Eight

 "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

I can't focus;
the list is too long.
you start crossing out names of people
you've never even known.
I'm protestin'
I ruined lives, you hear me?
that doesn't go away with
your pen, marking out whole years
of sorrow and bile
Then-
You crossed out her name
I say,
that's ok, that one name,
she's dead, I cant fix that.
and you said
that's ok dear
this is the first-time
ever
in this life
you don't have to fix anyone
or anything
only be willing.

Husband

He sleeps, snores reverberates in and out,
in thank, out you, in thank, out you.
Crochet hook fingers loop tightly.
I feel it through and through,
I love you, so I tip-toe and I pitter-pat
to the kitchen so you don't wake.

The Malingerer

Thanksgiving eve and you were in my dreams

you sprawled in a bed, arms angular and bent back

stretched out, whipping tentacles from a beetle thorax chest

I take the awkward embrace, as I took you,

like I took so much else, I take it into me.

It is how I was trained to be.

I woke up, drowning in cold sweat and guilt,

and stuffed the emotions down, with turkey,

with fear, with the shame of my own breath, 

the vapor tendrils which flow from mouth. 

As I had diligently learned, studied,

That night, my dreams were of birthing babies,

but I woke up in relief, to know

that I was never taught how.

nearly an aerie

I was weak as all get out, not beat down by life
but ripe and palatable
like a peach
perfect to pick.

I say he swooped in, he says I plucked him up
clutched him hard
hot in my talons
and held on.

We shrug-What's the worth in being right,
when we still
grasping and clinging
oh so tight?

when I thought I lost my soul, but geography brought home

The cold, mid-April snow winds sounded a deafening death knell,
as my Hoosier love screeched and hissed, deflating basketball
and corroded and molded, as untended cornfields like to do
but I parry the assault with ardor for the sun at high decibel.
Florida, stay true, for I am coming for you!

Buried in Boonville

From the distance I hear,
"She was her only daughter."
it's my husband, but the words hang
humid in cemetery air
I respond, speaking in tongues,
primal snake screams
tangled, incoherent, alone-
the only child, daughter,
of a single mother, I cannot explain.

I am a sticky, extension of my mother,
a growing appendage,
whipping independence-naïve ignorance
my base attached firmly by nerves,
soaked in her sweat,
reeking of her fears,
tasting her thoughts,
pumping her blood
I'm the tremoring tail severed,
flopping illusion of life,
from a lizard long gone-
A cubic hole, my mother fits in ground.

Not an orphan, not a child,
it's not that my mother died,
beyond grief, I am not whole.
Returning  home, I want to call her
only to think of the time difference before
that looming truth, she's dead.
It snows the next week,
I worry she is cold and alone too,
but know that my voice is still with her
under the white blanket,
slinking in the dirt with the worms.

today I thought

today I thought of you because today
on the radio, the garbled chatter noise, news
reported a man climbed the highest peak in Wales
wearing just his superman underwear.
his hubris, like yours, climaxed to hyperthermia
and it will remain frozen in mastodon time.

today I thought of you so I wrapped up tighter
in my denial blanket: new job, new car, new house,
new cat, new husband, new life, new day
only thing not new is that quilt I stole from your parents
and I thought of what you thought, but realized
nothing's changed: you're probably just thinking of you.