“TRANSCENDENCE”
The luminous morning floods the wooden
kitchen floor with cataclysmic answers
to questions I’m just now learning
how to ask. It is time to be on my way.
I, guerrilla aviatrix, fly reconnaissance
above the sibilant Mr. Coffee. Suspecting nothing,
he continues his clandestine, granular mission.
The silver soup ladle exhorts from
inside the blue crockery jar: “Transcend!”
I strafe the sink. The bloodied open
mouth of the insinkerator repeats,
“Transcend!”
Transcend Cheerios, Branola wheat bread,
headline news on CNN. Transcend
torn plastic laundry basket, the dog’s dirty
white stuffed toy, mint dental floss snarled
into circles on the black-and-white tile?
The pipes weep, without shame, onto
the bathroom floor.
My husband accuses me of anthropomorphizing.
And why not? The morning shivers with embedded
warnings from the overstuffed teal sofa. My son’s
turquoise safety scissors even now work out the code.
Will there be enough time?
I land my prop jet, uneasily, on the tortured wooden table,
beside a plastic bottle of Siberian ginseng.
Jet fumes undulate among bread crumbs and
seep, like fluid, up and over my Varilux lens
multi-focus glasses, the Giant Golden Book
of Mathematics. Aware of the danger, I drop
to my knees behind the pages of the New York Times
And here it is again,
embedded in the crystalline
breath of the ice maker.
Transcend.
Defeat is not an option.
Transcend! Transcend!
The silent smoke alarm clings
to the white plaster sky.
This morning will not be the end of it.
Collect your gear. Collect your wits.
Collect in pools. Take up a collection.
We will need all these: a seismograph, three
fresh bananas, a bottle of Bogle
merlot, and perhaps a match.
“HOW TO LEAVE YOUR MARRIAGE”
First be sure; once sure, question it;
once questioned, be sure again; when
the thing holds itself firm, congealing
around its center, put it away in the
dark, speak of it to no one; in time
it will begin to hiss, to foam
and fulminate, like baking soda
soaked in vinegar, like an open
and infected sore; by then there
will be no separating one part from
another, no way to push back
to where you found it.
Ready now, part two: talk,
tell your best friend, tell the daycare
teacher, tell your marital therapist, who
will pretend neutrality, the corners
of her mouth turning up; rely on what you
think is there; borrow her (imagined?)
approbation wherever, whenever
the form sags; do not tell him;
do not tell him until in its own time
it surfaces and tumbles all down your
front; at first, assign no fault; say
“it’s not you; it’s me.”
Don’t mean it; drizzle bitterness slow
and over time; allow to permeate throughout;
while he pretends you never spoke; you must say
“I mean it this time,” and do; then, quickly,
crouch; allow the glass to miss your head; you
will need your head; plan the date; catch mono;
rent a truck; engage your father, who has emphysema
and your friend, who cannot lift; allow two
days to pack and settle boxes into rented rooms;
set up the crib; paint the ceiling turquoise like
the Colorado sky; sit below, paint in your hair,
cry, revive; dust off; list everything you won’t miss.
Miss him; let it sit; see many men; don’t let them
meet the baby; put off the court date; pass the baby
like a baton; miss her when she goes; sleep a lot.
Part three: move forward; fall down, begin again;
go to court; have lunch with him after; he’ll say the
divorce is the best and thank you; he will tell you
about his new women; go to a sad movie alone
that night; cry for hours; you will think it won’t change
but watch: the light returns full force; go to work; be
admirable; stay long hours; go home late at night;
cry again; train for a marathon; take dance classes;
drink margaritas with women;
swim laps; shed your skin; careful:
this will sting; apply cool cloths against
the incipience; one day, look back;
know that what you did could not
be done; be glad you didn’t know.
“THE DACHA AT 5 A.M.”
The woods at five in the morning
no stars no moon, I take
a flashlight but don’t use it
snow emits light saved up from afternoon
My annoyance over being awakened by whining
evaporates in the still dry air
Peri laughs with his whole body arcing
swimming snowfields like a dolphin
stops to eat the cold soft sea
no sound now, except the rustle of branches
flutter of leftover leaves
the muffled white noise of snowfall
voices I’ve heard before
in other forests, other times in my life
when I took to the woods
to repair broken parts
heart, mind, spirit, immune system
I stop. The dog waits ahead, looking back
something big breathes nearby
a bear? No, they sleep.
a mountain lion then, no, not here.
No sound of feet or paws approaching
I lift one booted foot and
then the other. The breathing starts again
hoarse, rhythmic, hungry
other forests other times other walks
the beasts came one after another
but tonight there is only the great
dark animal of my black parka
whispering around my face and arms
with every step I take
whispering: “no fear no fear.”
the snowfall continues
the trees brush against each other’s arms
the lingering moon casts blue shadows across
the hunched shoulders of snow
along the disappearing path
we follow home.
“FAMILY PHOTO”
See the family.
See the family sit on the gray carpet.
See the dog: the dog’s eyes are black and shiny.
See the father: he wears smudges of light
on his glasses.
See the girl on the right: she wears her stepmother’s shirt.
See the girl on the left: she wears a beaded necklace
she made herself.
See how she reaches over her mother’s shoulder
to claim her younger brother.
You cannot see the photographer. Her name is Bomber.
See the younger brother: he wears corduroy overalls
and sets his teeth on edge.
See the mother: she wears a tight smile
and cowboy boots; they are a show of strength.
See the girl on the right: she wishes she were
the father’s only one
and if not that, then the empty space.
Read her raised eyebrows.
See the girl on the left: she knows better
how to do all of this.
Read her focused eyes.
See the boy: the second after the shutter clicks,
he will leap up and run.
See how the mother longs to leap up and run too,
although not with the child.
See how the father is hoping that Bomber is happy.
See how happy the dog is.
The dog’s name is Tim: see how close
he lies to the dark window.
In four years he will slump gently into death.
The boy will name the dog Timmy Tumor.
The girl on the left will be strong for her mother.
The father will make the arrangements.
The girl on the right will feel left out.
Bomber will marry a good man.
He will have two Russian wolfhounds
and a Jeep Cherokee.
They will be happy and live a simple life.
See the boy’s small thick hands.
See how the mother and her daughter look
to the boy.
See how the father and his daughter look to Bomber.
Wonder what the boy looks to.
See the darkness, how it caresses
the panes of the leaded glass windows.
“THIS IS HOW LOVE CATCHES US”
I woke today, running down a hill,
Marlborough Boulevard, past Cumberland Elementary School,
woke to explosions of leaves all above me,
in front and behind and to the sides of me
woke to the sunlight soaking down
between knives of grass,
flowering mock orange bushes,
peonies blooming unreasonably early.
I have been asleep. I choose sleep. I can’t tolerate
these explosions of light and scent and sunshine
falling between the green blades.
Days pass and I remain asleep against
this tumult of sensations,
until one day, today, I woke
and was shattered. I’d like to think I shatter
without pain or shock. but it isn’t so.
The pain is always a half a breath past the opening.
The pain is real and sometimes all. Not today.
Today I saw the elms and oaks
the carefully edged and trimmed
green lawns, even the patrol car
sliding by on the street checking that
all edges were tucked in,
all sentences completed with a tidy period.
I saw it all and thought, this is paradise,
not meaning it, but yes, these seconds
of vibrating green and clear air,
are sustenance,
are resurrection.
This is what I know:
how love catches us.
It attaches us, with lines
like sticky filaments,
spun from a spider’s abdomen,
to things we don’t always choose.
It roots us
like the wide network of a fungus,
hidden beneath our feet,
latticed for miles under the earth,
inexorably entangling rock
and dirt clod, the roots of trees,
connecting it all
into a living mass.
I don’t choose to love this place.
I love it nonetheless. I don’t like to say so.
I don’t like to sound small and predictable.
There is nothing small or predictable
about this love,
this sticky network.
Every day filaments are severed.
Every day one of these lines,
pulsing with essential life,
is cut clean through by a shovel blade,
a random microorganism, a car crash.
A heart failure. A gunshot to the chest.
It is an act of utmost courage
to choose to love.
We are in danger the instant
the tendril wraps the rock.
Whether the rock is chosen or not.
If we try to stay asleep,
to not allow the wrap-around,
the inevitable penetration,
we are only slightly protected.
Wide awake or full asleep,
without choosing,
we love without knowing we love.
Today I woke, running down a hill,
in a domesticated village, the safest place on earth.
I woke and was encased,
enraptured, impaled.
I did not intend this.
It happened even so.