Poem with a strawberry in it (mine).

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Poem

A child was made to stand alone

on the outskirts of the market

stall, his father scolding  him

into stillness. I asked him

if he’d like a strawberry;

I brought him the biggest one

I could find. “Oh thank you,”

he said. “Strawberries are my

favorite food.” “What other foods

are your favorites?” I asked

jauntily; I love to talk favorites

with children. He shook his head.

“No other foods, “ he said.

“Strawberries are my only

favorite.” I nodded. He stood

reddening his face with strawberry

with me crouched to his level.

Soon his mother took his hand

to exit. “Thank you so much

for the strawberry,” he said.

I too have only one favorite.

(illustration via “color my life with the chaos of trouble“)

Goodbye Green Piece, the car that brought us across America.

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The car is totaled. All bodies are okay (or almost—Ellie has a sprained ankle) but minds less so. We need a new car fast, a truck in fact. When I’m in our house I feel normal, but otherwise, not so much. I feel new again to San Diego; there’s so much hideous paperwork to deal with, so much money. I haven’t left Misha’s side since the accident. We’re in hibernation mode. We’re waiting out the days.

 

 

“Summer Interior” by Edward Hopper

 

List poem (mine).

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Things I didn’t know I needed

 

Altars, clean hair, a working watch, stones in my pocket. Flowers, sage, mailed correspondence, shock factor, long hair, heavy blankets, salt. Women, women, ten hours, red towers of time, the dream of a yellow house, strong locks, plain toast, less glances, my liver. The desert, Greek gods, Shabbat, more bracelets, illustrations, the diminishment of lists.  To file away under the heater, to delete, to wallow, to MC, to stay home all day in a chair. Stamp pads and stamps, embroidery, valerian. A beer, to edit, a plan, a mentor. A full inhale. Bare walls. Fresh garlic, long rains, sleet, ice-stuck doors, sweet chai, a mezuzah, marrow, to kill a bird with a blade. Night quiet, new pants, traditions, to stretch, more hats, to birth, two floors, a goat, a mint, sweetgrass. And scotch.

 

Elegy for Connor (poem) (mine).

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Two Years Later

 

I told a story about you the other day. It was more beautiful

not to say you were dead. I spoke your name as if new tales

of you were still developing, as if you’d undergone more

haircuts, more nights, more cups of coffee. You don’t speak

to any of us anymore; you’ve turned boys I knew into men

with your photograph on the wall. Two years later, you’re still

the best-looking person in the room full of faces I’ll never see

again, though the image of your arm slung around  the neck

of a friend, the other hand  holding a drink or drumming on

the nearest table, is as near as breath to the body, even nearer.

 

 

“Cutting Bread” (poem by a woman I just wrote fan mail to).

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The poet’s name is Shannon Burns. I searched all over the internet for her and finally found her on goodreads of all places. I wrote her a message because I bought her little book in Chicago and I love it. The look of it, the size, the poems. But whoever checks their goodreads messages? I didn’t even know there was such a thing until this week. But I hope she reads it and thinks I’m crazy-in-a-good-way. I like her poems. Here’s one:

 

Cutting Bread

 

I could be cutting bread. All the sharp knives

are dirty, ragged edges, sesame seeds on my hands,

on the sticky counter, on the cool floor. They could bloom.

But I am swinging, feeling the slight curve of my back

 

against the wood, feeling my face flush and numb,

watching movement in windows. People are cutting bread.

Their sticky hands live in cabinets. Mine are hot and full

of blood, melting watermelon candy in my pockets.

 

I am making noise. People cut bread to the rhythm

of my creak and whine. Weeks ago the wind blew

a child’s pool in the shape of an elephant over the wood

fence. You can see it from the road. Some day

 

it will be warm again, I think.  I think: joints, gums, children,

knowing where to go. I remember this swing overturned

in the yard, my father painting it green. I remember standing

at the kitchen counter with my mother, cutting bread.

 

***

 

click to hear her reading her sweet little poem “What’s the Scoop?” on the jubilat site!

Bird poem by Sean T. Randolph (he’s my friend!).

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Thoughts like ill-fitting socks

 

Many people write about birds

but not about birds’ thoughts.

I guess it doesn’t interest people

 

that all pigeons dream of living

in Paris, Texas and most penguins

prefer the look of mourning-men

 

to mailmen when given the choice.

When people write about birds

they often think only of themselves

wishing they could be birds.

 

 

(That’s Sean T. Randolph with his eyes all squinty from laughter, and that’s his girlfriend Hellen who is hilarious on Twitter. I took this photo in my kitchen over a year ago and both of them will say “shucks i look terrible!” when they see this, but GUYS, YOU LOOK GREAT. You look like life is funny. Which it is.)

 

 

I dreamt of Chicago (recap) (mine).

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I went to Chicago last weekend, or at least I think I did. I got a cold pretty soon after arriving and as the days went on I got foggier and foggier. It felt like I was peering out of two small telescopes from inside my body. And now that I’m back in San Diego, where it’s 75 degrees…the whole thing feels even more like a dream. A dream where

 

I flew on an airplane with writers from San Diego and drank bloody Marys

then ate a pizza so thick it reminded me why they’re called pizza pies

then got picked up outside the pizza restaurant by Eric Suffoletto in a blue Lexus

and we drove to a bar with thick curtains attached to the ten-foot ceilings and drank cocktails fit for a princess at a picnic

and afterwards we drove through a scene from “The Dark Night”

then Katie Conway arrived and we ate green curry with scallops and bought tights and tissues at CVS

and I heard Nikki Giovanni talk in a big room with chandeliers and she reminded me about surrounding myself only with people who love me

and there were a lot of hip people selling books with confusing poems inside

and I ate French fries with brie and mushrooms on top

and it was my birthday

and everyone was calling me but I couldn’t talk

and Ilya Kaminsky sang happy birthday to me and it was a hilarious treasure

and I rode the el and took a taxi cab and wore a turtleneck and various hats

and named Katie’s boyfriend “the maestro of love” and drank wine in the hotel room

and it was flurrying and freezing and the wind was coming from every direction

and I met the woman who wrote the poem about herpes in the Beloit Poetry Journal and I told her she was doing an important thing for the world

and I bought books and journals or took them off tables

and Kate Gale was there and we sat in taupe armchairs and talked and she said hello to a dozen famous people whose names I knew but not the faces

and there was a secret present from Misha snuck into my bag

and on the train it was snowing and Dean was hungover and Jen had so many bags she looked like a vagabond Amazon with fancy belts

and the guy at security took my lotion away

and outside the airport San Diego was hot and over-bright as if lit by bulbs stolen from the rest of the country and there’s Misha in our car waving like he does with one hand raised up, not moving, just raised in hello

 

***