safe

there are too many glimpses of the breakage.
life fissuring into sand.
this feeling like
each day could bring such
shearing, cataclysmic grief.

all I know
is the tightrope I am walking.
somehow
i have been spared yet again,
some glitch in the system
buying me more time.

of course, it is so hard to keep aloft
on such an island.
my body has to make such a ludicrous swivel
to turn into safe harbor.

no wonder
after a night’s jubilant sex
with my crotch in a shimmy
and the whole room sweating
why, afterward,
i cannot stop myself
from weeping.

the just after

it's hard not to want to write
about orgasm,
even though all i can tell you
is that grasping climb, thighs
pixellating with heat,
fingers in an animal clutch,
toes in a feral, fetal curl,
and something in the belly whirring
with strange and marvelous appetite -
even in the vortex of such a whirlpool,
I am convinced there is a poem, waiting.

but how to tell you about
the just after?

what i didn't know
was that God could be in the room, too
moments after coming,
how God could sidle next to the bed
in the barest hint of a whisper,
how a tiny, precious tendril of God
could snake its way
under my whole body and, somehow,
like a feather stroke
like a pocket of air
like a caesura of freedom,
lift all the yearning out.

what it's like to tumble off the boardwalk

It's not just about falling. Or mistake. Or accident.
What it is, really, is a sudden unveiling,
a breaking through between the solid, certain you
and the you peeking like a precocious child
from behind a bedroom door
while guests are arriving downstairs.
The glimpse of the chaos that would ensue
if you ran into the grownups holding grownup drinks
and talking, properly, about politics or the sagging economy.
the immediate electricity of your arrival.

You tumble off the boardwalk like arrival -
you were upright all day making things, fixing things,
staying on top of your precious, alphabetized world
and you never could have anticipated your own
temporary collapse, with you on your knees scrambling,
imagining the contents of your bags sinking
into quicksand - this is the frantic and beautiful moment
of utter disorder, and the word "fuck" staccatoing
out your mouth like a mantra - "fuck fuck fuck,"
and then you wondering, as you look up
to gauge the entirety of the mess,
of any of the neighbors saw you fall.

No, of course no one did, but now, in the retelling,
you wish they had.
The fall was spectacular, full of high comedy and excruciating
clarity. The fall revealed
all your good planning and finesse, was, essentially,
one hilarious charade. You were not, as you once thought,
allied with the path. Your mind
was not so tidy with calculation.
Your feed did not know the way after all.
Your feet did not know the way.
And so you fell.
And so you must fall.

after the hibernation

there is the inevitable resurfacing.

you're out of paper towels
or o.j. or something that begs for a trip
to the grocery store, and just like that,
in the moments in takes to park,
you're out of your lolling reverie.

what you notice,
after the hibernation
the one that's kept you away
from keyboard and compass,
from rigor or writing,
what you notice is how
not great you look, surprisingly,
pinched at the eyes, a little pale,
a little doughy, droopy, unspectacular.

you attempt a minor dazzle at a party
and fail.
you buy a regrettable pair of shoes,
wear jeans that feel alarmingly tight
and find yourself staring at a distance
invsible to others, so that you look,
rather than pensive and intelligent,
actually quite lost.

you should have gentled yourself out of it,
coaxed one foot forward at a time.
there was no rush, really, even if
the coffee that morning screamed for milk
you didn't have.

it would have been alright
to be a little less vicious with yourself.

you'd been so careful going under,
ducking away from traffic and tedium.
it had been so easy to slide off the path,
undo your buttons, and release.

after hiberation the world
is never as wide and soft
as you expect,
and you are still just as tender and wanting
as you'd left it.

reprieve

today i gave myself time
for two cups of coffee
an hour of reading
lunch on a hot deck
and a bike ride followed by
brownies
followed by
napping.

sometimes it's just impossible
to save the world
or measure your hours with achievement
or comfort anyone with your words.

you need the gentle, uncalendared reprieve
of a whole day off,
contemplating nothing,
not even what kind of work
needed your brief but immediate
divorce.

aloft on your coffee
immersed in literature
not of your own making
and afterwards, soaring through town
on your shiny red bike,
you are alone and long as daylight.

which is what makes it possible, later,
when you have filled yourself
with such clear oxygen
to reach your arms out
in honest invitation
and hold the world close again.

In Praise of the Ostrich

not my poem, but a gem by writer/educator Carol Jago:

Ungainly bird with little to recommend it
beady eys
sorry plumage
a pin-headed monster
with no waist at all
This creature is best known for the habit
(discouraged by therapists)
of hiding its head in the sand.

But what if the ostrich is a genius
and this is an inspired response
to a fin de siécle day?
Turning one's bottom to the sky
Meeting one's foes butt-first

Me, I'm tired
of seeing eye-to-eye with morons
and facing problems head-on.
In hand-to-hand combat I lose.
Why not learn from the bird?

At first the sand up my nose made me sneeze
but the dark is such comfort
and the quiet such relief.
I forget about the cowboy
aiming at my ass.
Let him shoot.

Head in the sand, warm, safe,
I dream about having my feathers restyled
Wonder if it's time to color the gray
Muse over eggs laid and lost
Think of you.

the great unpacking

goodness knows
there were things she'd had to let go of -
"what to keep and what to throw away,"
is how her friend put it, stumbling in the midst
of motherhood and marriage,
those twin parentheses of security
formatting even her dark days.

but this was not that same excision.
this was paperbacks and photos and mementos
of everything that had managed, somehow,
to make the final cut.
this was dishware, old poetry, and wire sculptures.
this was starfish, a basketball trophy, and costumes.

this was not an unhinging, a cyclone
of irretrievable loss, a catacylsm of memory.
this required only
a cup of strong coffee,
patience
and a little shelf space.

and though her back was taut with the move,
her hands a swamp of paper cuts and ache,
her head juggling the measurements of storage,
through it all, her heart had remained
blissfully, unreservedly
intact.

and because of this reprieve
from all the possible shatteredness
she saw the pile from the perch of her coffee cup
and realized how easy she had it,
her great unpacking the simplest matter
of boxes.