a draft

I remember my mother’s hands--

who is it that has us believing
that memories exist in a timeline
and that maybe that particular sequence is us

we folk know
it is like the air is made of gelatin
and somebody threw a stone through a church window
as it was congealing--

raw like the red meat she handled
burned with industrial quantities of industrial strength sanitizers
shrimp tails under her chipped fingernails
knuckles wide and knotted.

]short[

no hair in my face to the public--
the harsh, harsh edge of the mirror that does not meet up with life

that puzzle promised
we bought second hand

several pieces missing.

--the wind that I love on my face, the sun

untitled

point of contact
like a bullet shot through ice
suffuses the world with me, orange--
all oranges through which these moments bloom
take up the whole of time
for instance, streaking the window panes, for instance
staining a face
for instance
marking your hand when I hold it

impression/expression

when he walks through the door he says
I had to come tonight

I didn’t want to wait
he says, arms hesitating in mid air, until tomorrow

as he steps toward me the air stretches
the lamplight streaks the general greens he brings with autumn’s golds

wait, I have choked out, wait, I have reflexively coughed out, wait
but it’s too late, he stretches out a hand

and there it breaks apart
like colored glass raining down a well

The Lifespan of Tears

Time, as I drive my heels into the ground,
edges me off a cliff;

for when you are no longer a child,
nobody is responsible for you.

Too old now to blame,
old enough to blame myself.

Age invalidates my feeling,
each year a tick off my claim to victimization.

To those who say, “you’re still so young,”
I wish that were so.

A lifespan to work, to love, maybe, is a long time:
the lifespan of tears is not one decade.

If tears are what define me,
then I have been a  ghost for a long time--

unable to speak
unable to affect the world around me

except perhaps by being a fleeting
uncomfortable presence in a room.

what mother might have hoped for me

After ruining so many jacket sleeves outside the recital hall foyer
myself tucked between the last stone bench and the Eastern wall
I can hardly care about the cold, wet spot down the breast of my shirt
that clings to my spasming chest.

Fifty years, and what’s to hope for next?
What I might have to offer those withering bones
my mere comfort, a brief smile,
I’m too poor to afford.

Sonnet

What comfort, night, what comfort have you the right to dangle
out in front of me, like I were some desperate
shore born fish, lured by such temptations
as this? What salted ambrosia do you hide
inside your inked arms?

Outspread, the sky, like love foretold, enfolds in surface lights
the tense and tide shorn bay forlorn, deceives
the grieving layman maid into believing
she could wade through quieted waters out to sea and drift
unbattered, into divinity.

Conspiracy! Conspiracy! I’ll own the charge
against these natural wonders, large
though they may be, all those who ponder must recall
the almightiest God’s quickest to damn us all.