A lack of clarity

1994

Erica calls me a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  We talk for a while about work and debts and boyfriends.  I thought I knew everything but now I realize I know almost as close to nothing as you can get without having fallen here on accident from another planet.

Addiction

I left you                                                                    

                        I did

that was me who limped behind

who whimpered and begged as

fear threatened me blind

            but I left you

                        yes, I did

Your voice now I must ignore

oh, and it sears and it soars, and it

roars with the ferocity of a

jungle cat

            because I left you back there

            with the imploring stare

            on your face

                        yes, I did

Old truths fill the

black hole where

I buried the leaking need

for you

I know all about incurable wounds

            So much and for so many weepy and

            lonely afternoons

            I meant to leave you

            for so much, my friend

                        and I did

It cost me the ravage of an atomic rage

poisoned the air with its smoke-orange memories

maybe it will melt my blistering heart

maybe it will leave me to freeze in the

drift of its nuclear winter

when the death that crouches in wait for me

crouches close for you, too

            forgive me for pulling this scratchy scarf

            over my eyes  

            forgive me, love, because I was made to leave you

                        and I did

Once upon a time

I buried the doll behind a tree.  Just as I was arranging some sticks and dead branches to camouflage the grave, a small, fluffy champagne-colored thing appeared from behind a bush.  It had large, dark eyes, and a face so flat it almost curved inward.  Barely clearing the ground, the moving fluffball either had no legs, or legs camouflaged by mass amounts of fluff.  Its head seemed too large for its body and in general the creature was so odd that for a moment I thought it must be some kind of alien from outer space.  Only once it barked in a friendly sort of way did I realize it was a dog.  “Hello,” I said, a bit uncertainly. 

The dog bared crooked teeth at me in a comical attempt at a smile.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The dog just snuffled.

When I then sniffled, drying the last of my tears with my sweater sleeve, the dog shuffled over and gently head-butted my ankle.  I leaned over to pet it, which the dog seemed to like very much.  Suddenly grateful, I kissed its head.  It smelled like vanilla cake.

just wait

just wait

it forms

it shapes

what I cannot 

change

it shrieks its

own language

it howls

it blows

oh but I know

I know how not

to listen

The open door

By myself in the tiny guest room, I felt transported in time.  There I stood in the hallway, a little girl again, peeking through the open door as my mother sat on the edge of her bed, the shades pulled down and her body hunched over, crying for the drunken husband who had hit her once again.  Watching this scene time and again had taught me one thing: make sure to close the door all of the way.  Only then did I sit on the edge of the bed, and cry for the husband who had forced me to leave him.

we have survived the most

fantastic of things

only to renounce our immortality

I can still hear you whispering

please wait for me

Surrender

Yes, the water is cold

January sea freeze makes even the sand shudder

no warm-weather month in sight

                my molecules for so long racing

                colliding

                begging

                for the slowing

the midnight water is cold for me

this is the time

                In the summer as the ice cream bell was

                                ringing

                watched them running

                knew they would be

    all right

Some fisherman embracing this

icy body

he will find me

by my blue silence he will know

                lost interest in breathing

                this air so full of riddles and

    rhymes

When fear of damnation gave way to fear of life

                always the smoke from my fingertips

                as the flames gutted me inside

cleansed my faith in waiting

hope extinguished with

the coming tide

Because the water is cold here

and hesitation’s wounds were bone dry

                turn my head to the black sky fading

                to the moon deserting what must die

even God in his kingdom

must forgive those who

gasp for breath as

they cry

because the water is cold enough

this once

and I must

                swallow it

                swallow it

fill the thirsting void

tonight

No more debating

when there is nothing for saying

                                I will be all right

Lost

Kitty resumed creeping along behind the young man, yearning for the desert heat she’d been cursing that very morning—a lifetime ago, it seemed.  A jagged rock cut into her palm, causing her to wince. “For a king you have pretty crap guards,” Kitty muttered to herself, but he obviously heard because he retorted, “They are excellent guards. This is simply an extraordinary situation we were not prepared for.  I should have listened to their advice and remain in the castle.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because the matter was of such critical importance I felt a need to be involved.”

Kitty mulled over several unkind responses to this but kept them to herself.  They just continued to crawl along in silence, until a thin branch whacked her in the face.  She swore softly to herself.  If only she could use her flashlight!  “Do you even know where we are?” she asked, after the King hesitated next to a narrow stream.

“I have an idea.  Shhh!” he suddenly hissed, and Kitty froze in place. Her breathing sounded thunderous in her ears, as she became suddenly aware of all the tiny noises around them.  Most seemed like the type one would expect to hear in a forest at night—even in a forest from another world—until she thought she heard the snapping of a twig nearby.  

The King had heard it, too, because he laid a light hand on her arm.  Without his saying so, Kitty knew he was telling her to run should they be ambushed.  But annoying or not, he was her guide. She had no intentions of leaving him here to duke it out alone, so that she could just get lost in this bitter cold forest full of prickly bushes and sharp rocks by herself.  Besides, Kitty refused to abandon him to his fate.  Whether he were a king or a university student, he deserved better than that.  Where he went, she would follow, no matter how annoying she found the whole situation.

Scorched earth

you want to cry

but you have been dry for 

so long 

that despair has cut a 

dirt rock river

through the canyons of 

your lungs