In a lonely place

help me to turn my back on the open sky

help me to know

lovelorn and shorn of protection

what it takes to make you kind

Too soon

January 7, 1983

Dear Diary,

Today I got out of school at 10:30 am.  We were going to have a family conference with my mom’s doctor.  He talked soft, and I couldn’t hear him when he asked a question.  Finally Mom told him I have a slight hearing problem.  He talked louder to me after that.  I don’t know why they talked so quiet, though.  I guess I never will. That’s life!

P.S.  Mom is doing good.

No backward glances allowed.

You'll miss the stones, 

stumble,

fall face first onto the

ground.

The day after

The pathway home, it splinters into warnings:

not yet.  Not yet.

So sorry to hear you cry,

so sorry for the piercing pain between your eyes,

but now you know,

now you will respect their hiding.

Kiss them all for me, lovely.

I am longing,

I am so afraid.

The fat shark

January 21, 1990, Letter

Hi, Sweetie!

When this letter reaches you, you will against be settled into your study routine.  I hope the second semester will be as successful as your first.

We thoroughly enjoyed your visit.  Grandma enjoyed it and I was delighted to spend some time with you and get reacquainted with my favourite 19 year old (ha, ha).

Tell the riverbed that I will sleep again,

tell the beaten weatherboards protecting the house,

tell them all,

I am as full as the earth,

as empty as the sun.

Riddles

I wonder how I will know when

the sky becomes my master

when dreams of yesterday stop

mocking me with laughter

tomorrow is today tornadoes

circling my trailer

I was wrong over

and over again

The dragon is in the fireplace

I see his glowing eyes

this time I cannot be afraid

he hears the dog howl too

if only I could howl along

there are no clues only riddles

they whisper riddles to me

to be kooky is not to be crazy

the dog only wants to be home

The dragon smoulders for me

so near the butterflies

but they do not mind

Goodbye to All This

And when I choose to come here again                                                                     

will it snow how it did in my dreams

                        will I be

a story worth telling

                                    because the sadness—

it crackles in the night

           

for you           

the mistake worth regretting

                                                the faraway voice        filled with belonging

do you see where eternity ends

did you know that you were my friend

this planet a box that holds me

when she could not worship the sun               for so long she yearned to sleep         

but the storm came rolling in

                        the storm came rolling in

a million miles of prairie grass

and your golden-haired girl                            exposed once again

unsure how the course of right became the final turn wrong

how her rabbit-hole time for falling   

                                    just      gone

gone

gone

a triumph but for you 

my one truth worth deceiving

a child’s dream for tomorrow so good           it deserved to be buried

behind the wall a red she had never seen                  

           

if I had                        discovered

yet not been found

would your golden-haired girl           

be six feet underground

I guess this was why you had to go

maybe I should have known

but the sadness—

no one told me it would come with the leaving

especially not you

                                                my last hope worth believing

Survival skills

I woke up as a fairy in the empty restaurant next to the woods.  I suppose I always knew when I wanted to live in the dollhouse in the attic that my hopes and dreams beat inside of a tiny heart.  But not until I opened my eyes and found myself crouching in the furthest corner of the kitchen pantry did I know for certain.

            I had been gone for a year—where, I couldn’t say.  But I did know I’d been very ill, and that during this illness some industrious housekeeper within had thrown huge dust covers over much of my memory.  I wasn’t sure I minded.  Something about the twilight endlessly falling over the woods told me that the last good day had been long ago.

            The restaurant, however, I remembered.  Quietly elegant, its white tablecloths, spotless place settings, and crystal water glasses spoke of another time.  Windows ran the length of the entire outside wall:  restless trees and half-lit sky filled the view as far as the eye could see.  In the cramped kitchen, steel gray units and panelled cabinets housed the pots, pans, and other cooking items.  And then there was the pantry, nearly empty, where I now found myself.  I had never seen anyone cooking in that kitchen.  Save one, I had never seen another soul in the restaurant at all.

            In this endless sunset that enveloped the restaurant, no customers ever came.  Instead, my friend Marietta, the hostess, usually sat at one of the perfectly made tables by herself, doing paperwork of a kind we never discussed.  Only the fading light that rippled through those whispering trees dared enter the large T-shaped room.  Why were there no customers?  On my previous visits I’d only seen Marietta in that hushed hour of solitude.  Like so many other questions I must have forgotten to ask her this one, too.