Middles

80 percent anticipation and nostalgia,

We’re caught up between the romances of

What was and

What might be.

A rising bridal veil, a scrapbook by a coffin;

The eager birth of expectation

And birthdays thereafter to reminisce.

Summertime is thirsty for hot chocolate,

Cozy sweaters and winter squash;

Winter curses broken water heaters

And longs for popsicles and playgrounds.

Mushed in the middle are

Broken-in shoes,
Sighs,

Bear hugs

And moms.

A hushed suspension,

Then I’m crumpling my paper plans

And breathing air.

At the Well

Avert thine oil-painting eyes,
Lower thy tapestretic voice.
Contain the casual mane and
     oh, for the last time
Be still! fluttering fingers;
Mute the shimmer up and down
The wiry neck.

They might then no longer follow
With wide eyes...
Cooing, adoring, anxious pigeons
Fattened on platony.

Then might my used-up-crayon eyes
And finger-painted song
And polite hair
And stubby sweaty fingers
Become adorable in thy Child heart:
     A heart that could teach me to play.

This game is a spelling bee--
I misspell "Truth"
So I can sit down early.

The Pearl

The knife-- sturdy, strong, old yet gleaming

Plunges into each oyster.

Pried open, no ears can hear no screaming.

Frustration rising with the sun,

He cast them one by one

Into the waves of the faceless bay.

Does it matter what he finds?

The filled and empty lay side by side

In the deep, broken and dead.

Warm Welcome

Warm Welcome

The walls are warm and white in this house

Where you have never been invited.

The towels and dishes are white and mine

And you have never used them.

In a twin bed where I am wrapped up, warm,

Without you and alone,

I dream new dreams, and because of you

You are not in them.

Without this new house,

Women wander with arms wrapped around themselves

To keep the wind out,

To keep from falling out.

We watch with our mouths and with our hands--

Our words would not be weapons,

But we know you only respond to temptations or threats.

Where I am is where you have never been

And never again will I wander where we walked.

I was within you and now I am without you

(As in by your leaving I am outside you.)

So I went through the open door of real estate.

This house is mine, white, warm,

The one I want after once wanting you,

And you have never, will never

Be welcomed.

Advertisement

WANTED: FAIRY GODMOTHER

Qualifications: plump, adorable, middle aged to elderly. Sparkles are a must.

Job Requirements:

            Granting wishes

            Dressmaking

            Transfiguration

            Appearing/vanishing into thin air

Hours: 24/7 on call

Compensation: up to and including Firstborn

Please send resume to

im_wishing14@yensid.com

Auto-Autopsy

"How do you feel?"

"I'm a little cold.
     I feel stiff.
          I am a stiff--
     I'm dead.
I've been murdered."

Unspeakable Gift

So much noise in my head—

It’s hard to keep you in focus.

Even beyond the veil of the world

Sometimes you seem shrouded in

Too many motifs,

Buried in a garden of symbols.

Must I attend a symposium of

                the world’s finest religious theorists

                and theologians?

Can I climb inside the T.A.R.D.I.S.

                and travel to that hallowed glowing stable

                under Bethlehem’s star?

Stories upon stories

Testimonies stacked together.

What shall be my avenue to know my LORD?

Is my brain that elastic,

                my heart so broad?

And while I worry about

                what color of train to take,

                or oysters dying,

                or white, warm houses,

                or what flowers will adorn my grave,

There are bits of you flying around everywhere,

Ready to jump out at me, dancing,

                then fade out of sight,

                as elusive and ephemeral as I make them.

Even in my contemplation

I can adhere to no one symbol.

Don’t you worry that my mortal train of thought

Is running circles around the station??

I do!

Once lost, now found—

That constant ebb and flow,

                A delta of mercy,

                The oxygen exchange in love’s lungs.

How many names have you?

How can I see all of you, your form so impossibly big

and more than four-dimensional?

How many  lines of poetry must I write

                before the ink and lead scratch away

                this paper and paint your portrait?

Even then it will be a mere fraction of your dimensions.

Perhaps that is why so many artists

Have chosen you as a subject.

But all their painting combined are still just a number, not ∞.

How do you quantify holiness?

                or bottle mercy?

What is the arithmetic of righteousness?

                or the pH of forgiveness?

All of us— scientists, artists,

Engineers and ventriloquists—

                Shall we bounce endlessly around

                our rubber room,

                hoping one of us will hit the target

                and set us all Free?

It seems that distance intransversible

Is the one between you and me…

And yet—

In some curious way—

Last night you wrapped your warm carpenter’s hands

Around that familiar place between my lungs,

And I could smell the sawdust of the cross

Under the bright and holy mountain.

And as I close my eyes and try to

“Feel” or “Sense” or rub against

That veil again…

Perhaps it is more real now

                for just being once.

You managed to fold time and space

                and made that hopeless distance

                totally transversible.

Something tells me I may never find you.

You always find me.