moreover the leaf went
unwelcome at home
where hair was
was more than
a collar, a comb
these two stops
are where my work,
valid, retires its own
green architecture,
forgot my yardage,
brought tired for
the dance, figured
any going to trees
would need a room
which missed a
subway in dark,
brushed back so rural
went to my eco- home,
I sleep flipping soundly
a plant fed on sight
a couple more men
who perspire so
lightly I have come
to believe a greenhouse
everyone sells me
what they felt, I’m no
riches, I’m no alien-
look, I have got these
bangs to prove my
colors on the line
the way they tell one
visitor to wealth is
booming is with its
straight bright proof
I know more people want
a part of this state
every lunch a ringer,
not a mistake, or my
earrings went for value,
my toe came straight ahead
each time I lean
in the body gets buds,
this is no time for plying:
why would a woman
tour when she has these or
I have come to believe
every other person
learns to spell again –
I said grandma
how many men
she said there was still
a leak, she said there all men
went useful, more than sent
these were written
more than the quake
I left missing
each tree filling with
sunlight, greasy,
driven, nobody’s
business to stay –
history of playing
wellness on the street
I said grandma
I made circles again,
she plied me
for more, wider
sidewalks on earth
I would say no one knows, but they know because I have her eyes. The more she forgets the more lively the whole gathering becomes around the pond. This is more pond than where I live will ever have and we’re also not in competition, not ever again, not again for this place. I’ve been visiting every year around the same time, never bringing Jo Jo, never quite allaying their fears.
This is a reason why I keep kids around: to watch them do a shoulder stand. No other kid than the kid of my kid would probably do this. She’s got her hands on the tiles again. She presses so hard. She’s got the long hands of anybody else who’s tried to live with me, each and every woman who’s lived along with me even for a short while. Why wait for another day when the kid of your kid will probably be bored again? Any minute I can get this kid to move around me, I take it. I tell her, sure, whatever thing you’re learning is great. I don’t need to try, but show me good. What, me, slower? I went to the doctor, I said, doctor, I’ve been feeling tired lately. He said, have you looked at your birth certificate lately? (That’s a good joke I told this kid.)
Anytime Bessy went to see him it was her job to suggest lunch. Normally she felt good about this task. She felt his big fingers crawling around the table when her back was turned, looking for something to chop. He could peel, chop, dice, toss neatly in her grandmother’s last crystal bowl. They usually didn’t choose the crystal for lunch, but Bessy didn’t know crystal from anything, and she’d pulled it out to use to be nice. “Salad?” he asked her, “Salad for lunch again?”
Bessy instructed him from the other side of the seltzer, though she was sure he’d done this so many times before. He’d always had his jobs. He knew to get those candles into the Shabbos candlesticks before noon, and he knew to roll shut the pantry door. What could be so filthy behind the pantry door, Bessy wondered. Is it really so bad to let lunch-visitors see your cans?
I’d cast a spell for this but I haven’t got any more small bottles. I haven’t got any more bottles I could use just right. When I stand in the middle of the Salvation Army I can see glittering bottles all along the side wall, but I won’t move until I spot the right one. I’ll collect it, cork it, keep it here with me by the bed. It isn’t until much later that I’ll start sleeping better. You can laugh as loudly as you want at these small things, but they stand up for me.
She’d spell it likes she meant it if she were able, but the times Drew shows up are so few & far between that when she writes his name in the condensation with so many extra “w”s at the end you’d think it would stick around longer, but it doesn’t, the extra “w”s are extra good for dripping, those long meeting lines, & rarely last longer than half-an-hour up there before they are all poured-through, more like reaching down the sides of the foggy shed than calling to him at all. Sometimes he laughs when he sees his name falling like that again but doesn’t write back, & she didn’t really think he would, anyway, did she, & she passes another afternoon piling wood around his falling letters while he goes off, cheered, to the fields.
I certainly don’t tell anyone else about loving, or about how to line stones up against a wall. When Drew comes to visit I let him lie where he likes to and I don’t spend, don’t spend much on our meals together. He doesn’t remember how he used to line up rocks so I don’t tell him, I don’t feel the great need to be family just the way everyone else does. I spell things for Drew when he asks me and he finds the light to switch on. He lies with his feet to the light instead of his head with his book in his arms. I don’t tell him what this will do to his eyes. This is my house, my living room, my corner light, this is not a place I have to cave.
