Normalcy

It was cold even though the rain had ended and the sun now peeked out from behind the clouds.  In Wisconsin the coldest days were always the sunniest.

 His father came up from behind him.  “Farmer’s Almanac says it’s going to be a wet winter.”

Jonah nodded, lost in an abstraction.  

“Have something to tell you," Dale said.

Jonah looked over at his father.

“I’m moving to Florida.”                   

“You are?" Jonah exclaimed.  "When?”

“Tomorrow.  No point in staying here.  The realtor says I’ll make a mint on the house, and I have a condo down there.  Bought it with your mother right before she got sick.”  Dale cleared his throat.  “Be nice if you could visit.  The condo has a guestroom.  You’re welcome to use it." 

“Right," Jonah said slowly.  "Thanks."

His father nodded.  “Okay, then.  Tell Jackie I said goodbye.”

“You’re not going to tell him yourself?”

“He’s busy tonight.  Something about a poker game, and I didn’t get a chance to tell him before that.  The movers are coming Saturday.  You mind checking in, to make sure they’re doing things right?”

“…Okay."

“Maybe you can come in April.  April’s real nice there—not too humid.  We could go to Disneyworld, or Universal Studios.  Always wanted to take you boys there when you were young, but...”  Dale cleared his throat again.  “Okay, then.  Be good.”

Memory's drawing

December 19, 2008

There is a dragon in the elevator

He will not tell me his name but

I know it

I’ve heard it in my sleep

He says, stay asleep, little girl

I will not harm you

but I only pretend

I am here and I am alive

If a dog howls, is it sad?

or is it just talking

saying how it feels?

I dare not howl I am not that brave

I am tiny a little speck

January's Relapse

Most remained here with me

I gave some to the wind                       the wind that separated my toes

but something stayed crept poked inside

mocking me with icicle whispers to

never mind the frost outside

inside is just as cold

whatever stole into my pillowcase

left me silenced

crystallized the dripping ceiling

buckled the paneled walls

I could never begin to wonder how

it came to happen

how I whimpered for it to go away     

yet still forgetting to scrape off the scent

that yesterday is a dangerous thing

this something has left my cheekbones bruised

this something has cut into my knuckles

why God has given me these fingernails                      I do not know

but maybe forgiveness hides in the mattress

maybe in the frozen droplets trapped

on the branch’s edge...

Most remains here with me

The Illusion of Safety

    

            “How charming,” Alturis said, laughing.  “But now you must come out from under there.”

            Peering up at him, Megan returned, “Why should I?”

            “For a lot of reasons, most of them mine.  And for some of your own as well.  Aren’t you a little bit like a fish in a barrel right now?”

            “You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

            “But you won’t have a chance to escape unless you come out.”

            Megan frowned.  That was a good point.

            “Besides,” Alturis added, “you are much too old to be hiding underneath the bed.”

I want to learn to cry once

more

I wonder if I even could before

I reach for your sky...

The Ballad of Love & Death

Let me tell you what I know about

my broken heart

this is the rhythm of it falling apart

toss the stones in the river because

we are

we are coming up for air again

What did I even know about

guilt and sin

all of the dreams that

I was dying in

it was a curse it was a blessing it

was utter nothingness

until it skidded and came crashing

home

No telling how the earth will

record this disaster

whistling dixie in the wind

as if I had the answer

            ballet with fractured form

tripped up by vengeful rapture

the hammer flung against

the wall

Dismantled piece by piece into

a million parts

buried back with Santa at

the Christmas tree farm

what is dead is what is real to

the falling apart

we heard the siren but not the

alarm

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

Now I whisper to the wind about

my broken heart

falling in slow motion

not a subtle art

toss the stones in the river because

I am

I am here alone at the end

Lost

April 15, 2014

I wanted to write the saddest poem in the world.  But most of them just sound desperate.

I want someone to trust.  There was a girl who kept trying.  But then she got tired and stopped.  She was the girl who wanted to feel smart and special, except that got tiring, too.  It was just so much work.  Now she isn’t a girl anymore.  She is just another person full of panic and desperation.

There once was a girl.  The saddest girl in the world, because she kept believing.  She thought she was so clever and strong.  She thought she was different.  She thought all of the red lines would lead to one circle that would form a barrier around her forever.  But the red lines didn’t.  They just lead to more red lines.  She can no longer remember the red line she started from.  When she tries to walk backwards nothing looks familiar—all she can see is what is in front of her.  The boy laying down the red straws does not help her.  He pays no attention to anything other than the red straws, and to placing them on the large, white sheet spread across the middle of the open market.  No one cares about him being there and he doesn’t care about them.  He does not see the girl standing in the middle of all of the red straws, trying to remember where she came from.  

Soon there are so many straws leading in so many different directions that she loses hope.  She does not understand the pattern.  Only the boy does.  But to him it is a math puzzle and you either understand it or you don’t.  He is a sort of genius.  He is the one who keeps us all wandering down different lines, so that we never meet.  We must never meet.  We must never speak to each other.  The boy’s job is to keep us all walking on the same sheet, but never at the same place together.   We must always remain lost and alone.  It is a math puzzle.  There is a solution but the boy genius will never open his mouth.  He talks with the red straws.  They tell his story for him.  And it is a beautiful story, in its own way.  A beautiful story of loneliness and loss and of being lost until all wandering ends.

your promise on the edge of my fingertips

and it falls

and it falls...

Icarus

1988

If I raise my arms

and try to fly

only the sun will be

out of my reach
when the sun is

all I desire.

For a century, at least,

I have stood here with

my arms clasped

to my side

waiting for the dew to share

its secrets with me.

For a century, at least,

I have stood here

and waited
with my palms facing
the sky

my eyes turned toward

the sun.