To hear
i love you
anywhere

someone else's
in a crowd, walking past, standing still
on a bus
someone else's -
who, on the other end
is receiving, we will never know, yet
it is known
that they
are
Loved.

Something like catching
part
of an undressing
in a locker room
A total stranger's humble
transition
in view
entrusted then in
that somehow
holy?
maybe sacred space
that has no name or even appointment, room number
or assignment of any sort

I will call it
liminal
and
thank
god?
for this
accidental
trust
and vulnerable
admittance.

I am crazier
than you
But not
than that man
with the strange
bags
walking past.

I have
put it squarely on me
Handed me, I have
this
Warriortask

Some journey of all journeys
A choice of some choices
Am I light enough
To allow it its Go
Let it burn right through
Me?
But not be consumed
Or eaten and torn
Any more than
Already the insides
Of me
Register
like a minefield
Like a strip mine
Like that screaming woman
In that alley who you think is a
Raving
lunatic bitch
But I know
Is all the women
We've all
ever never known.

two years ago i received a trunk in the mail filled
with ancestral pieces -baby blankets, baby dresses
a wedding dress
a class binder from a deceased aunt.

in it, i found an envelope sealed, unopened these sixty years
on it is written in schoolchild's hand,"mystery flower"

the envelope is dimensional, it has something in it
the envelope is still sealed
i consider it a gift.

inaugural

to the children
today was no different
save for the fact their mother
was a bit more preoccupied
with something else
and held them closer
while she watched the t.v.
with a more steady gaze
than usual
"president"
"obama"
This is an important day,
she said to them.

the humor in
her getting impatient

while she tried to listen
to the man's speech without
interruption
the man's speech about
compassion and tolerance and a
handbasket full of
good qualities
that, frankly, she didn't always
display.

nevertheless.
to the children
today was no different.

as every day, and every night,
both trusted
in her, all, and
in the heart,
their mother.

most of the snowmen
do not have heads

they have been gored through
with shovel handles
by eight year old boys with
open flapping coats and long
dragging sleeves or
bare hands cold
from the ice,
running
and pushing
shouting and scattering
away from the
mutilated tower
that they helped
build
on a sunnier day

Target Pants & Light Boy

Young college girl on cell phone oblivious in those low rider tight pants from Target with the embroidered pattern on the pocket taking up the entire sidewalk though she skinny walks in the middle her obliviousness fills the whole swath from grassy edge to grassy edge.

Little boy under the light pole tall metal light and he in wonder looking up mother down the sidewalk a ways in wait pulling elsewhere looking back at him her energy already halfway down the block to retrieve something else from somewhere she thinks she’s supposed to be.

10.08

Writing rends me from my kin
Crazy bitch she reels me in
Sure I say closer still
Really though I’m sharp
And kill

The very spark that seeks to please
I bring it to its bloody knees
Pay, I say, and pay again
I see you like me all you men

But this bitch; she makes me work
She never lets me stop; I shirk
But she’s rough and sharp and ready, see
She grabs me by my collar, Me

Now, I’m up against the wall
Do it
Make it
Get it out
Speak!
For
fuck’s sake
birth it

OUT.

10.08

I would have ten husbands
One and every each in honor of the other.
Fine men you love women
And so we seeing, healing,
Honor you.

You men of loving, men of teaching
Men of guidance, men of foolery and jesting
You beautiful ones of body
Imagination and Protection.

You bringers and comers
You who return to us ready
You weeping men and those sans weeping, with fury
And cries for yielding healing.

Shouts be to you and wailing.
Moaning be for you and dancing.

Cradling you, we wrap
Weep
And seeing you we smile
Rest we do and
Quicken our step, strengthen our hold
Focus our aim.

Deep voiced you love us
You guide and praise us

We feminine and tender strong.

6.05

I

Done, year ago now
But
Nonetheless, tender
Maybe just tired from
All that pushing bearing down
Two huge healthy babies
10.5, 10.7
Sounds like climbing talk
Shit-talk, bragging rights.
Thought the second one
Was smaller
Turned out, he was bigger by two ounces.
Done my amazing
Push
That,
These,
alone
Could be enough.


II

My day planner is
A mess of scrawl
Events, notes to self, cancellations
Possibilities
It betrays me;
The collection of scrawl
Not like my neat and aligned harmony of space
And form
Much like the gathering of
Skin and scar on my lower belly
With memory of first girl child
Reveals the harvest humble part of me
That is together with
This striding woman, this
Steel and stride
This cut and clear
Of me.


III

Vein on my leg
It weren’t there before
The sheer weight of them
Of the blood the pressure made it there
Now like those women I never so thought I’d be
Like those veined those varicose those mama women
Have this map on my legs of
Memory, of time that I had them cradled
In hips and was growing them
Strong and sure.
Their reaching flailing arms that now
Strike or hold
They were buds,
They were not
Even there,
Once.
Like a tree or a mushroom or corn stalk
Or cat
Just like those
They grew from tiny
The nothing to something
Like that
Just like that.


12.08

The day they got away from him
Meant everything
About how it had been.
The day the heaving terrible mass of their collective fear and
Power tangled headlong and harness straps into the boulders.
The pile of potential horror
Of broken legs or necks.
The calamity of loss
Of control
And the danger, terrible to approach,
of untangling them, of righting them.
Of saving face and finding composure or relief
in the eyes of us.
It was terrible, too much.
A total and utter chaos of too heavy too much too fast
and took everything away
from us,
There, standing as audience
reluctant
but unwilling
maybe unable then, to
Stop the headlong
Panic into Fury.

11.08

She’s a glass-eyed Dun
Pretty color
but a crooked back
Stripe does nothing to
Disguise it
Just a little bent
Weak
And sneaky
So many reasons
But it just doesn’t matter
When all she does now is
Hobble




12.08

this time

why in the hell does it
have to take
so long?

i could just write it
today!

the concept of how
it can happen is
now
more than ever

.one could say that about anything at any time.

free, open to interpretation

if i just made it, it would be done

i could call it

the memoir that never was.

blue
blue for you
yet once we danced and
then yet not made

some covenant for some thing
as yet unsung
but yes to come

a kiss
so lonng so long ago
but

hmmm
frenchman, he came and stole my line
red coat you accent this day

in memory i will sing you
mad frenchman with the

singing muse

just wait, just wait and see
you'll see my love

aplogeee

thank you so
for this slicce
this real and uapologetic
LIFE



la la. 10.25.2008
montana festival of the book
on site publishing of slumgulion, special edition
typed on typewriter
all typo's intentional

what if all the
flowering
someday
were secrets that we planted
and what if
you thought
they were
beautiful?

buying pretty instruments
to have
to have
but, do you know how to play
that?
fine instrument

our son plays it, hoo hoo hoo
then tosses it
tumbling under the couch

then our daughter blows hard a
loud note in her brother's face
no less
then tosses it
clattering
toward the kitchen

you bought it
like you knew how
then left it

i brought it down
and gave it
to the children

multitudes
tangibilities
space between needs boxing
gloves
then maybe it
could just grow wide and
we could plant flowers there
that could have more
room
to reach the sun and how
about let's
just not disturb
that ground