Poetry

                                 Tiny one bedroom flat
                                 space heater-warmed 
                                 with a phone booth closet 
                                 that could store meat - 
                                 a kitchen with southern 
                                 view of tattooed 
                                 John and Rose’s porch
                                 from where he’d flick
                                 his Camel butts
                                 into the seven clumps
                                 of withered grass
                                 trying to be a yard
                                 sans noticeable success.

                                 Residents from the
                                 local sheltered home
                                 with a labored walk
                                 shuffling to work
                                 carrying a Thorazine high -
                                 off to bag incense
                                 eight hours a day 
                                 without complaint -
                                 but needing to stop
                                 at the corner store  
                                 for their morning 
                                 sugar fix of candy and coke
                                 just to feel alive.

                                 Seven years of fun and games 
                                 with a revolving door 
                                 of friends and lovers –
                                 teaching reluctant
                                 urban teens by day
                                 who taught me
                                 all about the blues 
                                 I sought out each night
                                 up and down
                                 Lincoln Avenue bars
                                 where legends
                                 like Dixon, Wolf, and Waters 
                                 laid down the timeless licks 
                                 that everyone listening knew –
                                 then drank too much
                                 as the nights wore on -
                                 just like the rest of us.

Far flung waves
faintly calling from
my garden's end.

Each cycle of the moon
they grow braver
in their greeting.

Fences fall.

The
crashing
of
the
waves
rises.

Awoken
from sleep
as it wraps on my window.

Bricks falling
into its foaming mouth.

The girl got him a bracelet
for his right arm, already holding 
twelve bangles of silver and of gold.  

He never wore it, said, instead,
each circle had to come to him 
by chance:

the Middle Eastern deli counter man
who’d given him the middle one,
the New York psychic—grabbed his arm

and told him to beware.
They couldn’t just be gifts, what with
their implications of enclosure, continuation.

And so, the brass loop was stashed in his backpack,
the same one he would drop first on her floor.
 She never saw what else might be inside

but wondered if, like the circle, 
known by many as a magical space,
it held nothing in its center 
but air.

*On August 9th 1914, British troops departed to Germany for WWI. By the end of the barbaric war, 3-4 million women were estimated to have been widowed. 
 
Baby August has told her first untruth. 
Buds bloom no more to meet a genial world. 
The widow seizes all the pendant flowers  
with which she sought to bid her spouse farewell.
An ave before he was enmeshed in war.
Candles alive to witness one more love 
have danced themselves to death and killed their flame. 
She cannot rid her coverlet of wrinkles. 
She cannot clasp a glass of wine without  
scowling askance at its momentous shade.  
She distrusts the cup; trusts more in malaise,
distrusts the very fairness of her skin. 
She finds her pallor does not need her hug
to blanch her husband; fear can do as much. 
Azures darken with the smoke of chimneys 
whilst vaguely through an open door, she hears 
her curtains, bandying with winds of fate. 
He breathes, he breathes—can she be widowed thus? 
She strips her newly funereal bed,
dethroning love through taking down his roses. 
Yet neglecting some petals on her sheets 
which mourned their king’s expulsion when— 
having washed them too—mistakenly—they  
tinged her covers in a cruel crimson. 
Then when she made some play of them in hand
the reddest of the petals poured their flush. 
Purpled sinks, bloodied hands but—of whose blood? 
She has read her husband’s fate upon their walls.
Interpreting the muteness of her home
and wordless corridors as signs to know,
that though he breathes—she is a widow.

I lie in bed no sleep in sight
More awake with the moon than I was with the sun
The next day closer than the last
Shows that hold no mysteries to me whispering in the background
Craving things that my mind wants
But that my body will regret
Cheddar Chex Mix
Reese’s Cups
A man
The candle’s flame dances in the distance
Releasing a painfully nostalgic aroma
I was once just a woman
I took 45-minute showers
Survived off saltines and ramen
Had nightly meetings with Mary Jane
No side-stepping Lego landmines
Or llamas in pajamas
So now the moon and I
We enjoy the stillness of the night
My time becomes my own
My name is nonexistent
My space is substantial
My peace is protected
Tomorrow I may be slow to wake
Tonight, I have no regrets
I smile
I laugh
I remember
I hope
For just 10 more minutes
Or maybe 15
Before I know it
Tomorrow will come all too soon
And this time I have
It can only come with the moon

A shack where a house once stood
Shingles that hang on by a thread
This was once a home

Built by muscled men
Carefully crafted to withstand anything
Except time

A porch where many once sat
Is now a stiff wind from extinction
Rusted rockers turned from green to brown

A screen door shredded
From temple to tetanus

The roof appears to cave
While the foundation holds firm
A home that once slept six

A time capsule
Full of firsts and lasts
Nothing left but ruins and

Memories clinging to the insides
The house is empty
But the home still stands