows in the valley at dusk...
Had he been himself. The luminous boy from the wooded coulee.

But he had murdered those memories and he could not find a pencil. So he typed. A Manufactured and mechanical letter. The story of how I left him. A defeated tale of a boy who had lost his fresh air and his purpose- a defeated man in the back pew of the wooden Lutheran church. In shadow of his elderly relatives' successes. A man who drove his mother's station wagon to the nearest town to substitute teach and drop a letter to me at the post office. That was the only letter he ever wrote to me and so I wanted a letter from someone else.

Even when, during our third year of marriage, when he had flown away for the second time into the Norwegian mountains to live in a yurt and eat kale, he sent me no letters.

He missed our cat. In the absence of his near-child and his sought- after children, having the fluffy Fitzgerald was all he knew of fatherhood and so he routinely sent along shiny balls with bells inside and catnip to him in the mail. I felt an awkward jealously, so I proceeded to shop online and send expensive things to myself in the mail. I braided my hair and brushed Fitzgerald's tail.

Flinty Eulogy

yesterday in globed glasses
pouring, drinking
skip the pouring
lovely brims, wine never reaches
lips hug rims
sorrow in globed glasses
(maybe i will die alone)

apologies typed in letters
sinking, mourning
sleep on an inky morning
lonely hearts, never filled to the brim
hands hold pens,
the finality of typed letters
(surely i will die alone)

the middle labels me in the sky

Brothers. Fathers. Uncles. Husbands. Boyfriends. Lovers. One-nighters. Friends. Grandfathers. Ex-husbands. Ex-boyfriends.

(somewhere in the middle)

Letters. Phone calls. Emails. Texts. Visits. Drives. Vacations. Plane rides. Texts. Texts. Texts.

(cannot find a label)

tears. laughter. hugs. punches. kisses. sex. war. peace.

(me)

Shallow. Deep. Water. Blood.

(blue skies)

Chapter- "Pit Stops"

Stop 5: Bar Stools & the White Haze

He got a whiskey. I got a beer. Then I got my period. It was just barely 11am and we were 75 miles from anywhere that would even have a gas station. But, “luckily” for us, we were flying along highway 2, in the middle of the woods and happened to see what may have at one point in time resembled a bar. I pulled over in the snowy gravel. Upon closer inspection, we decided that yes, it was in fact a bar, and yes, it was in fact open. He had to pee and I was bitchy and bloaty, so we braved it.

His whiskey neat was not neat and my beer was not cold. It was the price we had to pay for not relieving ourselves before we left, or for drinking too much coffee. Either way, we were choking down gross drinks at 11am in the middle of Shitville. To add insult to injury, the bartender (who we decided was probably a woman) kept staring at me and the couple on the other end of the bar was blabbering incessantly about their diabetic dog. I decided that it was no wonder why these people are willingly at a bar at this hour. I accidentally might have given them one of my trademark bitch glances that insinuated something like “Just put that fucking dog out of its misery.” I needed some Advil. But, my snotty sarcasm is rarely the side effect of cramps. A pill could never fix my attitude. My companion gave me a small smile that said just that. He touched my knee and kissed my cheek. He loved me.

We finished our drinks, because Midwesterners always finish their drinks. Even if they are not very good.

I wasn't able to define my feelings on this journey. I was taking him to the airport again. Part of my soul was feeling an elated sense of relief and the other part was a teary, female mess. I tried to blame the latter on my monthly hormonal charade. But, I knew it wasn't the reason, and that led me to feel even more confused. And, subsequently,pissy. He just stared at me as I drove, eyes sparkling. I looked at the road.

I drove. I was just a little lightheaded from the late-morning dosage of pain reliever and beer. I imagined what it would be like when I would return to my apartment without him. I would smile. I would light a few candles. Pour a glass of wine. Revel in the orgasmic solitude. The lack of commitment. The lack of dinner. The lack of companionship. I would lay in the cold,barren sheets. I would realize that I had done it again, and I would let my tears soak into my skin, let them in deeper than I would ever let anyone.

I swerved to miss a lone doe and snapped back into the essence of the car and our trip and the story he was telling me about someone he knew in Los Angeles. I loved to hear his voice. But, my mind was slipping back into the white haze of letting go. I held back my tears, but I knew he could see them dancing near my eyelashes. He had always loved my long eyelashes.

Stop 1: Machine Guns In the Dark
The snowfall was torrential. I was used to these sorts of Northern blizzards. The long, frozen treks through the woods. Coasting along one of only two roads that led to my home. The home I had not wanted or asked for. But, I had come to care for it and so had adopted it. For a time.

The yellow lines of the highway had long since been buried under the packed, white precipitation. It was a pitch black night and I could see the ominous, glowing saucers of animal eyes on either side of the disappearing path. I pretended that I was playing a video game- lighting a cigarette and blasting the panicked, electronic beats of Crystal Castles. I would dodge the rabid zombie- deer and slip and swerve on the haunted ice road. It would be okay. I would make it home to my hot tea and fireplace and Fitzgerald,my own wild beast.

It was the first of many times that I would bring this Lost Boy into my Lost World. Into the woods, into the snow, into my bed, into my organized mess of an existence. The night was cold and dark and exciting and secretive. We had fled the city like two misunderstood refugees. Away from our families and churches and highschool crushes and chain stores and dangerous parties and street signs and engagement rings and missed opportunities- away from our previously known realities. And all we could see around us was white encased in black.

We saw them like two pillars of hope in the distance. Faint globes, but growing more yellow and warm with each spin of the tires. Far north, near the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, there was a haven in the storm. Though time and distance had swirled away from me in the snowflakes,I realized where we finally were. It was the legendary mafia hide-away, turned crime scene of decades passed. Well, if you want to put it glamorously, that's what it was. It had become a tourist attraction for elderly people who genuinely remembered the name of Johnny Dillinger- and not the imposter Johnny from the movies. But, it was open, albeit empty aside from a few dedicated employees, and we were in need of a place to stop and hide from the raging blizzard. And we needed a drink. Pronto.

Ours was the only vehicle to be seen. We stood in the parking lot, near the edge of the woods. In the light of the lamps and the neon beer signs, he held me close. The snow and wind flew around us, but he kept me in the lining of his coat and I felt small and safe. Before I realized that the cold had grabbed me again, he had taken off. He ran quickly and madly into the woods. I could hear his laugh, and I knew that he could hear mine echoing back. We chased eachother with invisible machine guns until we were snow-soaked and frozen and another inch of snow covered the car.

We walked in through the large, wooden doors, wet and rosy-cheeked. In the reflection of pieced- together shattered glass, we realized how young we looked. We made our way to the bar and began to drink in that romantic room and gazed with glazed eyes at the preserved bullet holes in the walls, and Johhny Depp t-shirts. We smiled in the glow of the roaring fire as we roared with laughter.

Chapter- "thaw"

Finally, the breeze was mild. Finally, the sun clung to the skyline for just twelve more minutes than it had the week before. Finally, I could see something resembling grass underneath the lakes of snowmelt in the sideyard. I had never truly experienced the beauty of springtime before 6pm that February evening. Thirty years along a particularly icy road, and there I was all of a sudden, crying and thawing out in the soupy, littered alley.

I breathed the newborn spring air so deeply that I was nearly lightheaded. I saw the scattered garbage. I heard the neighbor's baby crying and the scratch of a stray dog's nails on some leftover ice. The feeling wrapped me up so suddenly, it was nearly startling-- it was the temperature and the weight of the atmosphere. It was warmth. I realized it then...

I had survived. The bitter bite of Northern air. The bitter words and bitter alcohol that dripped from my leaky faucet of a tongue all winter. Bitter goodbyes and uncontrolled tears. My unruly, bitter disposition. All that bitterness melted away down into the alleyway potholes and murky puddles. It smelled like rain and I wavered knowing that I had conquered the unlivable winter and that I had made him leave for the last time. I was alone, but I was alive.

I knew that I would never let him return to these sidewalks or to his snowy pulpit to lecture me. My confusion and bitterness were finally slipping away with the winter sludge and I was emerging into the shape of someone else altogether. Someone much more beautiful. Though he had made it back once more to his old doorway via the isolated route on Highway 2 in his uncle’s rusty station wagon, it would be the last time. Despite his pleading and sobbing and promises to reform, I stood like a small statue beneath him, unwavering and quiet. He saw a picture of me kissing the blue-gloved boy and promised me that I would regret it. He promised me that I would be lost without him and I would be ruined if I kept kissing that blue-gloved boy. I could only close my eyes and wait for it to pass and wonder if God agreed with what my husband was saying. I wondered why I felt so peaceful amid the shattered ruins of my marriage. Finally, he sank back into that station wagon and retraced his tracks on Highway 2 and I thanked God (even if he did agree with my husband). I sniffled just once and peeked through the curtains and watched him go and then found myself happily broken in the littered alley. My thaw was beginning and I could feel a new surge of hot blood pumping lightly under my delicate skin.

I stared above at the sky. A transparent moon and companion star were suspended in the fusion of sunset’s crimson and night’s cobalt. I was teetering on the brink of dusk and nighttime, towing the line of adventure and settling. I was exploding and sleeping. My pooling blue eyes blinked in time to the drip of the icicles, smearing the concepts of hope and reality as tears washed the palms of my hands. Cracked wide open and warm. What would I do now?

I walked. When it was always my impulse to run, I decided then to walk. In the last moments of daylight, swept by the temperate air, I walked. I knew that I was finally strong enough to slow down. An elderly Indian woman was walking with a cane, evading puddles as she swayed under the weight of her grocery bags. She smiled knowingly at me from across the street. It was a smile that made me feel feeble and naïve. I could see in her ragged eyes that she had survived many more winters here than I ever would. Perhaps she even thrived in the winters. And there I was parading my ability to claw my way through three inconsequential seasons. But she sensed my victory and silently congratulated me. It was humbling to walk.