Q&A
The street is still ice upon ice upon ice,
but sleet has finally given up testing
our resolve to let winter be.
We stay away from cars and, if we must,
walk warily to the mailbox and back.
It’s garbage night and my green can slides
to the curb when What are you doing?
slices through the dusky air.
Our neighbors’ six-year-old, wrapped
in a pink bubble coat and glitzy pink boots,
navigates an almost-run across the frozen grass,
and crashes in my arms. What are you doing?
asks a toothless grin, framing bright pink gums.
Her first teeth gone the way firsts must go.
Trying to stay upright, I resist a snide,
What does it look like? and gentle my words:
Tomorrow trucks come to pick the garbage up.
Before I can land the period, she volleys back
“Why?” And so begins the daily ritual between
this little Ethiopian and a poet weary of searching
for answers to satisfy. I suspect she gets a kick
watching me struggle for words or, perhaps,
innocent philosopher that she is, understands
that sturdy questions outlast wobbly answers
in the wisdom of the universe.
My Mother Is Dead
1924-2022
Afterwards, when relief was still
relief and regret for words
I never said pushed grief aside,
I forgot to forget her red-raw hands
unpinning frozen shirts
clotheslined across the yard.
Her drudgery on factory floors to pay
bills beyond my father’s salary.
The homemade dress she made me wear
when I was born for jeans.
Her rage at dust on bottom shelves,
baseboards, and crevices
that even God couldn’t see.
Later, her Saturday calls
from New Jersey to Oregon:
twelve minutes, rarely more.
Her scrambling for post-stroke words
for worlds outside her nursing home:
for clouds slipping through maple trees,
for critters strolling across the lawn,
for strangers prattling on the patio.
Her questions every week––urgent,
confused––Why am I still here?
Why don’t they want me yet?
That is, until still became want
and seconds between breaths dissolved.
Now hidden beneath the silence
of her death, grief––evasive,
unpredictable––calls for love and waits.
I have faith in nights.
–Ranier Maria Rilke, “You, Darkness”
when August heat disrupts sleep-fall
and raccoons instruct skunks
about grubs hiding in the lawn
when at-last dreams chauffeur me
to strange airports where shop lights dim
and gates appear and disappear
and I can’t recall where I planned to go
when the Blue Moon rises through
Douglas firs struggling to find
unruly stars born a billion years ago
when thirsty words scribbled
at 5 a.m. wake me to praise the last
embrace of dark before the first
trace of dawn stretches and yawns
After Reading “My Favorite Kingdom”
Dear Li-Young Lee,
Just so you know, Mr. Lee, I don’t play favorites.
There’s too much at stake to settle on one choice.
Purple would be upset if I chose blue
and the sunset might pout if I fancied
the moment before the moment of its rise.
Certainly, Monday through Saturday
would feel snubbed if I crowned Sunday #1.
There’s just no way to spotlight one regret,
surprise, or accomplishment. Not to mention
relationships tripped over or plowed through,
thinking each was it. As for a movie, poem,
or vocalist, I’d rebuff a thousand well-deserves
for Tootsie, “A Blessing,” and Barbra Streisand.
Come to think of it, my parents called me
their #1––which had nothing to do
with favorites. First-born-only-girl,
first communion, first to graduate,
first to leave home—not for career or mate––
but for veil, vows, and convent walls. Not
their first choice for the 18-year-old
my mother swore would not obey. I fooled
her for twenty years. Then she got her way.
But what if I were charged with fickleness
unless I scrounged up a few preferences?
How about these, Li-Young: when someone says
they love my poems enough to read them twice
or that my speaking voice is musical.
Add those morning romps around the yard
with the feral cat who thinks she’s a mutt
or the second I knew shame was a waste
of time. Perhaps that’s the key to your domain:
everything ambitious, everything mundane
is prime––like the feel of clean sheets
or the fists of clouds enraging the sky.
To the Woman Who Gave Nordstrom My Email Address by Mistake
Call it happenchance or a high-tech fluke, but what fun
shadow-shopping you and the purchases I’d never make.
Take your over-priced Chelsea Crewneck Top®
and Levi’s® High-Waisted Tapered Jeans.
Fashion statements, you’d claim, but what about Goodwill:
lightly-used designer clothes priced more rationally.
I must admit it tickled me you sent back that ugly yellow hat.
$68 was absurd and straw is nothing to be thrilled about.
How about a visor––like the glittery one I bought last year?
My $3.00 flea market steal earned slews of compliments
and would have saved your face from $65
3-star powder that couldn’t screen out anything.
By the way, I’m confused by the size of your clothes.
Last year you were a 16. Now you’re X-small.
Weight Watchers? Jenny Craig? How many snips and tucks
did Nordstrom make for all those alteration bills?
By now, I feel I know you well enough to share
a memory: clothes shopping with a mother who critiqued
my teenage size and weight to tears. Some days
I’m still in Christianson’s Department Store, hiding
in a dressing room, hating to be looked at, hating
to be seen, and … But ignore all that. I have to tell you
I’ve started to receive reservations for your Hilton Hotel stays
and tracking your whereabouts intrigues.
Since there’s intimacy in knowing what you wear over
your oh-so-slender shoulders, arms, hips, and legs,
perhaps we could meet poolside in Palm Springs next week.
I’ll be the one flaunting her ambitious breasts under
an off-white T, her thighs under red Bermuda shorts –
sizes XL – purchased at my local Target store.
_________________
Warning
When confronted with the limits of the known world,
a 16th-century European cartographer inscribed the warning,
“Here Be Dragons” on a small copper globe. Beware: What lies
beyond is unexplored – and perilous.
– Jodi Cobb, “Strange Reflections,” National Geographic, March 2019
First you need a mountain even a mesa
butte bluff or high-rise balcony will do
any height to widen your view of oceans
forests canyons streams car-clogged arteries
joggers pacing past mothers strolling
strollers down leafy suburban streets
Then find the edge where the sky melts into
topography and wait for flames four legs
a scaly frame Listen for roars muting
seagull screams screeching cars or voices
quarreling beyond your backyard fence
Conjure up St. George to ward off your fear
Listen and wait How long is up to you
If they don’t appear ease yourself down
into the world-at-hand Begin to forage through
cracks and chinks and crevices through slits
and splits and rifts Be aware unknowns
find a way of sneaking through like love
and loss grief and regret prejudice and hate
Beware of perils lurking nearby Investigate
Cycles
A sunny afternoon with Aimless Love on the patio
and a shepherd pup whining through the backyard fence.
She’s not amused I boarded up the slats she wiggled through
all week. Divots in the lawn, pawed-through flower beds,
fur caught on jagged wood annoyed. Anyway, I was about
to say before the dog butted in, it only takes one
Collins poem to set me off. Yesterday, “The Revenant.”
Today, “More Than a Woman” and I’m back to the NJ night
my Polish aunt slapped my twelve-year-old face. A reminder,
she said. Of what? I raged as she grabbed her cigarette and flicked
its growing ash. To be a woman, she inhaled my eyes, means
a life of pain. From across the dining room, Our first-blood ritual:
my mother’s only words as she wiped her hands of violence
I needed rescue from. I slammed my bedroom door and flung
red-spotted underwear across the room. And this was it: the start
of years plowing through closets and drawers, disavowing
dresses/stockings/girdles/make-up/heat-curled hair;
of decades redefining cycles borne down centuries,
composing I’m more than a woman to me.
I snap the book shut and shout seven words
to the impervious sun.
Pay attention and you’re saved.
It pays to pay attention – which is not
like paying bills, the pizza delivery guy,
or the piper – wherever he may pipe.
Nor is it like paying compliments,
taxes, penalties, dues, visits, respect,
or up-down-forward-back for anything.
Crime doesn’t pay, unless it does.
Neither does arrogance when you nip
your own line to title this poem.
But when oblivion’s about to hit
pay dirt and saving’s worth a fight,
rouse attention, slumped in the doorway
of your shuttered mind. Focus its eyes
on barefaced possibilities peeking
through blossoms of an aging cherry tree.
Mandate
To those of you who will not die today:
walk through your home and bless the open doors,
the table set, the breadth of sun lounging
on the Persian rug. Catalog the small
contentments you have earned: eager words vying
for a poem, work you’ll never have to do
again, backyard squirrels that entertain.
Praise every squill, crocus, and bleeding heart
that dares subvert winter’s calendar.
Invite young mysteries in and seat them
between answers you have no questions for
and ponderables still unclassified.
It goes with saying, listen attentively.
Then tomorrow, if it arrives, repeat.
____________________________________
To My About-to-be-Ex Therapist
About our session this afternoon, I’m confused:
you diagnosed my ergophobia with sadness
in your voice. No offense, but after 40 years
of Type-A overdrive, I’ve earned this new paradigm.
Put this in your notes: I’ve replaced chronic threats
of nothing-to-do with perfected laziness.
My fear of boredom? Relieved by mindfulness.
From my ergonomic chair, I spend hours
tracing the texture of walls and studying
slight tilts of Chinese serigraphs.
I’m happy to report the woman side-saddling
the panther’s back hasn’t slipped off yet
and the lotus pond hasn’t flooded our family room.
As for the cobwebs swaying behind the étagère?
They haven’t ceased to captivate. Anyway,
thanks for helping me define work as what
I say it is. My business suits and black pumps
are up for grabs at Goodwill; my office files
free of contracts, flight plans, and syllabi.
I’m noodling with a blog about the joys
of nothing much. Maybe you’ll subscribe.
___________________________________________
Waiting for a Bus to the Cloisters Museum
She rushes down the brownstone steps
and asks me to zip up her floral dress
since her husband’s still asleep and she’s late
for brunch with friends whose spouses bore
them to the brink of death she says
as she pulls her hair off her neck so I can trace
the curve of her back past a half-slip’s waist
over the bra that defies gravity
to pearls announcing elegance
and I’m embarrassed by a brush
with faultless skin as my nun’s short veil tangles
with the wind from buses zipping by
and when she says without judgment
or dismay You’re a rarity it’s true –
a stranger dressed in black appearing
just in time via Providence or Chance –
and she slides into a cab leaving me
bemused by her epiphany and eager
to contemplate seven storied tapestries.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Everything Good Between Us
I have no ear for singing and seldom land on a black or white. Listen in your head, you say when I change keys five times. I’m scatting, I try. Good luck with that, your reply.
Whoever is in the driver’s seat is incompetent. My gas pedal foot never behaves and my mind strays off the road. You’re writing poems again, you call me back. Where are we going? I ask.
You strut your Nordstrom’s strut through the mall, dismissing a dozen clothing stores by the time I consider one. Quintessence of style, you lamentate my disregard for what I wear.
Everything defaults to me: the glasses you lost somewhere, the key that doesn’t fit, the celery I bought that wasn’t plump enough. Trade-off? You ignore my grumpiness.
You have to listen faster, you complain when I ask for a repeat. I can’t keep up when you allegro through health, finance, politics, and theology.
The time between a rift and a reconcile grows shorter every year. We slam doors, conjure up a laugh, reconnect to our own happiness. And, ah! there’s always that kiss.
In every grocery store, I turn right, you turn left. I’m the counter-, you’re the –wise. Inevitably, at noon or midnight we meet – you with salty, me with sweet.
When I invite you to talk about death, you reply, I haven’t tried it yet. When I say, Then talk about miracles, you smile, What’s the difference?
When chaos sneaks up and threatens our equanimity, we look it in the eye, grab each other’s hands, and dance to the music of the spheres.
When I run out of things to write, I’ll pose you against a baby grand like Barbra, Liza, or Elaine belting out show tunes to the neighborhood. Everything about you sings a poem.
Ready are you? What know you of ready?
– Yoda
If this were my final day on earth, I’d like to think
I’d be sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee mug,
watching the sun scramble through our winded firs,
hoping the squirrels and feral cats would walk
the backyard fence. I’d like to say goodbye.
No doubt I’d check the morning news – another night
of death-by-belief, natural and unnatural catastrophes,
sixty-five million souls adrift in un-homelands.
This misery, I’d comfort myself, will ease the letting go.
I would hear you open the bedroom door,
walk down the stairs – steady as any day
before – and look at me expectantly.
We would sit side-by-side, agreeing
there’s nothing useful in worrying,
nothing helpful in judgment or regret.
I’d memorize the cadence of your voice,
the sharpness of your deep brown eyes.
I’ll know them when we meet again.
Just so you understand, I am not afraid.
I’ve been there before. The fact remains
my last day may end tonight or in two dozen years.
For now, there’s nothing more to do than warm
my coffee up, cheer on the squirrels and cats,
and tell you I love who and where we are.
While earth counts up its scars, take my hand.
Let’s watch the sun break free above the firs.
All I need
A few skyward things: one steady star
to guide, one constellation to bet
a myth upon, one quasar to break
the dark. The rest is ornament.
One mountain to announce it’s ripe
for bulbs and seeds to multiply
without a first or second thought.
Birth deserves tranquility.
A frenzy of birds at sleeptide’s ebb,
tornados of gnats at dusk’s flow.
Two feral cats. Two red-tailed hawks.
Days that warrant wilding up.
A word for grace or luck or hope
when the mountain blocks my star.
In-the-bone love for all that’s lost.
Something born to lead me home.