regular

half past seven and he’s here

  (everybody says seven-thirty

     around here but there’s

     something about him that

     makes you say half past seven.)

he’s here for a plate of meat and potatoes,

but never the two should meet unless in the

depths of his gizzard where bourbon and

bitters wash freely.

every day. half past seven.

every day meat

  (even on fridays but i’ve never

     asked him if he’s a heretic)

and potatoes.

no chef’s specials. no

chocolate pie. no pasta salad.

no green beans.

his hair has thinned but he’s not crotchety.

we know what he likes and jamie

serves him after marty makes up the plate

in the back. 

Concealed

A large brown neatly zipped purse

is what Miss Martha Dupree carried to

room 111 at Butler High School.

Every day for forty-three years

Miss Martha locked that satchel

in the lower left cabinet drawer.

She did not get out lipstick or

loose change during the day.  Locked in,

no one could differentiate the bag from the dark air.

Every day for forty-three years

Miss Martha retrieved her purse and

walked peacefully out to her Pontiac

or Chevrolet and drove home.

Her bag stood on her sideboard

 in the darkened dining room every day

except Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Those days the upstairs back closet

was where it reposed.

Every day for forty-three years

on the weekends and during the summers

Miss Martha’s large brown purse went

with her to church on Sunday and

to the Piggly Wiggly on Saturday mornings.

She carried the bag dutifully

to the doctor yearly

and the dentist biannually.

One bag and the same or several identical

replaced with age and wear? For all of those years

 no one knew what she carried.  

Addiction

She has one. 

“It’s like gripping gold.”

You know who you are

for a week, a month, a year.  Identity assigned

and her heart can rest while her mind holds words,

movements, reactions, emotions,

prescribed in layers beneath that fleeting assignment. It’s all there –

no excuses for not knowing. She can have

a good dinner and a trip to Walgreen’s. She will save

them all in a shoe box from back home. It’s not easy but

she clings to this life and that paper.  But,

as soon as this one’s done,

she craves the next. Without her call sheet,

she’s no one.

The Last Time I Was Here

Baby bottles, mismatched sock, and an old cookie under the couch that gathered dog hair –

There’s oil stains in the driveway and a wrench clearly forgotten on the peg board.

Cheerful mums seem out of place on the side stoop.

Shouldn’t they be moved to the front?

But the front is actually the back and there’s no avoiding dog-pee dead grass on that side.

A small patio is sheltered by the neighbors’ balcony where they grill but aren’t supposed to.

Chores were done or went undone as did promises and leaving wasn’t an option entertained early in the day, but it must’ve come to visit because the last time I was here still echoes.

May 31, 1911

No white dress but today she’s

  coming out.

Thousands spellbound, not knowing inside

  she was incomplete and -  excepting

  a few days  – would

  always be empty, always

  alone. Still,

today she would launch,

  unfitted but beautiful.  She’d never go back --

  the applause and champagne and music would

  follow until death yawned and

  swallowed. 

But today no prescience – joy and

  admiration and expectation

  hang in Irish air.

Untitled

who kept close

cutting apples

hands held

pressed shirts

all smiles on

easter sunday

christmas morning

valentine dinner

carseat installed

playground sand

daily lunches

safe crossings

tree branches

candles melted

made beds

training wheels off

toy boats capsized

not so real ones

afloat all that matters

stronger then

smaller now

or is it the other way

grow up

grow out

grow away

buried

the abyssal plains engulf wounds,

hatred kept and wronged, frightened passions,

lost art – shifting, floating in those columns –

unexplored, unwanted, unignored -

they are darkened by silt of pressures and in cold

seeps we feed but growth is denied –

filled voids sink ever darker.

for company – black swallows and vipers.

still, meters and miles above,

photoreflections dance, keeping

waving rhythm.

here, perhaps, where surf gathers is promise,

where hours hold us and elements play.

ascending only credits the depths and

trembling threads connect.

Deal

Have you ever lost a card game so badly

you pause?  The lengthening break brings

witness to all that has crowded nights

and clamored days.

The footbridge to escape?  Blocked. 

In this silence you are isolated – reminded that reflections

are not reality –

only twelve pages each round

and shredding one can deafen.

Losing punctuates instability, but a moment –

not end stop.

Appearances

Too often missed dawns

reveal perfected homes. Nests,
small gossamer

treasures leap at the nose

and cling to the shoulder.

A ghost of night shift work

and a stifled shriek wakes

still nodding buds.

Waiting

Folly splattered every thought

   sighed and left at doorsteps –

some darkened, all grease-stained,

the detritus of breathing litters,

scratched yard dirt where chickens

  refuse to walk.

Unfortunate beauty hangs off dogwoods –

  no salvation is got and time is short

  to claim it.

We are held together by small histories –

  unkept fortunes,

  better suited for attic sales and flea

  markets with puffs of pine cone smoke chasing

  children and the hollow-eyed dog. He knows

  his is coming: when winter whelps,

  freedom does not follow.

Does it all come to staying and straining –

  holding that folly close, no regret.

Choices are chances without previews.