Waiting

             “I get jealous just thinking of all the fun you’ll have while I’m stuck in this dreary old house.”   His mother bit the top of the pen and squinted at Camp Geronimo’s paperwork.  “Oh, to be 11 years old again!"

            Jonah’s fingers curled around the seat cushion.  Already he could feel that funny tight feeling in his chest, and it was only March.  “I don’t want to go," he told her.

            “Of course you do.  Do you want me to sign you up for woodworking again, dear?  That bowl you made last year was wonderful.  I get compliments on it every time I bring it to one of my bridge meetings”

            “I didn’t make it.  Jack made it for shop class.”

            “It works so well for salads,” she answered, and checked the box next to crafts.

If you could grieve

if you could let the 

trickle turn into

a roar

then could you 

tell me what this 

loss was for

Above the waterline

April 2014

She is obviously crazy.  No proof.  Not even a tiny bit.  Just a fear of dolls and baths that won’t go away.  But that’s probably just part of the crazy.  Lots of people are afraid of clowns.  The dead panic inside is probably a recognition that here sits the laziest person in the universe.  Lazy lazy lazy.  Crazy crazy crazy   They rhyme!  What fun.

There is nothing.  Just endless football stats and baseball schedules.  Nothing to go by in any of the endlessly dull letters that could induce a coma.  The girl must not have liked him much.  She always left the baseball schedules and football articles inside of the letters.  I wonder why.  I guess she didn’t care who the Twins played.  I feel bored just thinking about it.

She is screaming to be heard.  She is screaming...what?  That no one cares about the Twins.  All of those letters.  Thousands and thousands of words saying nothing at all.  We know how to do that, too.  All of the millions and millions of words we utter, each one leading into the same gray room, the words all piling up until like a slag heap they kill everyone in a mining disaster. 

It’s a family talent.  The vacuum’s logorrhoea.  Gifted and talented, woo hoo hoo.  No one will ever be as clever as us.

you keep me wandering between 

the promise and

the threat

so I stay where 

I am 

with all of the questions

I never thought

to ask

The hardest word

It means nothing to be sorry,
not when tomorrow will cry for the
yesterdays I betrayed,

Still I try for the
atmosphere breaking
the sun the moon the
wind for this rending I caused.
For what is a little uglier now
a little more fragile
so much more wronged.

Touch me with your forgiveness,
go ahead, shame me some more.
Because never you worry --
disappointment is catching
catching and never letting me go.

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.