tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89181725854172250502024-03-13T21:19:02.934-07:00The Lifespan of ButterfliesCAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-81501096706641833012013-04-10T04:42:00.002-07:002013-04-10T04:42:30.295-07:00MantraBe the hand that sticks out in the wind, presses <br />there. Be the lips that slowly blow out air.<br />
Be the animal that contemplates the distance,<br />through unconsciously fluttering eyelashes,<br />responding only to what is presented in form.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-531547121051743982013-03-21T15:50:00.004-07:002013-03-21T15:53:45.611-07:00A Bayly ThingSophie was born with a completely full head of black hair. Thick, an inch long. Stunning. <br />
<br />
It took years for me to realize this would be a "thing" with Bayly babies. Because she was only the second Bayly cousin, there was no way to know she'd be first in a long line of freakishly thick black heads of newborn hair. Now, Bayly baby after Bayly baby is being born with the same lustrous locks. At least half of the rapidly growing number of second cousins. <br />
<br />
(Eleanor and Josephine are definitely part of the normal hair contingent, although their hair also become insanely long, insanely fast.)<br />
<br />
Over and over, I am finally realizing she was part of one of those Bayly "things." I can't really say that to any new Bayly parents, lest I make them feel sad unexpectedly. But it doesn't make me sad at all. I just see those beautiful babies and think, <em>My baby too! </em><br />
<br />
(In the abstract, that pitiful, quasi-delusional, childish delight does make me feel a wee bit sorry for myself.)<br />
<br />
But this is one of those strange ways she keeps on living. When, years later, I realize she is a part of something. I never would have expected that, seven and a half years after being born and having died, she'd join a club. <br />
<br />
That's fucking miraculous.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-60392423954538480102013-03-19T17:27:00.006-07:002013-03-20T18:01:07.139-07:00Promise To RememberI spent this past weekend across the country from home, about as far west as I could travel before hitting water. I was visiting a friend from college, a best friend. She's just had twin boys, and I didn't think about whether I'd go. I just pulled from my next to nothing savings, called on family and my wonderful husband to watch my own babies, and struck out west. <br />
<br />
<em>The girls asked me why I'd leave them to take care of other babies. I told them that every mother loves her babies as much as I love them. So, when I love someone that loves a baby, I go to her. They understood this. </em><br />
<em></em><br />
I swaddled the two perfect forms, held them, listened for their cries, fed them milk my friend had pumped. I spent hours studying and tracing their perfect faces and, by the end of the weekend, realized I knew their contours and promised to never forget them, the foreheads, the lips--although I know that I certainly, sadly, will.<br />
<br />
<em>The forgetting of small faces is something I've learned well. All mothers know it--we promise to lock these moments in our brains forever--and every one drifts away like sand imported by wind, smoothing out the divots just made by rain. But when you have a baby whose newborn face is all you'll every see of her, you learn about forgetting the hard way. If I can forget her face (give her away to false imaginings)--and I have--I will forget everything.</em><br />
<em></em><br />
Not until I left did the grief-joy swallow me whole. Not my own, not this time. But the single intake and release of breath of all mothers, in unison. My friend, and all her pain, and this little hope in her eyes now, with these perfect crying little god damn glorious things. My other friend, and her pain, because her baby has died--and I couldn't save her. She'll visit her with flowers when they bloom, fed by first warmth and organic things. My other friend, a best friend, who lives with one growing, wildly brilliant black bonneted twin boy, while another sleeps away forever. So many friends--I know them and I don't know them--but I know them. Each of us crippled differently, but giddy batshit running full gale, or getting there.<br />
<br />
<em> My own little girl, just one of three, with her thick head of mussed black hair, and I envision her standing in the latest bright white winter wind that stings her cheeks and the black twine gets stuck in her snot and tears. I imagine her blue eyes that stand out today. And I feel hopeful too. I gasp at her beauty and wonder if my imaginings of her shoot up into the air like Wifi or sit in the universe like abandoned text files, and if each one I create waits forever on the hard drive of the world. No different from my living girls standing on a hill, staring at me, all strong and blonde and extraordinary. Does this exist in the cosmos too?</em><br />
<em></em><br />
And so, tonight, I conjure up those new twins in my brain. I spin fibers like long, thin strings of clay data, and stack them into baby faces. One rounder at the bottom, another wider at the forehead. The eyes, the way their hands made those wild red strikes on the world. I feel the naive hope I'll remember this, and all things, if I meditate them every day. And then I study faces in photographs, pretending that's the same. And I trace my childrens' silhouettes, real and imagined, on turbulent plane rides back east. <br />
<br />
<em>And I weep for all the wrong I've ever done, all the things I've forgotten, and I forgive myself, and promise to remember.</em>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-61019906437710847892013-03-13T04:11:00.001-07:002013-03-13T04:11:35.584-07:00Must Learn to KnitIsn't it strange when you can abstract the process of grieving from the loss itself? I think I've just gotten here. The grief changes--the life and death, recorded in some cosmic book, do not. I've known that truth for some time. But, reading over my last post, I realize it has nothing to do with Sophie.<br />
<br />
(She's preserved in my mind--forever I hope. Even when I begin to lose my mind--dementia perhaps--I wonder if she will still be there. And I will be that woman who keeps knitting even when only my hands remember things. Just like I may still quaver in toothless excitement when I conjure unicorns or dinosaurs, remembering somewhere in my recesses that those impossible things mean my girls.)<br />
<br />
But that post was dark, cavernous. Like the space inside a suspended silently screaming mouth. I don't often feel that way, and never about Sophie herself. Only about the dark days of grieving. And these lighter days are like silent song--the cavern is similar in ways--but oh how melodious. Still how strange that disconnect.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-89253586398642114382013-03-10T14:03:00.002-07:002013-03-13T04:00:42.973-07:00My Rational Now (stolen title)Read the blogpost of a brilliant friend/mentor today. The post was about the current Kenyan election--he follows closely because he grew up there (and he's an engaged observer, critic, hopeful of the world). His post today was so beautiful--all about the efficiency and rationality of the now, versus the more truthful times, as he calls them, of the not so distant past.<br />
<br />
If I wanted to draw his attention to my story, I would have commented; I would have said <em>I can relate to this!</em> I thought about it. Because I remember more truthful, less rational times in my own history. When every moment and action felt like laying it all down. Like losses and gains were sonic booms, and moments were eggs found in tact beneath a tree. Perhaps so were deaths. <br />
<br />
(I wonder about my friends who've been through war. Or cancer.) <br />
<br />
I don't pine much for the early, frantic days of grieving Sophie. And I don't write about how distant I feel from that grief now, or how that makes me feel like I've lived through an earthshake that has created chasms between my psychic continents. And I ended up with all but one leg on this side, slowly drifting away from the blood and screaming and threats of suicide. It's peaceful here, right?<br />
<br />
(But I'd be lying if I said I never longed for grief--isn't that what I'm saying?)<br />
<br />
Like I am a reincarnate from a time before time was measured, and now I'm walking in a world of clocks, and arrivals and departures are charted to fragments of seconds. Beneath the constant ticking I hear the long, low, unsyncopated wail of my own time.<br />
<br />
This reincarnation is tricky business. This life is easier. The days are easier. They feel digestible. But like food pellets, or caloric vitamins. <br />
<br />
(I googled Kenya. Looked at its Wikipedia site. The news.) <br />
<br />
And I felt ashamed of my distance, even from research. Kenya reduced to a single page. My daughter reduced to a day of remembrance. Kenya reduced to one woman's suffering. The world reduced to my laptop. They fit neatly inside each other, like strange, corpsely stacking dolls, don't they?<br />
<br />
The post. Please read: <a href="http://gukira.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/our-rational-now/#comments">http://gukira.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/our-rational-now/#comments</a>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-80242565990359376342013-03-07T18:55:00.001-08:002013-03-07T18:55:25.120-08:00Ready<em>We're ready for you Spring!</em> we yell from the front stoop. With hands cupped around our mouths, for warmth and guiding voices out to some place where weather might hear us. <em>We're ready for you Spring!</em> <br />
<br />
And we go back inside to quiet games. Wrestling. Television. Books. All of them making my bones feel like they'll break through my rubbery flesh. But we're exhausted from the yelling. And I vow to be more resilient next winter. To dress properly and march the kids out, no bullshit weather's permission. I nearly faint onto the bed, giving up, whimpering. I give up. <em>We're ready for you Spring.</em>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-76353500394120535782013-03-06T18:04:00.002-08:002013-03-06T18:04:45.902-08:00Miserable Moaning MommySometimes I write a poem. And I tool over its minutiae, make it whatever version of flawless is possible. Or I blast through it and judge it good enough, because even if it only exists on my thumb drive, it exists somewhere and the act of writing it has made me better. Yes, that's enough. <br />
<br />
Other times, though, I write a poem, and I do these same things. And then I read it the next day, and I'm stunned by its lack of resonance. Its utter, terrible un-imagination. And I wonder, does that mean I'm meant to be an infrequent poet? That I should write more? That I should give up? That I am uncreative, unimaginative, myself? That I need to travel? To experience? To read more?<br />
<br />
I don't have the answers, so I travel in my brain. And I create those places there. And I read. And I write. And I fail, fail again.<br />
<br />
As my kids would say, "Miserable Moaning Mommy."CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-64425004860488534932013-03-05T17:23:00.000-08:002013-03-05T17:23:05.418-08:00Spare Key in the GardenSitting on the deck with cigarettes and an evening alone,<br />
I think of the way we trolled the yard for a place to hide<br />
the key, a spare you would use <em>in case</em>, and we practiced<br />
turning it in the lock, and your small hands were strong<br />
enough and I marveled that you knew to leave the flat<br />
side down--and I told you to find this silver treasure<br />
if I was stuck in traffic, or god forbid in <em>just a little car<br />accident</em>, and you seemed bewildered but I know you'll<br />
ride the bus tomorrow and hope in secret pockets that<br />
I've forgotten or wrecked (just a little) so you can tip <br />
the heavy garden St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things,<br />
an unearth a shiny symbol of independence, something<br />
yesterday you wouldn't know if you'd seen it peek from <br />
beneath a cement statue, and inside I hear you talk in your <br />
sleep, and a guitar string snap spontaneously and echo, <br />
and I hear a crunch and feel sure I've stepped on a ladybug--CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-12708946377097153992012-10-29T16:30:00.000-07:002012-10-29T16:30:08.040-07:00Hurricane Sandy, October 29, 2012
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Watching bands of grey as they stretch across the sky,<br />
I am holding up my pointer finger and thumb to measure <br />
the way they expand and contract against eerie white.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We splay bodies all over the house, open curtains and
internet,<br />
checking the winds, what they mean on their scales, changes<br />
in the trajectory of the storm, what debris may accumulate.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We check weather like this here, usually in Winter time,<br />
as we wonder about the days that follow storms, how far down<br />
will the ground be, when we will see it again through dull ice.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But these winds and rains are foreign, imported from a
watery<br />
place, and they will chase themselves down storm drains, seep<br />
into the ground, and we will drink them months from now.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I feel, coming on wind from somewhere south, a lowness—<br />
a familiar knowledge of fruitless anticipation, after the storm<br />
this landscape will be barren, unchanged for many feet or inches.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All our watching, and there will still be naked street and
yard, <br />
and we’ll be able to walk barefoot, and work, drive, make<br />
our coffee—life will go on for us if we’re lucky, changeless,<br />
with a long, low tone, covering us like a heavy, invisible blanket.</span></div>
CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-65207721925826696022012-09-17T18:51:00.003-07:002012-09-17T18:51:27.388-07:00Fawn Road<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The season of butterflies has past,<br />when I would screech in secret joy <br />at the way they’d thrash against<br />the windshield, and in my mind<br />I’d clap my hands, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sweet lord!</i>, <br />having made contact, before<br />they’d lift off like nothing else<br />because nothing is so light,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">not the bright white bones<br />of deer, dressed in tawny skins<br />that start to creep away from <br />gravel burns, leaving a mottled<br />magenta mess—<br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but today<br />there was a fawn, as much like<br />delicate patterned wings<br />as anything ever was, <br />with her—her?—white </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">spots, like lacey, red-inked,<br />toppled dominoes stamped<br />against her sides, and I didn’t<br />imagine the way her slender<br />leg would snap or go dust<br />beneath my wheels, <br />rather I imagined the way <br />she must have smelled<br />and how honored I should <br />have been to smell her,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">had the traffic not been so fast,<br />I’d have taught my children <br />about the smell of new deer <br />to does, and I’d have photographed<br />her tiny hip, white as her marks,<br />just begun to poke from her<br />sweet rotting flank, or her<br />black nose and lips turned up, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oh!</i>, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />toward her first visage of monarch,<br />the last of the season.</span></div>
CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-4148677035638383212012-09-14T18:00:00.001-07:002012-09-14T18:00:30.134-07:00Not a poem.Noticing things? So what. Am I noticing. Anything I haven't noticed before.<br />
<br />
I noticed how the earliest leaves fall in the shape of tiny cups. Turned upward. What would I have thought of that before? I'd never have stepped on them, angry at their optimism. Years ago, if I'd seen them, I'd have picked them up, so delicately. And their slow drifts from life would have caught my tears. I'd have looked at their veins, still green and live inside. And I would have shaken my head, maybe even run the outside of their cups along my cheek, close to the lips, smelled deeply. Today, I stare at them from a distance, seeing how they collect on the lawn. There are too many to count, and they fall as I watch. Why are they all falling? If I got down close, squatted down, I think I would see how they hold air. I would wonder if the air inside was just ever so slightly warmer than the air outside. I would dip my finger inside, as if into holy water, or checking the temperature of warming liquid. I would lick my finger. Taste whatever is in those tiny cups, fallen early from trees.<br />
<br />
This is something to try tomorrow.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-35926984908277676592012-09-10T18:37:00.000-07:002012-09-10T18:37:20.417-07:00Hi. Old. Poems.Well, shit. Too many things to say. Blogger isn't even the same anymore. I don't even know how to change the fonts. I accidentally deleted my pages. I got my Master's degree. I'm teaching some college. My kids are getting old. I'm (getting) old. I haven't written a poem in a month. And I'm getting this odd feeling of being behind. I don't want to write, though, because I know the first thing that I smash out won't cut it. The words will be insufficient, halting, ungraceful. And still it's fall again--it seems to happen every year. So I'm starting to notice things. So, here I am. Old dog-woman, new trick-blogger.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-76878177270798823112012-01-22T14:36:00.000-08:002012-01-22T14:39:59.261-08:00Stillborn, adj.One week later, I looked up <em>stillborn</em>.<br />
Feeling too done-before, and shocking<br />
in its frequency, and like a dirty word<br />
that was something that described us,<br />
science or statistics that made my mouth<br />
constrict and then soften with moisture.<br />
<br />
I went to the library to do it, feeling<br />
guilty and disgusted reading about <br />
myself in my own dictionary, but <br />
theirs was great yellowed white, <br />
crackling pages, millions of words<br />
and people looking for themselves<br />
<br />
there, I found a moth pressed<br />
between the pages, like its own <br />
little translucent, ephmeral leaf,<br />
with veins for words, and blood<br />
drained out, and more years dead<br />
than living, and through its forewing<br />
<br />
I read <em>(of an infant) born dead</em>.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-72288639698858392792012-01-18T13:07:00.000-08:002012-01-18T13:07:21.920-08:00Floating Haiku<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">fruit dye and water <br />
horsehair sutured to slim wood<br />
paints a butterfly</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">fold down the middle<br />
so flat wings mimic flapping<br />
sit her like resting</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">imagine she lifts<br />
wings become brushes themselves<br />
and she paints a girl<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> </div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-9019596654436272562012-01-18T10:21:00.001-08:002012-01-18T12:50:24.688-08:00Feast of Flowers<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Aconite. Anemone. Autumn Crocus.<br />
Fat purple pads, succulent and sliced <br />
by stripes of indigo drizzled or heaped <br />
like angel hair over bone china <br />
on a lazy susan. Baneberry, <br />
Christmas Rose, Deadly Nightshade, <br />
Foxglove, and the Iris. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: large;"> Neighbors watched<br />
her build the greenhouse last winter—<br />
first in her dark jacket with dark<br />
buttons, then shirtless, just sweating<br />
and raising walls in white sun<br />
with bare arms and a strong back—<br />
they watched for her mouth and<br />
several times they shook while <br />
pouring water into glasses, but<br />
never offered.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: large;"> Ivy, Jimson Weed,<br />
the root of one Mandrake, curled like a<br />
fetal Medusa. Each day, they watched <br />
as the glass fogged and breathed clear,<br />
until green began to grow up along <br />
its insides and shut the world out<br />
for good. Brave boys almost climbed <br />
the frame and followed the sun inside,<br />
but they heard a shuffle and the clang<br />
of a spade and their hair stood up. Oleander,<br />
Rock Poppy, Spring Adonis.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: large;"> So they waited<br />
late into springtime, watched her mostly—<br />
naked with boots, shorn hair, heavy glasses,<br />
carrying armloads of cut flowers inside—<br />
thought they saw her bite a May Apple—<br />
eight trips for wisteria, heavy like grapes—<br />
wondered should they bring vases and<br />
how her fingers must have looked,<br />
<i>how red or purple they must be, how deep <br />
were the thorns, how chartreuse the thumbnails.</i></span></div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-85518029428675494882011-12-08T08:14:00.000-08:002011-12-08T08:14:56.877-08:00Still I look up missing girls.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Between trees along the roadside, there is an umbrella.<br />
Its great downturned blossom—bluebell or reverse tulip—<br />
is small-world round and banded with turquoise, fuchsia, <br />
pale pink—size is hard to gauge from here, but the brightly<br />
budding colors dazzle schools on rainy mornings. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Travel <br />
down flamboyant petal and silver stem, to the handle, <br />
which is red, and plastic, and curved to fit a smaller hand, <br />
and there are thoughts of soft palms and paint that spills <br />
off tiny nails and onto skin. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Imagine the hands connect to arms, <br />
connect to narrow mid-section and still maybe a child’s tummy, <br />
to neck growing longer with years, to a head to eyes that blink <br />
and well with changing feelings, hurt feelings, or something else? <br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Think of the hair, maybe long and brown and soft and wispy<br />
and brushed that morning by a mother who trims it with kitchen<br />
scissors and sprays in detangler, dresses it with dandelion, and <br />
runs her hands across it and breathes as it dries.</span></div><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> And there is an umbrella <br />
along the roadside, between the trees, and underneath is a broken <br />
metal spoke that collapses a nylon rainbow against earth, and maybe <br />
it was thrown in jubilation as the sun came out and the drops stopped<br />
souping up the forest’s edge—and she took a shortcut home from the bus stop.</span><br />
</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Aparajita","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> </span>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-76956261037735858802011-12-04T18:04:00.000-08:002011-12-04T18:04:37.997-08:00five.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sweetpeaproject.org/five"><img border="0" dda="true" height="192" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aeu4Y50HRNc/Ttwmlxp5tII/AAAAAAAAEgE/NtbiQbYTBro/s320/five.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-14985738131364004582011-08-21T12:08:00.001-07:002011-08-21T12:08:25.887-07:00Walking Web<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am caught <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>like a fly<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in a web<br />
though I am moving and have broken it</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">From twigs<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and branches<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that string it<br />
blue, cold, skyward and tether its ends to the hot center </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am carrying<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it with me<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>over shoulders<br />
and neck like a noose or long pendant, I’ll wear it forever</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it glistens<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on my skin<br />
sometimes I scratch and pull at infinite fragments</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Each bit falls<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>away, nothing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>visible remains<br />
but still I am traced by silk and bound by its feeling on my skin</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Light, down<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to nearly nothing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you can’t see<br />
that it’s there in my hair or on my face, under finger nails.</span></div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-17388421716602891732011-08-16T11:00:00.001-07:002011-08-16T11:02:23.434-07:00Degenerate<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Broken by a fall out of bed<br />
the pain didn’t wake me but the noise<br />
lack of crack, a slow rumble<br />
flipped me sideways like thunder <br />
hitting my eardrums from inside<br />
and hammering dully on my brain<br />
as with elbows that don’t relent<br />
self-defensive and close to the danger<br />
the pain became the noise<br />
filled with fragments of femur<br />
my leg was red and liquid fire<br />
They’d told me the bones would start breaking<br />
that red and white would disintegrate<br />
like sands from different deserts<br />
and yes those sands were rubbing and mixing<br />
and creating a frenzied whir <br />
humming electric as I lay on the planks<br />
later my collarbone in the dressing room<br />
and all the toes while sitting perfectly still<br />
my biggest bone had broken<br />
now I would wait for help<br />
and then wait for breaking</div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-89251602408037218992011-07-31T17:07:00.000-07:002011-08-01T10:56:13.640-07:00I don't usually write things quite like this......but I am today. Because today Eleanor and Josephine got a new room. As their bodies expand, so do their things. Bigger beds. More books. Bigger, bouncier, less fragile bodies, means less room for sentimental things. So now there is a big peach chest emblazoned with S floating around the house. It squats in my room. In the living room. In the girls' room. It is in danger, in a sense. Constant ever present danger that it will be opened. I will take a shower, and come out, dry off, find its contents scattered. Rose petals, pictures frames, book pages. I am delaying making a decision, because I know her chest will end up in some closet. For the safe keeping I never meant to do. In the meantime, I've been digging through it. This is something I don't do. The wound picking I used to love that no longer feels good. Not that I don't miss it. <br />
<br />
So much has changed since I folded her Christmas sleepers and ran my palms over the yellow striped bits of cloth. I cried, but I smiled. I even laughed. I laughed when I saw the rip in the back of that Christmas sleeper. Made by our dog. Who let me cry on his scrawny shoulder. And later bit Eleanor. And was put down. When I was hugely pregnant with Josephine. That's a story that is anything but funny. I guess. But what a life. That just keeps moving and changing. And, with time, even the shortest lives take on new significances. And I laugh because I know new, more important things all the time. <br />
<br />
"Mom, are you a tiny bit sad about Sophie?" I tell her I'm very sad about Sophie. "But you're a lot happy about us?" I tell them that I am--that they are the absolute lights of my life. Those times make my heart swell. I am teaching them something about joy and sadness. And deep emotion. But my heart also beats for the times I hear Sophie as part of their daily vocabulary. "Josephine, GET OUT OF MY ROOM! I want to be alone. GO GET A SNACK! GO THINK ABOUT SOPHIE! GO MARRY A PRINCESS!" <br />
<br />
A few of the things I saw in the chest: <br />
<br />
A Gators uniform.<br />
<br />
A Spalding shirt. <br />
<br />
A pink hooded towel signed with curly letters written in sharpee.<br />
<br />
A quilt from the Atlanta gift show.<br />
<br />
A book called "When Sophie Gets Angry" from Barnes and Noble in Bowie. (Which now makes me laugh because it makes me think about Sophie as a scary angry haunting ghost. And that's nothing like anything I believe about her. And it's absurdly funny.)<br />
<br />
A book called "My Friend Gorilla" which really does break my heart a little. Too much to read.<br />
<br />
A picture of her that I scanned and printed and tried to pretty up and make presentable. So I could frame it in my house. And, fuck, it hurts that she died. That her skin was that red in places. But breathe. Remember that documentary about the moment of death, in which they say bleeding to death is like slowly slipping away. There. That hurts a little less.<br />
<br />
A slip from the florist, regarding a tree, that later died.<br />
<br />
Cards. Pinks and greens. Brights and pastels. Congratulations! Dated from my shower. <br />
<br />
Cards. Subtle colors. Sensitive fonts. Kind words. From people I talk to daily still. From family and from friends. From people who still remember, and people who've moved on. From people who've lost their own babies. From people with whom I'm no longer friendly. From people I love. From the Dance Party. From the giver of the red rocking chair and the eclipse gazer, who've since both died. The world just keeps changing. Its makeup constantly shifting, as my sadness really does drift away to make room for my joy, and the joy and the sadness of others.<br />
<br />
A box of crayons. And I gave it to the girls. I just gave it to them. For coloring, paper stripping, breaking, melting, and throwing away. Just for living.<br />
<br />
I look at and finger these soft things. They smell old now. And they strum new chords. Or maybe the guitar is tuned to a new key. Or harmonies layer the sadness with joy. They don't hurt like they used to. What hurts is the way they make me laugh, and how the smiles come easier than the tears. But even that hurt feels so fucking good. <br />
<br />
I'm not some great person. Changed. Or calm. Or taking things in stride. I'm not more brilliant. Or more patient (god, no). But I can look at these things that felt like a thousand knives twisting, and see a story that unfolds. That keeps unfolding. Doubling over, reaching into and out of me, in ways I never dreamed.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-65195063814063508002011-03-16T10:41:00.001-07:002011-03-16T10:41:20.683-07:00The Common Cold<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sun still comes up <br />
and that’s a surprise each morning,<br />
but it comes up gray now.<br />
Or not quite gray, but that liquid color <br />
that mist makes when it’s part of the sky<br />
and when it stays.<br />
It’s streaked with something like yellow <br />
that teases like daffodils <br />
on something I’ve heard was called <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>e-a-s-t-e-r.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it’s just the gray that stays, <br />
and nothing smells as lemon <br />
as the taste s-u-n left on my lips.<br />
The gray lives here now, <br />
hovering just below my mother’s ears<br />
and chin and right above her neck.<br />
The fog like a slice <br />
like a quarter moon <br />
slits her throat, <br />
clean and round and full and smooth. <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least we would see red again.<br />
<br />
But she is all body now, <br />
head bobbing intermittently <br />
out of the shadows to drop <br />
her skull into her bony hands<br />
or to kiss and breathe where my bicep <br />
still feels like child flesh.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So this is the apocalypse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Next year—if we make it that long—<br />
if I am luckier than the neighbor <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will grow taller.<br />
<br />
And the next year I will stretch to learn <br />
that gray world my mother knows.<br />
Even now, if I wake up at that name-damned <br />
wet time between night and morning<br />
I can stand on my toes, <br />
and press the dirt <br />
and lengthen my neck, <br />
grown thinner each day,<br />
and stick my nose in the fog.<br />
Nevermind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I can’t breathe</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for shit</i>—<br />
as people used to say<br />
about things like sinus infections<br />
and “the common cold.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The cans ran out last summer.<br />
Officially.<br />
They said we were a dry street,<br />
this fall.<br />
But that wasn’t so bad.<br />
We found things here and there<br />
that mimicked popcorn and artichokes.<br />
That required scraping and taking chances,<br />
but summer was hot <br />
and no one felt hungry.<br />
At least we never mentioned <br />
it with our mouths.<br />
And autumn just ran on adrenaline<br />
and hopes of fading<br />
and not fading.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But winter was hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
So fucking hard.<br />
No one cares that we say that now.<br />
Maybe it’s always been that way,<br />
when kids, all long legs<br />
and lank hair <br />
slink behind old <br />
sinking wooden houses<br />
and say things like “fucking.”<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we say it now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I say it when I go to bed,<br />
say it under my breath when waking.<br />
This morning, I took that<br />
talk of fucking and went to <br />
where the garden used to be.<br />
I feel like a child<br />
and I stop saying it.<br />
<br />
I drop to my knees, <br />
and the earth is cool.<br />
And I stick my fingers in it.<br />
No one notices dirty nails.<br />
They won’t know I’ve been here<br />
if I level it later.<br />
They are all up there<br />
above fog anyway.<br />
<br />
And it feels like night.<br />
Cool and fresh<br />
after hot days<br />
I hardly remember.<br />
And I think of those orbs<br />
of white—fertilizer.<br />
And the days when green<br />
came out of brown.<br />
And the feeling of soil<br />
that was really moist.<br />
Almost like soup—mud.<br />
And how that made living things.<br />
And how plants need<br />
rain and sun like tit for tat.<br />
And how it feels to bake<br />
and then grow damp again.<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then bake. <br />
<br />
It’s cool in the dirt,<br />
and the ground is smooth.<br />
We’ve made sure of that.<br />
We want to know what grows.<br />
If anything changes at all.<br />
If anything comes up this year.<br />
<br />
This dry, dry fucking year.<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We watch and wait <br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the ground to change.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-43968834915072686882011-02-15T10:04:00.000-08:002011-02-15T10:05:40.286-08:00A Pile of BlanketsA pile of blankets,<br />
quilts all heaped together in my daughters' favorite colors.<br />
I see them on their beds when they are playing in the yard.<br />
I miss their small bodies suddenly, and their smells.<br />
I long to see their belly buttons, and put my face in their warm necks.<br />
But I don't want the chaos,<br />
the blankets will have to be enough, a vessel for heat and odors,<br />
I run my hands along the edges and over the folds, and inside them.<br />
I expect their hotness and respiration to translate,<br />
But the spaces of the blanket, all the spaces, are cold on my fingertips.<br />
The girls are just outside.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-15379041464541624522011-02-15T09:56:00.000-08:002011-02-15T09:56:22.840-08:00Precious things.Precious is small.<br />
Like something that can be held in one hand.<br />
Or two hands cupped together,<br />
one hanging back, behind, <br />
holding<br />
the<br />
hand<br />
holding the baby bird.<br />
When the bird is precious<br />
it is plump and blue<br />
all swollen breast and<br />
fluorescent orange beak. <br />
It does not have bugging eyes<br />
or strangled wings<br />
and when it cries for food<br />
crushed up worms are<br />
always waiting<br />
in a neighboring hand<br />
(its pair waiting to stroke beneath the blue chin)<br />
and the bird can be sated.<br />
Precious things<br />
hunger<br />
like<br />
other <br />
things,<br />
but they are too easily satiable.<br />
They cry out in pain, but submit to <br />
bandages and healing.<br />
The are held and never take off in angry flight,<br />
until they do.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-78347854793088157472011-01-28T17:43:00.000-08:002011-01-28T17:43:05.968-08:00Not a poem, just a thought.Today I was going pee. <br />
On my own toilet. <br />
At home. <br />
Bill had just gotten new toilet paper. <br />
It was "angel soft."<br />
Five years ago that would have hurt.<br />
I would have been mad.<br />
But I put it on the roll.<br />
I went to grab some.<br />
The pattern on the white tissue was butterflies.<br />
Five years ago I would have sworn.<br />
It would have hurt like being stabbed.<br />
Anyone who would buy that, fuck them.<br />
You knew I might come over.<br />
Fuck you.<br />
My baby died.<br />
You know that symbol is butterflies.<br />
You know I reluctantly put them on her walls.<br />
You know I got into that.<br />
That's just how it felt.<br />
Worse than being stabbed now that I write it down.<br />
But not today.<br />
Today I saw the butterflies.<br />
And I remembered.<br />
And I had a secret.<br />
And for a split second it was nice.<br />
It was our second.<br />
And I've felt that way in other bathrooms.<br />
That special moment.<br />
It's still a recollection of my baby.<br />
I rustle the tissue with my thumb and fore finger.<br />
It is soft and perfumed and powdered.<br />
(Nevermind the wiping with it.)<br />
Whether you know it or not.<br />
Thanks for buying that tissue.<br />
Thanks for never changing.<br />
Thanks for believing I'd come back.<br />
But better.CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8918172585417225050.post-39908968774713823892011-01-23T18:37:00.000-08:002011-01-23T18:39:03.148-08:00Magenta.<div style="text-align: left;">Magenta is all long legs.</div><div style="text-align: left;">It is knees and lipstick.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Magenta is teenage confidence,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and that feeling of giddy soaring.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Magenta is invulnerable and</div><div style="text-align: left;">smooths over the fissures</div><div style="text-align: left;">where crimson will crack every time.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Magenta thinks itself sophisticated,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and wants to be taken seriously.</div><div style="text-align: left;">But magenta has a lot to learn.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Nothing that ever lived </div><div style="text-align: left;">stayed magenta for long.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Nothing that remembers</div><div style="text-align: left;">or bleeds true red or</div><div style="text-align: left;">forgets to breathe sometimes or</div><div style="text-align: left;">stares off at blue calls itself </div><div style="text-align: left;">Magenta. Not for long anyway.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Because magenta is the color</div><div style="text-align: left;">of the thin veneer of youth</div><div style="text-align: left;">that wears off no matter </div><div style="text-align: left;">how often we dress ourselves</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: left;">in contrast to crimson.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzllPBVGsI/AAAAAAAAEZU/OwYbkaLt3c4/s1600/vm2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" s5="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzllPBVGsI/AAAAAAAAEZU/OwYbkaLt3c4/s320/vm2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlmXeKsWI/AAAAAAAAEZY/Y5dzu1utqEE/s1600/vm3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlmXeKsWI/AAAAAAAAEZY/Y5dzu1utqEE/s320/vm3.jpg" width="274" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlnivWJ-I/AAAAAAAAEZc/cgG1zkcHWHw/s1600/vm4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlnivWJ-I/AAAAAAAAEZc/cgG1zkcHWHw/s320/vm4.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlojXAGtI/AAAAAAAAEZg/40qj1L45mM8/s1600/vm5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" s5="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlojXAGtI/AAAAAAAAEZg/40qj1L45mM8/s320/vm5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlpaDsWII/AAAAAAAAEZk/IgRBHzhsu1s/s1600/vm6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlpaDsWII/AAAAAAAAEZk/IgRBHzhsu1s/s320/vm6.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlqOg8BaI/AAAAAAAAEZo/gtHcVSo3gxw/s1600/vm7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" s5="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlqOg8BaI/AAAAAAAAEZo/gtHcVSo3gxw/s320/vm7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlkI9CwGI/AAAAAAAAEZQ/9Tu2bTNZnlU/s1600/VM1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VRf0NlFB4eA/TTzlkI9CwGI/AAAAAAAAEZQ/9Tu2bTNZnlU/s320/VM1.jpg" width="320" /></div>CAGBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13572347279254115827noreply@blogger.com1