Symbiosis

What can you promise me? Erasure. -Louise Glück

Drink of that drug (intoxicating tang
sweet loss and salty burn)
Recycled bottles whale sperm
torn jellyfish old flipflops
brewing (birthing?) in that stew
of cultures generations

Seahorses swaying on kelp
(bending not brittle)
Red stains in an ocean boiling
(life sacrifice for life)
Deep sea divers caught in iron cages
(curiosity killed the cat)
Waving fins filled with poison
(lionfish regal dance)

What can you promise me?
None of these
and everything else.

When My Voice Does Not Issue Forth With Words

Sometimes they make themselves--
form each other in the pit of my stomach
rise
through my cardiac sphincter
and up my esophagus
and spit out my mouth
with little ‘language of origin’
and ‘part of speech’ and ‘pronunciation’
flags trailing behind.

But other times they stay coiled
into each other
tangled and snarled like, shall we say,
an orgy of snakes, or possibly
the hair of a child, or even
a fly (Musca domestica) in a spider’s silk.

And those are the times
I wish they would flow…
(partially because they give
me indigestion and partially
because when they brew
like that they tend to erupt)
…flow like a mountain stream
ribbons tied to a fan
coffee conversation
like notes from those strings
like birdcalls weaving
pieces of sunlight into the forest.

Inheritance

For Charlotte.

I am not far enough away
from my childhood to write those stories.
Or at least to write them
and sound wise and accomplished,
like I have learned those lessons well
like others
will now benefit from the telling.

I have not yet joined the ranks
of those privileged to speak
the tales of the clouds
the eagles’ gaze in the warrior’s eye
the moment of killing of surrender of joy
of those who knew the sun
when it was brighter and the trees
when they were small.

I will watch the sun,
as it is now younger
than it will be in the coming days,
and when I sit and tell of these present things,
I shall spin the curls
into a woman’s hair and the moonlight
into her eyes
I will voice the young man’s strength,
both what he had and what he thought he had:
of his feathers now faded
and spears lost at war.

I will tell of dancing and battles—
I shall sit and speak of these things.

Aging Gracefully

you’re not quite sure
fairly absolute
but you might need to lose weight after this weekend
you might need to wear those high high heels
a little higher a little more hardcore
a little more push the limits racy
tattoo shorter skirt more of that
eyeshadow eye liner mascara
and more of that $89.99 skin cream
because what will you do when
you are no longer positive sure
(in sex appeal—not a sealed deal)
of that invincible young what will you do
when that comes (though it never
will it never will come)
you’re not quite sure
when you don’t get stares
exactly like you used to
cover it all with paint
and plastic?

YAWEH: to be

One.

I watched a man slide down a wall
once, in a movie. His fingers were bloody and torn
from dragging across the cement blocks;
his fingernails shuddered over the cracks. A scream
ripped from his throat
and he seized with dry sobs—
more of a clenching
than anything, really.

Two.
The nurse wrapped the boy
in a blue blanket
and handed him across the bed.
The mother had sweat on her face
and hair in her mouth. She wiped
it all off and her eyes glistened
as she held her child. I saw
her count his fingers
and his toes and sing.

Three.
I could hear her before I could see. A strong woman,
built to last with big hands and muscled arms.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
My baby.
My baby is coming home. She buried
her face in her fingers. He came
off the plane in a casket.