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Tag: closure
Monkey Bars & Golden Spokes
Let’s go back
to when you hung
on my words like monkey bars
when you sighed the first time
you ever kissed me,
gave me lottery winning eyes
when you kissed me again
Go back before
my words hung
like bars around your cell
before you clenched
your teeth
at the sound
of my need
Go back when
you studied the curves
of my mouth
sent me to work
each morning
with a tongue
full of blessing
Go back before
every word
had to be measured
and weighed
before an honest response
could mean
I may never again see
the golden spokes
of your irises
Back to when
we were both
eager passengers
Back before
our feet were heavy
with hesitation
Back when
we knew nothing
Back before
we could not forget
First Published in Drunk Monkeys.
Love Letter No. 3: To My Mending Self
You may begin to miss the grieving
the adrenaline heart thrashing in your ribcage
the coughing lungs asking permission to breathe
You may begin to hear all the quiets
humid silence scratching
each day confirming
this is it
this is all it will ever be
You may begin to miss the panic of hope
tangled in his kite strings
miss the fight, the battle, the bruise
miss kissing blood from rope-burned hands
You may begin to sleep through the night
to lack rebuttal
to forget to answer back
You may begin notice
the crevices in your wrists
the uneven scurry
of a black beetle across concrete
notice the sound of lead scraping paper
how it curls to the rub of an eraser
disappears like it was never there
to begin with
First Published in Indiana Voice Journal.
Oceans Once Receded
I was a desert woman
who learned to live on cactus boys
learned to run at night and sleep all day
knowing the burn of sky and sand
Then you came with your oceans
rivers, lakes, and waterfalls
I dove in, eyes closed
hoping you’d teach me to swim
hoping to learn your whale songs
I threw away my land shoes
swam under the stars
let my skin pucker in your waves
my desert plants were drowning
I let them bloat and drift away
Then your tsunami receded
first sudden, then steady and slow
I stood naked in your mud bed
for weeks with dripping hair,
dripping hands refused to dry
I learned to pray to wet earth
give thanks for saltwater baths
learned to hear your voice
in the night bird songs
Until even the mud left
took its soft clay from between my toes
the caked earth in my hair
began to dry and crumble
desert wind wiped all traces
of salt from my cheeks
I push myself back into desert shade
live in the evening light
I can never return to cactus fruit
when I’ve fed on fields of phytoplankton
I’ve lost the taste for prickly boys
so I may wither for a while
Until at the edge of some moment
in the pale space between sun and moon
I might hear the sound
of water rushing
First Published in Element(ary) My Dears.
What I Mean When I Say Run
Get out, get out
and into the world
a woman like me
would tie your hands with ropes
and hang them from her hips
Get out while you can
and let the wind carry you
a woman like me
would climb from under your boots
and into your pockets
lay you down heavy on her bed
just to rise above you
Get out and wander
be a wild bird
a woman like me
would clip your song feathers
and stuff them in her mouth
just to have your voice
seeping from her ears
Get out and make no promises
don’t even say you won’t
a woman like me
hangs on open window sills
burns her eyes on the driveway’s end
holds all your words
like collected seashells
in her cupped hands
Get out and go far
take no existing path
a woman like me
would strip you naked
press you inside of her
memorize the turn in your face
in the dim light
she’d reach in and pull
all the strength you have left
Get out
She’ll want to cut rings
from the center of your eyes
and string them like beads
around her neck
Get out
She’ll envy the breath in your lungs
Get out
She’ll put a straw to your mouth
Get out
She’ll want you empty
Get out
She’ll drain you cold as death
just so she can pour her blood
into your veins
First published in Indiana Voice Journal.
Fruit of Your Offspring
You were so damn handsome
in nineteen forty-two.
Dark hair and brown eyes
and that long Swedish nose.
You always stood upright,
taller than your own frame,
Navy man in an impeccable uniform.
Your native tongue was Testament
both the Old and the New,
always dressed in humble blue jeans
and that humble plaid shirt.
I was enamored with you—
we all were, the fruit of your offspring.
I laid at your feet and
pulled on your long eyelids.
The silver-gray brows hung like
eaves from your Swedish forehead.
You taught me calculator tricks,
I thought you brilliant and soft-spoken.
I loved the way your words trickled
out like a creaky faucet,
vowels lingering around the spigot.
I never believed in Santa Claus
so I believed in you,
in a man of few words
except what Jesus spoke.
When I remembered you,
you lived in a trailer-shack
on an orphanage in Mexico.
We would drive four hours
to see your leathered hands
and oil stained fingernails.
Then I grew up, just like three
of your five daughters.
I became a boy-kissing girl
with breasts and summer legs.
(Did they all disappoint you like this?)
The man who married your middle
child gave me his green eyes and more
than half of my bad memories.
So I looked to you to show me
your God’s unconditional love,
but you had no words—
I could not make you creak.
Instead you typed letters
on a silver-gray typewriter,
single and mechanically spaced.
There is no treasure here on Earth
but store all your treasure in Heaven.
Love not this world or anything in it.
Love not the woman who wants to be held.
Love not the girl who wants to wear lipstick.
Love not those who want to love this life,
who love their physical bodies,
and the pleasures of this Earth.
Ten typed pages sent as a reply—
verse by verse you sentenced me
to my worldly life, an unchosen child.
Love me not, my holy grandfather
for I was born the child of your daughter
who also once believed in you.
So, I turned your faucet off tight—
we all did. Your spigot left dark and dry.
Previously Published in Elsewhere Lit.
Yellow
I am seven
yellow-blonde girl
with missing teeth
wearing someone else’s clothes
I smile for the camera
I don’t remember
where I am
there are so many rooms
so many stops
I am never there long enough
to know if I will miss it
I keep following my mother
my brother, too, in the car
we drive for days and months
I forget the names
of all my teachers
just shadows of school yards
they say I need glasses
I have too many absences
I think this is normal
don’t all children hold secrets
like packs of gum
at the bottom of their pockets
I love my mother
I believe her implicitly
I walk in my sleep
in every different house
to find her
I am empty without her
so we keep our clothes in bags
and in the car
they are my sister’s clothes
or someone else who outgrew them
she cuts my hair short
to get rid of the lice
it’s up past my ears
I cry like a widow
yellow-blonde hair
corpses lying under my chair
I can go back to school now
the fourth one this year
twenty years later
I will return here
it will be so much smaller
the rooms will have moved
and ghosts of yellow-blonde hair
will wander in the shadows
of school yards
First Published in Elsewhere Lit.
Last Thread
It’s the last thread
that’s so hard to cut
The chain’s long broken
the rope’s been unraveled
I’ve swum against the currents
I’ve surfaced near the shore
The thin line’s still tangled
through ocean tide hair
It pulls out slow and shining
like a timeline of a story
so I tie it in a bow
around my finger tight
to remember
where I’ve been
Gummo (From a Dream)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uZgJapYmEI
I saw you on TV lastnight
tall and skinnyextra nervous
your off-set fashion
twelveyearoldface
you were talking with David Letterman
(who wouldn’t listen)
you kept looking away grimacing
you mention Ulysses and Snoop Dogg
I felt like calling or driving
to your apartment and no-talking
I just wanted you to know
he was trying to be nice
maybe you knew
he didn’t get you
but the likeness wasn’t perfect
maybe it wasn’t you
he displayed his hair and his face
you are much more socially adept
still there you were
sitting in your brownpantsuit
and redsweatervest
talking about taped bacon
I just thought you’d want to know
sometimes I see your handwriting in my stereo cabinet
sometimes I hear you standing with hands on your hips
sometimes I forget I can’t drink Kool-Aid anymore
10-18-97
The First Him
It’s home movies on a reel-to-reel.
Light is always dim, pouring in
from thin covered windows.
He is carpenter, framing houses.
Long days in the sun tan his skin,
make him sleep late on weekends.
We play Ambulance anytime I bump my head,
scrape my shin. He lifts me over his shoulders
and mocks sirens rushing hurried to hospitals.
He lays me down like a patient and makes me giggle,
fingertips under the arms, across the belly.
For seconds, I forget.
I am a laughing four-year-old unafraid.
Until I am not. Until the looming frame of him
scrapes ceilings, pulls in the weight of rooftops
down into the darkest room, windows covered thick.
He does not lock his door. I play the secret game
of Find the place he is not. Stay quiet enough
and he won’t see you close the door.
He will not call after you.
Scratches flicker across film spliced memories
as the reel hums, tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
First appeared in East Jasmine Review.
Sarah Thursday 