Recognized
He stood there, staring back at me, odd expression upon his face, smiling after I did from the other side of a huge pane window on the newly renovated office building, appearing a bit more disheveled than I remembered. More wrinkles supported his grimace and receding hairline, acknowledging me when I nodded hello. I used to know him well, athletic, sculpted, artistic, a well defined physique, but his apparent paunch negated any recent activity. This window man I thought I knew, musician, writer, runner, dreamer, now feasted off the stale menu of advancing age, aches, excuses,...
Read MoreGetting Back on My Feet
In our walker strolls, me with an orange safety belt wrapped around my waist, Paul clutching it tight, we stop so I can exercise on a staircase, between the parallel bars, or just to rest in an alcove across from the elevator lobby, check my vitals, and talk. About the book he’s reading — his excitement when Arthur first meets Merlin. About the way writing my poetry helps me confront my trauma. About his love of the woods — the beauty of the moon skimming through winter branches — or taking his three daughters on a camping trip. About the time he and his wife drove...
Read MoreMigraine
She tells me it’s like the halos of saints preceding the onset, then a nightlight too bright to endure. Rolled up in old sheets the color of fever and a blanket as blue as cobalt, she shades her eyes from as much of the world as she is willing to acknowledge. Her words are pained, careful as feet near the deteriorating half-way crumble on the Kalalau...
Read MoreScars
“Felix had sideswiped something blue, and he was as curious about what it might have been as we were.” - from Dead-Eye Dick, by Kurt Vonnegut and that’s it, isn’t it? you get set down and don’t ever get told by anyone what got you there. memory like a deck of cards; you trip and never can tell what will land face up. and the head a burning building — walk in after and something will be saved but you can’t say what beforehand. could be an unkind busdriver — could be a broken lace. birds land and don’t get up again. tides roll in and stay...
Read MoreOwn
Listen to your brother who Fucks, harms, and doesn’t care. Listen to the name he calls you In another room. Listen to the Silence after. Listen. Now watch. Watch as he struts down the stairs. Watch his pocketed hand as he Ruffles your hair. Watch him look Away as he asks you, “You yours?” Watch your feet as he asks you, “You’re whose?” Watch him turn. Watch as his breathing changes When mother enters the room. Watch As he pushes the door shut behind Him. Watch your mother chase...
Read MoreThe Potato in Me
What if it’s not a poet in me, but a potato that lies mute, still as a stone, stiff with all that starch, sweet beyond all blessed belief? Yet doomed for some inevitable and — yes! — edible destiny. And would all my words abandon me? All my days above ground have not prepared me for this single moment of roundness being next to soundness, of brownness being wholly skin deep and just as easily bruised. A fist, a hand in glove, a hardened heart. Half-baked, I see more than I am believing; I have the lumps to prove it. So what about grief? Don’t ask me. I only said...
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