Autumn
Light moves on the north wall
for the first time since spring.
This is how the dark season
makes itself known,
hanging side-bent in the home
like an extroverted neighbor.
It spills across last night’s slippers
& lands on the front window.
A coiled snake made from Indonesian
wood is there as a sort of joke,
& better than Beware of Dog in red letters.
The virus stole the joke
out from under this house
& leaves us perfectly shielded.
A vaccine, canning-jar shortage
& some torn up lawns for food.
A few cash-in while mothers hide
diapers in strollers.
Maybe it wasn’t god enough to us.
Or in distinctly human fashion,
we made god invisible,
submerged the metaphor of her skin,
blind to her creaking redwoods,
numb to her river beds pillowing toes.
Wait for god inside another good talk,
we empathize with your pain.
Oh, how the soul of rapt innocence
wanders the endless hall, redirected
skillfully from the exit door,
never where it was yesterday
in a facility where the aged
sleep into death’s quiet taking.
Through the telescope, a distant night sky,
the dying hold our mortality anonymous,
no longer felt in the familial garden
bent over soil, praying—
You aren’t obliged to survive this.
Her Anger
Sometimes
it lands like a seed —
a garden, a new song, an hour
spent kindling July for bare legs.
Other times, a flooded dam releases
the sadness that’s always beneath it;
a dark lake spilled onto the floor.
Do you see all the rare fish in there?
Do you want to swim with her,
all prune-skinned & exotic
in a puddle of her eyes
held by earth?
Sometimes it’s everything
she must feel in order to ascend
like a screech owl from under his arm,
still dressed in the blue stamp of knuckles,
a nation’s tongue licking his black boot.
She’s banished & scrubbing
her desert mouth clean.
Tears, I know, are more befitting
the tender nape of a woman.
But like a woman, & for now,
her voice enters a room furnished
with matchboxes & ceiling fans of gasoline,
her sharp tooth striking a violin string.
See his muscle whittled down to charred
pieces of meat hanging from bone,
his black boots melted patties of rubber soles,
her bruised cheek a blushing wildfire
searing peonies.
Mother’s Day
It takes a village.
Are you taking care of yourself?
I have appointments. I have many appointments.
Bladder in the vagina. Do your Kegels.
It takes a village then a smile head turned to one side.
Say it again. Are you taking care of yourself? What about sex?
It’s important for the family unit. Hold the family together.
Hold your shit together. Hold your baby, all the time. Let him cry.
Your grandma’s not haunting you —
hair curled high heels dinner ready for him.
You have choices. Liberated. I go for walks. Sorry, we go for walks. Every day. So he doesn’t cry. Fresh air, good. Another mother. Baby in a stroller. Big smiles. We stop. So sweet, how old?
Awe, so sweet. Love the stroller. Awe. Does he have your hair? No, it’s brown. No, it’s brown.
Awe, so sweet. Keep smiling. Cheeks shaking. Eye twitching. Face aching. Mouth like cotton.
Vagina like cotton. No sex. Hold it up.
Like half the sky or something or other.
Hire a nanny. No money. Military budget. Pentagon polluting. Don’t mention it. They’re still smiling. Look at that bow, those cupcakes. You need them. It takes a village. Resign. Forget
Yemen. You need them. Forget Venezuela. Another coup. The children starving just like
yours in Yemen. Oil. Genocide. Never mind. Keep smiling. Pursuit. Get your body
back. It’s over there. Work it, you MILF! Body positive. Everything positive. Sex positive.
Cotton vagina. Estro suppositories. Bladder in vagina. More Kegels. No sleep? Sleep train.
A solution. Everywhere solutions.
It takes a village. Are you sleeping yet? Forget about Yemen. Are you sleeping? It takes a
village. Hire a nanny. Go to mars. Austerity. No time off. Hospital bills. No time off. Baby
crying. Those motherfuckers!
Oops not too angry now.
They’re fucking the mothers. They take a village. Smile.
They take a village.