Love

The only thing

I’d change in you

is make you feel

the way I do

Vertigo

She knocks back a rainbow of pills with half a bottle of wine

and falls down on the bed in her jeans.

The ceiling fan whirs too quickly for her to count the blades

but she tries anyway. Anything

to loosen her mind.

She worked hard today.

She got the oil changed in her car (human interaction),

went grocery shopping (hiding her shame at checkout),

and made it halfway to a coffee date with an old friend

before chickening out and texting that she was sick.

Back at home she ate half her food and then puked it up.

She picked scabs off some recent injuries.

Still her heart pounds.

The ceiling fan makes her dizzy.

The bed begins to spin and she closes her eyes, hanging on tight,

wondering when it will end.

Cadence

For Auntie Nancy

I will see you in every pretty thing.

I will see you in iridescent insect wings

and the bright throats of hummingbirds.

I’ll seek you out in high white clouds.

Every blue sky, every evening rain,

every winter breath I take will remind me

of you; the beauty you saw; the life you lived.

You will walk beside me in department stores

as we stroll down the aisles, touching fabric, stroking sleeves.

You’ll point out gold-painted jeweled sandals

and hold everything turquoise up to match your eyes.

I’ll put on rhinestone sunglasses and sparkling bracelets

and, laughing, ask if I look glamourous.

You’ll always say yes.

But mostly I’ll think of you

when soft ivory caresses my fingertips.

I’ll remember watching your fingers fly through

Bach fugues, Mozart preludes,

Chopin nocturnes and Beethoven sonatas.

I will smell your hairspray like you’re next to me,

playing duets, turning pages.

Like Bach dedicated his pieces to God

every song I play will be for you.

To celebrate you I wear turquoise the color of your eyes.

I breathe in the scent of dusty music

and hear you play it in my memory.

I close my eyes and remember the hot summer afternoon

when you taught me how to play badminton;

the smell of the grass and bark; cold lemonade.

I remember sitting in your white wicker chairs

and drinking tea, like ladies,

and cuddling up to your softness to watch movies.

When I came to say goodbye

your cheeks were impossibly soft,

your eyes impossibly bright.

I think you knew who I was.

I think you kept your arms around me

just a little longer than usual.

I was your special girl; the daughter you never had;

and you were my favorite auntie.

You will live on in every pretty thing

and I will never stop watching for you.

Barabbas

Oh, happy day when the crowd shouted

that I was to be let free.

Did you know we shared a name? Yeshua Bar-Abbas, son of a Jewish father,

and Yeshua who called himself Messiah.

Your savior had my common name.

“Behold, your son will save the world, and you will name him...Josh.”

Not exactly creative.

Is that why they called me, of all the criminals,

to be sought out against that quiet man?

I wore my crimes proudly; saw in the crowd faces

of people who had seen me murder their brothers and sons

Yet somehow, deep and terrible was their anger toward a man

whose hands, next to mine,

were so clean.

The crowd parted as I walked back into the city

and closed behind me like an ocean. I, who knew of Abba,

said a prayer just in case. Then

I broke a man’s skull with a rock.

Your Joshua - such a pity

that he died instead of me

and I never knew what it meant.

White Meat

He comes home and finds her asleep,

long and pale, stretched out on the couch,

TV remote loosely held by mannequin-shaped fingers.

When he reaches to touch her shoulder

she flinches in her sleep, like she knows he’s there.

He kisses the air above her cheek; she was always so sensitive.

In the kitchen, he drapes his coat over a chair.

He takes a hot dog from the fridge, wraps it in a piece of bread,

and eats it cold.  He wonders what her white skin would look like

from the other side; smooth, or red and bumpy?

He wonders what her beating heart would look like

or how tightly her intestines are coiled.

He wonders what he would see if he took a knife and split her

from chest bone to navel; if there was anything inside

that might reveal her story.  He wonders

if he is evil.

But how can he be evil if he still loves her?

His odd little wife with her strange ways;

fingernails chewed to nothing and strangely angular feet;

soft dimples on the backs of her knees; her soft humming, lilting Celtic tunes;

how can that be wrong?

He tears a drumstick from the lukewarm chicken on the stove

and chews contemplatively.  For the first time it occurs to him

that he is actually eating the skin of an animal.

It makes him feel sick.  He wonders what human skin tastes like.

The long carving knife is still stuck in the chicken.

He pulls it out of the white flesh.  Why do they hollow it out -

the chicken - why don’t they leave it whole?

The man walks back into the front room

and considers the pale skin of his long, slender wife.

She doesn’t wake as he lifts her wrist delicately and studies

the blue veins running down the inside of her elbow.

He gently touches the knife blade to her skin, deciding where to cut.

She loves him; he knows

she won’t mind.

Magic

I wish for magic:
Sparks shooting out the end of a wand
to cause small inconveniences for those who have wronged me
or poof up a bouquet of roses for a forgotten anniversary
or to summon my cell phone from across the room so I don’t have to get up.

I also wish for spells that heal;
mending a broken bone in an instant;
sucking out cancer to hover in a black mass and then disappear;
calming my insides – our insides – so waking up in the morning
isn’t just another disappointment.

I wish for magic for wounded children
and the tired woman who works the streets, hating it,
and for the grandmothers and grandfathers who linger, linger, waiting
for permission to go. I wish for magic that could stop death
and magic that could bring life.

But today I can’t think about that. Today magic can’t help me.
My days are still long and lonely; my friends are in pain.
Babies are dying and people are starving but they are so far away, so far away.
My selfish little life consumes me. So, instead,
I wish for magic to summon the TV remote,
so I don’t have to get up.

Eulogy

Send me to sea on a vessel aflame
Flesh and bones to be seen never again
Only the sea will remember my name

There is a darkness I never could tame
Hatred and death swelling up from within
Send me to see on a vessel aflame

To be something special was never my aim
Weakness of spirit was my greatest sin
Only the sea will remember my name

Where did this hate come from - who can I blame?
I wear the marks of you here on my skin
Send me to sea on a vessel aflame

Day after day I surrender to shame
Knowing there's no way I ever will win
Only the sea will remember my name

Now send me back from wherever I came
Only in death can my journey begin
Send me to sea on a vessel aflame
Only the sea will remember my name