Popova stirs the embers

Everything in me is opening and moving, triggered by a visit to the Homer Bookstore just moments ago. They had The Sun and Tricycle magazines, and an amazing selection of fiction, essays, poetry. It stirred me to tears. It’s everything I want in my life, but I’m making beds and sweeping floors and scouring toilets. That’s okay, too, of course; it’s just unbalanced. It’s all practical work and none of the…. what is it? What should it be called? The deeper recesses? The hidden realms? The places I want to live, but I’d have to surface to breathe. No wait….maybe there’s TOO much oxygen in those places where poetry and art and spirit come alive, and I’d need to resurface to prevent oversaturation.

I had a dream once of teaching college English. Teaching poetry, literature. Opening minds. Being to some student what Dr. David Lavery was to me. He introduced me to ideas that lit the fire. The fire is mostly a memory as of late, but Maria Popova stirred the embers. 

 I heard her speak with Alan Lightman at The Porcupine Theater in Homer last week. I saw a flyer for the event at Two Sisters bakery/coffee shop in Homer. Amazing luck. I’ve been reading Popova’s newsletter, The Marginalian, for at least 15 years – back when it was called Brain Pickings. I would love to have spoken with her – mostly because I want to tell her about Katherine Larson’s poem “Love at Thirty-two Degrees,” because it fits so well with the theme of science and poetry. Oh! Maybe I can honor Popova with a blog post. Maybe this will be it. 

In preparation to hear them speak, I listened to numerous podcast interviews and two audiobooks: Lightman’s Einstein’s Dream and Popova’s Figuring. Lightman’s book reminded me of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. I listened to the audio book while deep cleaning at the bed-and-breakfast where I’m working for the summer. I plan to read a physical copy soon, because it was so rich and poetic and deserves a slower read. 

I’m only halfway through Popova’s Figuring, but in an interview with Krista Tippett, Popova said a few things that I want to hold in my awareness: “I think a lot about this relationship between cynicism and hope. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, and hope without critical thinking is naivete, and I try to live in this place between the two and try to build a life there, because finding fault and feeling hopeless about improving your situation produces resignation, of which cynicism is a symptom and against which it is this futile self-protection mechanism, but on the other hand, believing blindly that everything will work out just fine also produces a kind of resignation, because we have no motive to apply ourselves toward making things better, and I think in order to survive both as individuals and as a civilization, but especially in order to thrive, we need to bridge critical thinking with hope.” 

And in an interview on the podcast Where Shall We Meet, she described so beautifully what is true in my experience: “Whatever quickening is in me on any given day that makes it difficult to bear my life, I try to find some consolation, some guidance, some comfort… with writing…..Somewhere along the way I recognized that it is in writing that I best comprehend reality, that I best process my own mind and also what I don’t understand outside of it. Writing is a clarifying force for me.” 

Very grateful for Popova and her work, and since this is still a blog about poetry, I'm pleased I can share one of Popova’s poems: 

“Spell Against Indifference” 

The rain falls and falls 

cool, bottomless, and prehistoric 

falls like night – 

 not an ablution 

not a baptism 

just a small reason 

to remember

all we know of Heaven 

to remember 

we are still here 

with our love songs and our wars, 

our space telescopes and our table 

tennis. 

Here too 

in the wet grass 

half a shell 

of a robin’s egg 

shimmers 

blue as a newborn star 

fragile as a world.

Talking with Trees and "Poem of the One World"

It’s time to talk about the elm tree. I don’t know its age, but it’s huge. I can’t even get my arms halfway around its trunk. Its canopy spans nearly the entire back yard. And it speaks to me. 

It’s time to talk about this because I met a man at an apple orchard in Quebec who also communicates with trees. And plants. And all of nature. And he did not think it crazy that a tree talks to me. This was a relief. Maybe I can bring that relief to you, too, if you’re communicating with trees and questioning your sanity. 

Fortunately the tree does not speak audibly, or I’d have even more to question in the way of sanity, but the messages are clear and distinct. They are also clearly and distinctly NOT in my voice. There are three notable instances: 

One early morning, I was admiring this giant elm from my meditative hot tub position. I often think about selling my house, but I’m worried someone will want to build two houses on my lot and cut down the elm I so dearly love.

“I want to protect you,” I thought. 

 “My purpose is not to exist forever,” it replied. 

Oh! I was so surprised at this immediate and strong thought. “What is your purpose?” I cautiously questioned. No response. I waited, then asked again. After a long pause, it responded: “I exist.” 

Mind blown. The tree stands outside of purpose. “To be” is not just sufficient but total. 

Months later came another instance. I was in my usual anxious frame of mind, trying to decide what in the world I should do with my life. Quit my job? Sell the house? Rent it out? Travel? In desperation, I remembered the wisdom once offered by the elm tree, so I asked it what I should do. It didn't exactly speak in this instance, but it showed me its branches and how they spread and angled off in various directions. It didn’t really matter which path they took, but they all grew toward the light. There was no one “right way.” Any of the myriad choices available were valid - as long as growth was toward the light. 

The third instance is a bit more vulnerable, but I want to share. This past spring the elm’s new leaves were nearly fully flounced. It was vibrant and shifting in the early morning breeze. It was gorgeous, glorious. I told it so. Its immediate response: “I’m a mirror.” 

I was shocked, complete with goosebumps and tears. Like many women in this society, at times I fall to vanity and struggle with how I don't fit any of society’s perceptions of beauty. But in that moment, I saw how connected I was with everything. How we are inseparable from the nature we view as outside ourselves. So of course we reflect each other. And for a moment I was beautiful. 

Oh! And now for a great synchronicity that is happening as this post is written! Because this is still a blog of “other people’s poems,” I just peeked inside a recently purchased book of Mary Oliver’s poetry, A Thousand Mornings, hoping to find something apt. I’m laughing now and somewhat shocked (but also not surprised) to find a poem as outrageously fitting as “Poem of the One World”: 

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this

the one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a little while

quite beautiful myself

Adam names the animals with Nickole Brown and the only thing that remains

I enjoyed proofreading a friend’s manuscript recently. So well written. Full of ancient history, archeology, mythology. What struck me was how very little remains of those ancient civilizations. Shards of pottery, some scrawled markings on stone. With our frail methods of storage (digital and thin slices of tree), I imagine even less will remain of our civilization. And ours is bound to fall, yes? Hasn’t every civilization before ours? So all these words I write – nearly 40 years’ worth of journals and poetry – will vanish. “Can anything we create outlast us?” I wondered. Then, as corny as it sounds, I wondered if what best has the chance of surviving the apocalypse is love. 

If I’d read these words of mine a few years ago, they would have sounded ridiculous - too "new agey," too “woo woo.” But I’m feeling the weighty hope of them today. Maybe even a little seed of kindness has potential to grow, become part of the human story that transcends physicality and shape in some way the energy of the universe.

Meanwhile, I came across this poem by Nickole Brown that I immediately wanted to share with everyone I know. It will most likely not survive the apocalypse, so we'd best enjoy it now.

When Adam Ate From the Tree of Knowledge, All the Animals Ate From It, Too

Of course it was he 

who did the naming, my little king 

strolling the loam, ducking under dripping boughs 

pointing, you, over there, now you and you and you, 

meaning, no, you’re not one of us, neither are you, so now 

let me tell you what you are, stuffing each catch with 

taxonomies and syllables, displaying each in the cage 

words make. I tried hard not to roll my eyes, followed along, 

teased his arrogance by silly-making his labels, un-naming 

his possum a bristled midnight whisker-did, 

his raccoon a clutchy-pawed, rock-hopping fish-washer, 

his chipmunk a racing-striped, seed-cheeking zinger 

unzipping the brambles in a toothy squeakflash. 

When he bristled, I backed off, softsaying, 

Oh, my Adam. Always so serious, said nothing 

of his un-miracling miracles, 

each signified being ignorantly blinking 

at the sound of their new name, refusing to come 

when he called. Frustrated, he sped up 

as an auctioneer might, faster and louder— 

fox! wolf! cricket! grizzly!— 

lemur! toad! cicada! hawk!— 

and when I couldn’t resist, I said, 

Oh, Adam, don’t you know? That eyelashed 

fellow too tall to bend his knees, we just met him, 

remember? Don’t call him giraffe. His name is 

God. When he didn’t laugh, I quit 

sassing, told him what was on my mind, said, 

Look up in the trees, my upright clay thing, my loneliest 

animal divided and dividing himself 

from the rest. See that quivering, that common 

acorn quizzer curving a question mark with his tail? 

He’s telling you the beginning and end to everything 

is a question, so don’t try to force answers, honey. 

Don’t stomp the garden with your 

dictionaries and schemes. He was good and pissed 

by then, ready to strike, so when I saw that diamond vine 

smelling us with his tongue, I knew what to do, 

knew only one thing to keep him 

animal, to level the playing field. 

Okay, okay, okay, I shushed. 

Calm down. I’m sorry. Here, 

try a bite of this.

Homage to Neruda and a little bit o' crazy

Edit 3/21/23: I removed this post for many months, embarrassed by the BOLDNESS of sharing my own poetry. Because honestly, the first one especially is just too...overtly sensual. It begs some subtlety. I recognize that now. I write differently now. I hope. Though I never felt that I was the one writing back then. It always felt like the poems wrote themselves. I miss that. I wonder if that will return.

I've been reading The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin. He mentioned that sometimes artists are afraid of sharing their work, because they feel they will be identified forever with what they put out into the world. Rubin says any work we publish is only a snapshot of who we were. It's merely a chapter - not the whole book. And "overtly sensual" was a surefire chapter of my life ten years ago. I haven't written poetry in a long time, but if it returns, I hope the sensual is still there. But I also hope it will reveal itself via hints and subtle simmering.

10/3/22: Many years ago The Louisville Review was gracious enough to publish two of my poems in their Fall 2011 issue. And now, thanks to the modern miracle of digital editing, I have just written then deleted multiple qualifiers and apologies for these poems (in attempts to appease any critical readers). But no! I'm going to let them stand alone. (The first poem may not make sense if you haven't read Pablo Neruda. Here's a nice sampling: Pablo Neruda poems and specifically his love poems)

Reading Neruda for the First Time

Tonight, my love, while you were gone
I did not go to bed alone.

I opened slowly to him, this new amante,
this vineyard giant with hands
the size of mountains. Every
movement took me to a different country.
His tongue spoke a thousand languages.
He fed me sweet plums, his fingers
sweeter than the fruit.
He had a hundred hands,
each held a small bird, an emerald,
a cluster of grapes, an ocean.
My breasts to him were columbines,
my ears salty shells,
my lips roses,
my toes delicate daisies.
I was his fish in a turquoise sea,
flowering coral reaching toward light.
I was mist over the vineyards,
rising dew that melts into sky.
He spoke and caves sprouted diamonds,
fire danced on stone and shadows
called out, "Ven!"
His breath was heavy with musk,
moist and slow.
His rain was summer,
drenching and warm.
I was earth - thirsty, pulsing
and wanting more.

I still am, my dear,
come home.

Passport Dreams 
In Antarctica the natives wore fur-lined parkas 
with sturdy zippers, tennis racket shoes and 
guns slung over their shoulders. 
“Why the guns?” I asked.
“Yeti,” they answered in husky whispers. 
I looked down to see white fur covering my body. 
Had I killed the great legend or become the beast? 
They watched for the cold to seep from my bones. 
A small boy coughed. A gun was cocked. 
I felt the fur grow between my toes. 
“Wow,” I said, faking a shiver, 
“How about this weather?”

In Germany I took a lover. 
I know, I was supposed to do that in France, 
but I had a cold there and the wine made me sleepy. 
I liked his guttural ichs and funny shoes. 
I didn’t mind that he hadn’t showered in four days. 
Afterwards he liked to smoke. 
I pretended I was trying to quit. 
While he talked politics and soccer 
I daydreamed about us swimming 
naked in the Rhine.

Africa didn’t like me. 
Rhinos shouted. 
Elephants stampeded. 
Hippos wanted to swallow me whole. 
They would have, but Tarzan 
swept me away on a vine. 
We made love in a tree. 
His howl shook the jungle. 
I wore his pet snake 
like a corset.

England offered nothing but 
rain, double-decker buses and 
Shakespeare’s empty house. 
Bowler-hatted men in bars 
enunciated every word 
with precision. 
Then Tarzan appeared. 
We made love in the alley. 
Big Ben drowned out my howls. 
The English never noticed as they 
plodded past the Palace at Westminster. 

In Italy men with lascivious eyes 
watched for rustling skirts 
and redheads in cafés. 
Their love was dark and selfish, 
their sighs like steam. 
The fettuccine was amazing, too.

In Spain, red capes hung 
in windows of closed shops. 
The men were gone looking for bulls. 
The women gave me a flouncy peasant skirt 
and we danced like confetti 
on cobblestone streets.

I rode a rickshaw through China. 
I carried bits of meat in my pockets. 
Dogs loved me. 
A woman selling tea 
stopped me in the street. 
“No thank you,” I said. 
“But you’ve never tried,” she insisted, 
holding out the steaming cup. 
It burned my tongue and tasted like steel. 
The dogs stopped following. 
My clothes grew tight. Buttons popped. 
Muscled arms bulked and flexed. 
Monster feet dented the earth. 
I stepped over The Wall and 
pounded toward the sun. 
I was a giant silhouette, a distorted shadow. 
I walked straight off the edge into the fire. 
I didn’t feel a thing.

Sage Advice from Ciona Rouse

My favorite swimming hole is at the base of a waterfall on the Fiery Gizzard Trail. It requires a hearty hike to get there. Several Sycamore trees tower nearby, so it is aptly named Sycamore Falls. The water is cold. Colder than expected in the heat of summer. Last month, four young women were standing up to their ankles in it, debating whether or not to brave the chill. They DID eventually go for it, and I'd like to think the kids and I inspired them as we deftly stripped to our swimsuits and swam to rock outcroppings directly below the small falls, allowing the deafening water to pound on our heads.

It is an entire Experience, and almost every time I go, I get a message - usually while floating on my back, looking up at a circle of blue sky and clouds bordered by the tops of tall trees. Once, the message was “Don’t play small.” Another time, it practically screamed, “YOU ARE A CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE,” and I FELT the truth of that in such a profound way, it brought me to tears, and I promised (out loud even), “I won’t forget! I won’t forget!"

The most recent time, it was just “Do things.” I laughed when I heard it. Not sure exactly what it meant, but shortly thereafter, as my hiking/camping buddy Annie and I sat on the rocky shore of the falls, talking about life, the universe, and all the important things, I mentioned my dream of traveling with Workaway. “I want to do all the things!” I told her. It was only then that I understood the message: “Do things."

And so, now I’m about to embark on a journey which is one more step in my attempt to do things and NOT let anxiety keep me small and safe. I’m going to drive to Vermont, take photos for a traveling circus, then drive on to Montreal to visit Olivia. I’ll take my camping hammock and stay at HipCamp sites along the way.

I woke up with fear this morning, wondering what the hell was I thinking!? Logically, I realize taking a road trip is a small thing to do, and years ago, I wouldn't have had a second thought about it. This bizarre anxiety has kept me small and safe for too long, and if I need a little encouragement, I'll just re-read this Ciona Rouse poem:

Do the Crazy Thing

Do the crazy 

thing 

The hard to imagine but 

somehow you did 

thing 

The brings you to your knees 

thing

The no one would ever 

do it that way 

thing

The safety net would not 

even matter

thing

The it could kill you

but not trying is 

another kind of death

thing

The thing

on your heart, do it

and let them gasp

right before they call it

a thing of wonder

Gregory Pardlo and the human experience

My lovely (times two) new friend Roger recently introduced me to the podcast Poetry Unbound. This morning, while eating my eggs, I was casually listening to some of the episodes he recommended when “Wishing Well” by Gregory Pardlo undid me. Eyes wide, mouth full of egg as the tears came on, then goosebumps as my throat tightened and I couldn’t swallow the egg. I was helpless, riding the wave of his brilliant words up and up and up, waiting for crescendo, caught between the mundane (egg in my mouth that I couldn’t swallow) and the sublime (Pardlo cracking open the everyday to expose a universal truth of the depth of human longing) until finally something broke loose inside me. I’ll post the poem here (found on the OnBeing website), but part of the magic of this morning’s experience was listening to poet Pádraig Ó Tuama’s reading of it. You can listen here: https://onbeing.org/poetry/wishing-well

Wishing Well

Outside the Met a man walks up sun 

tweaking the brim sticker on his Starter cap

and he says pardon me Old School he

says you know is this a wishing well?

Yeah Son I say sideways over my shrug.

     Throw your bread on the water.

I tighten my chest wheezy as Rockaway beach

sand with a pull of faux smoke on my e-cig

to cozy the truculence I hotbox alone

and I am at the museum because it is not a bar.

Because he appears not to have changed

them in days I eye the heel-chewed hems

of his pants and think probably he will

ask me for fifty cents any minute now wait

for it. A smoke or something. Central Park displays

the frisking transparency of autumn. Tracing

paper sky, leaves like eraser crumbs gum

the pavement. As if deciphering celestial

script I squint and purse off toward the roof

line of the museum aloof as he fists two

pennies from his pockets mumbling and then

aloud my man he says hey my man I’m going

to make a wish for you too.

     I am laughing now so what you want

me to sign a waiver? He laughs along ain’t

say all that he says but you do have to

hold my hand. And close your eyes.

I make a starless night of my face before

he asks are you ready. Yeah dawg I’m ready.

Sure? Sure let’s do this his rough hand

in mine inflates like a blood pressure cuff and I

squeeze back as if we are about to step together

from the sill of all resentment and timeless

toward the dreamsource of un-needing the two

of us hurtle sharing the cosmic breast

of plenitude when I hear the coins blink against

the surface and I cough up daylight like I’ve just

been dragged ashore. See now

you’ll never walk alone he jokes and is about

to hand me back to the day he found me in

like I was a rubber duck and he says you got to let

go but I feel bottomless and I know he means

well though I don’t believe

     and I feel myself shaking 

my head no when he means let go his hand.

It reminds me of my very first yoga experience, when at the end of the session, the teacher had us lie on our backs then came around and stroked, with one finger, each of us between our eyes. I burst like a swollen water balloon. Sobbing and snot crying from out of nowhere. As if I’d been waiting my entire life for someone to touch me. And of course I had been. I still am. Aren’t we all? 

I’ve felt this longing for as long as I can remember, but I’m grateful to finally know that it’s deeper than what any human (or substance or activity) could provide. I wonder if it’s even possible to find fulfillment for this longing in our human experience? It feels so beyond. Since I gave up drinking, I’ve been allowing that unsettled feeling to just rumble around, co-existing with it as much as possible. When it gets too intense, I try to meditate or go for a walk. 

I just started a new book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, by Gabor Mate. It’s about addiction. I’m only a few pages in, but I imagine he’ll have to mention this longing. I also keep thinking about Alex Wong’s song, “Show Yourself.” Wong is a beautiful, local singer-songwriter who inspires me to believe that showing ourselves is an act of great bravery. Local reiki master, kundalini yoga instructor Jason Latham is also currently doing this on his Instagram posts. They inspire me toward similar vulnerability and bravery. All the while, something else is trying to keep me safe, urging: “Don’t be too weird. Don’t be too emotional. Don’t be so sensitive. At least, don’t let anyone see….” I wonder if that’s why the writing stopped. Maybe my ego (or something) is just trying to keep me safe. I’m trying to open the writing flow back up again, though, so although this post just barely touches the realm of too-weird, too-emotional, too-sensitive, and although only a few people will even read it, this is, at least, a first step.

Engagement, participation and Richard Siken's litany

Yesterday I met with Rahim, founder of Unheard Voices Outreach. We met at a coffee shop at 9:00 and I was shocked when I looked at my phone and found three hours had passed. Topics ranged from yoga, Breema body work, smart phone tutorials, documentaries about formerly incarcerated individuals, crypto currency, the school-to-prison pipeline, meditation and chakras, and more. I had met with him, hoping to volunteer in some way with his organization, but also just wanting to meet him because I felt we had numerous common interests. I left that coffee shop inspired to live a life more fully engaged, to participate in life with intention, to find some way to use my gifts to add value to the world.

I started that participation and engagement this morning by watching the sun rise from my little redneck inflatable hot tub. It sits in the middle of the back yard on a large patch of leveled sand that is occupied by the Craigslist above-ground swimming pool in the summer. The air temperature was somewhere in the 30s this morning. The faintest sliver of amber lined the darkened horizon. A nearly full moon was still bright in the dark sky directly overhead. Everything was still. I was settled in the warm water before the first bird called its voice into the morning. I heard it: a faint chirping in one of the trees near me. Then a call from a different type of bird in the neighbor’s yard. Three crows flew silently overhead, passing under the moon, flying to the north of where the sun would soon rise. Steam from the hot water billowed and drifted off in puffs. I heard the rumble of large trucks on Hart Lane. The noise from a passing train three blocks away took over then slowly faded. Etched against the barely perceptible brightening sky were the backyard trees whose inky black limbs branched off into crooked fingers then intricate, delicate webbing, silhouetted and almost cartoonish for their lack of detail. Then my own sweet chickens woke up clucking their protests or praises to the morning. “We survived the cold night! Let us pray!” More crows flew to the south and I heard their distant caw. Cicadas began to call from yard to yard. Squirrels started chattering and running along the branches, which began to appear less silhouette and more real life, as morning light illuminated bark and differentiated far from near.

I tried to be present for it all. I did some loving-kindness meditations. I made silent intentions toward healthiness. The kind of healthiness that healthy choices bring. The kind of healthy choices that take into account that quiet, solid knowing. We’re all doing our best, aren’t we? It’s not easy, but look how far we’ve come. I continue to move further away from that depression that had me in its grips last year, but I’m still ever wary of its return, and the fear of such informs nearly every decision I make.

Yes, I’m getting around to posting a poem. This is still that blog. I needed a moment to feel like a writer again myself. To participate and engage with life. Thank you, Rahim, for the inspiration. 

Olivia sent me a link to this poem recently, and I have read it about a dozen times now. My hot tub morning is not an adequate introduction, but I’m doing my best and I will no longer postpone participation while waiting for perfection. (This poem was found on The Poetry Foundation’s website. You'll have to look it up for yourself to see the proper line breaks and such.)

“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken 

Every morning the maple leaves.

                Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts

            from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big

and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out

                                 You will be alone always and then you will die.

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

         of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

                   Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party

         and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

                                   You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?

A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.

                  Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.

What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.

            Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly

                                                               flames everywhere.

I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,

                that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.

I’m not the princess either.

                           Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down.

I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,

               I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow

         glass, but that comes later.

                                        And the part where I push you

flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,

            shut up

I’m getting to it.

                                    For a while I thought I was the dragon.

I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was

                                                 the princess,

cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,

          young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with

confidence

            but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,

while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,

                                            and getting stabbed to death.

                                    Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.

          You still get to be the hero.

You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!

                  What more do you want?

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you’re

            really there.

Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?

                                           Let me do it right for once,

             for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,

you know the story, simply heaven.

                   Inside your head you hear a phone ringing

                                                and when you open your eyes

only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.

                               Inside your head the sound of glass,

a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.

             Hello darling, sorry about that.

                                         Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

                                    and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

            Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

            to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

                  I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not

feeding yourself to a bad man

                                 against a black sky prickled with small lights.

            I take it back.

The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths.

                                                I take them back.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

                                                                       Crossed out.

            Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something

underneath the floorboards.

                   Crossed out. And here is the tabernacle

                                                           reconstructed.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all

               forgiven,

even though we didn’t deserve it.

                                                       Inside your head you hear

a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up

            in a stranger’s bathroom,

standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away

                           from the dirtiest thing you know.

All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly

                                                          darkness,

                                                        suddenly only darkness.

In the living room, in the broken yard,

                                  in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport

          bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of

unnatural light,

             my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.

And then the airplane, the window seat over the wing with a view

                                              of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts.

I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,

          smiling in a way

                    that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,

          up the stairs of the building

to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,

                                                I looked out the window and said

                                This doesn’t look that much different from home,

            because it didn’t,

but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.

                                           We walked through the house to the elevated train.

            All these buildings, all that glass and the shiny beautiful

                                                                    mechanical wind.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,

            smiling and crying in a way that made me

even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I

                                                        just couldn’t say it out loud.

Actually, you said Love, for you,

                                 is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.

Okay, if you’re so great, you do it—

                        here’s the pencil, make it work . . .

If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window

            is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing

river water.

            Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it

                                                                               Jerusalem.

                            We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not

what we sought, so do it over, give me another version,

             a different room, another hallway, the kitchen painted over

and over,

             another bowl of soup.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell.

             Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.

                                                               Forget the dragon,

leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness.

                                        Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany,

             in gold light, as the camera pans to where

the action is,

             lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see

                                                the blue rings of my eyes as I say

                                                        something ugly.

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way,

             and I don’t want to be the kind that says the wrong way.

But it doesn’t work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats.

                                                   There were some nice parts, sure,

all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas

             and the grains of sugar

                              on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I’m sorry

                                                                         it’s such a lousy story.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently

                     we have had our difficulties and there are many things

                                                                                    I want to ask you.

I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,

             years later, in the chlorinated pool.

                                      I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have

             these luxuries.

I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.

                                                 We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor . . .

             When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

                  I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.

Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.

                                                  Quit milling around the yard and come inside.