Birthday

Epidurals fail
Cipher the circumference
of his head.
The answer is worrisome.
Anointed into the unimaginable
emergence of life through vagina.
A graphitic history
left behind on fleshy 
walls with tags painted 
inside. Seen a corpse 
when breath is briefly gone?
What of a son, a daughter
in that shadowed instance 
before breath has come along?
A fish flopped from water—
blue screaming into pink—
and legend and myth,
a child, a child.

appeared in the spring 2008 issue of the Cafe Review

Crystal


My mythology is of aliens and angels,
large eyed, thin fingered beings
with winged souls whose light overwhelms.

You dwell with the shadow people
in the new kind of darkness,
with those people whispering in your ear,
but when you look, they disappear.

I am a soap bubble,
thin-skinned and full of wind,
an ocean of rainbows floats upon me.
Yet, I am almost nothing.

You’ve married madness,
a toothless wench full of riddles,
“This is the last time,” she murmurs
this promise over and over.

I sleep in a veil of sensuous dreams
and dwell in the garden.
You rock in a cradle of nightmares
and sleep in the desert.

The whole world went bad for you,
under the homeless bridge,
up from the battered dumpster,
You swallow the seed of despair.

Crystal transforms for you and I.
I cup my hands under the rainbow
it throws on the floor straining to lift it
for little Abigail.
I drop it again and again,
to the delight of her waiting toes.

An ill wind blew the bad stuff
into your lungs
and for the first time,
all your colors came to darkness
and you could not be healed.

Lost in Paradise













The afternoon daisy shivers 
Wander in the fallen leaves 
The wind has winter in its mouth 
The stars are mercury rolling 
Witness the graves 
The children abandoned in paradise 
weep among the bulrushes and tares 
amidst the star dust, 
on the eternal carpet,
at the throne of a man.

Appeared Spring 2008 in the Cafe Review

Experiment Number Five-forty-two

I knew this woman. Some called her contrary. She was my neighbor. I called her Mary. Bill called because Mary called him. She said, “I’m getting messages in my teeth; they’re after me and you, Bill.” 
    This woman I knew, Mary, mother of two, ex-wife of one, she called my brother and do you know what she said? She said, “Bill, you have to help me. The aliens are talking to me. The government is talking to me through my teeth. My divorce is final, and I’m making a crazy quilt. Oh yeah, and they said you’re next Bill.” 
    You see, Mary’s marriage was a good marriage. That is until she decided to improve upon it. Mary and Dave, Mary decided, needed therapy. Dave fell for the Therapist, and Mary got the kids. It was all a preparation, like the making of a quilt. Mary was textile, she was fabric, Okay—she was remnants, but she was a part of the plan. Hemmed in, you might say, you might say stitched up. 
    The children, you ask? Well, what about the children? They were boys, of course, miniature men, miniature Davids. And when they went to visit their Daddy and his Therapist for the weekend, the big David asked the little Davids, “How is your mother, Mary?” And they’d answer, “You know, Dad. She is acting kind of strange. She’s painting flowers on the porch floor. She’s hanging foil wallpaper in the foyer. She’s painting the woodwork, Dad.” “Frankly, Dad, I’m worried.” said the twelve-year-old little David. “Me too.” said the ten-year-old little David. “And furthermore, Dad, I think Mom is, well—She’s just not well. She’s nutty as hell—Dad, are we going to the movies? Will you buy me a Switch? Dad, will you take me? Will you take me? Can I live with you?” And the twelve-year-old little David said, “Yeah, Dad, me too.” 
    Dave went to a Judge and said, “Your honor, I knew this woman. I married her too. She was okay at first. Then she just kind of blew. I tried, sir. My Therapist tried too. And I don’t want my boys with her. And neither would you if you knew what I knew.” So Dave said, “You know Judge, she paints silly flowers on the floor of the porch, she grows herbs, Judge, and what’s even worse, when my sons come home from their school, she is dancing in the living room like a crazy fool, or else she is sewing a quilt. Look at her eyes, Judge. Do you see them say ‘tilt’?” 
    The Judge looked into the eyes of this mother of two. He said, “Okay, I’ve heard from him. Now let’s hear from you.” Mary said, “You know, Judge, I do this one stitch and looks like bird’s feet, or maybe claws. I’ve stitched is all using just that stitch.” and after a pause, she said, “I’ve stitched and stitched, like a mad quilting fool. The yellow is sewn and the orange too. I’ve not found it in me to sew up the blue.” The Judge said, “Mary,” in a most soothing voice, “I’ve got a tear in my robe, and I’m sure it’s your choice, but— will you sew it? Will you mend it for me? And, Oh, by the way, I’m giving David custody.” And Mary said back, in a yet milder tone, “I’ll be happy to sew it, Judge, sir. I’ll have lots of time. I’ll be all alone.”
    It was planned that way. I read the script. Planned and saved up for like next summer’s trip. The government planned it, the aliens too. They called it experiment-number-five-forty-two. And such a relief, they can control women, using only their teeth. I knew this woman. Her story is true. She stitched in all colors, green, red, yellow, and orange too, and at long last, she stitched up the blue.

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