someone with my mother's feet

next to me at the cafe
a woman with green earrings
and furrowed eyebrows
is a picture of concentration,
typing earnestly at her laptop,
slim fingers frantic on a keyboard.

i worry about the slight intrusion
of the glance i make in her direction,
she looks so busy, focused, an armature
of steel, and if it weren't for the
hip, worn-in jeans,
the classy sunglasses
the strappy california sandals,
if it weren't for the blond hair and the designer computer,
and the precision of her manicure, i swear
she could be my mother.
she has
her feet.


don't worry.

i am not about to paint a florid,
rose-scented picture, tell you mom's feet
are the envy of all women, say something
about mythology or fairy tales, tell you
they are worthy of a major magazine spread,
a slot on Oprah, a trademark, or Nike's backing,
tell you they're the wave of the future,
a legacy of sainthood, and evidence
of the divine.

they're not.

no one
would stop, gape-mouthed, at her beach towel,
interrupt her from a summertime read
and exclaim to god over her toes.


it's just that somehow
this reminds me
of everything else about my mother,
the very earth of her,
the powder goodness of her,
how on her last visit,
i came down one morning to find her
twirling in my kitchen
with no music on,
a sinkful of dirty dinner plates before her.
the strange sight of it,
a 56-year-old woman with soapy hands
and feet moving on their own accord,
and how at first i thought, uh oh,
a mother twirling to no music in particular,
should i be concerned, talk to dad,
talk to siblings, think about next steps,
sit down to a calm, reasonable meal to
address the issue, call her friends,
make some arrangements, make sure
she's got the cell phone on
at all times.

but then she looked up and smiled
when she saw me
and kept up her tango on the tiles.

and i thought
how lucky i was
to have a mother who knows how
and when
to dance.

easter sunday

due to a fundamental conflict
of religious interest, i.e. the fact
that i am jewish,
and also, on an aesthetic level,
my unease with the image of an aging pope
and what it takes to get a blessing outta the guy,
i am listening to the church bells ring
from the comfort of my own home,
bypassing easter sunday in favor of
really good french toast and fresh oj,
thinking about an afternoon of the sunday times,
a jigsaw puzzle, laundry, a nap, fingerpainting,
thinking of anything but the glorious rise of the dead.

though it's crossed my mind,
this last week, the schiavo headlines,
the fight for the life of a woman who
may or may not be smiling at the camera,
a woman with a mother who's claimed
of tears appearing in the corner
of her daughter's eyelids,
a woman with a father who's convinced
he felt, during a hug, a fingertip of pressure
from daddy's little girl.
the television audience wondering
will she rise
will she rise
will she ever rise again.

---

where was i?

home on easter sunday,
listening for church bells,
full from french toast and oj and
not waiting for a pope's blessing,
thinking about naps and puzzles and laundry,
far from miracles and not minding it in the least,
imagining the good stuff,
like how wonderfully thick the new york times might be
this week, and will i finish the crossword
and who's gotten married, and should i go to, say, belize,
and will they offer me the job, and is it time
to wash the pillowcases and oops
i've run out deoderant and paper towels.

what's amazing, really, is
the miracle happens regardless.
outside my window,
two birds are chasing each other
like children
and the daisies, which last week
i had given up for dead,
appear to be blooming.




-----
on another note:
this is the Stick It Game
sent to me from Mark Boyd. fun fun. now you try. you're supposed to send it to 3 people.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451: which book do you want to be?
I’m sure I read this but don’t remember a thing. Not a big Ray Bradbury fanatic, but it was probably required reading, along with They’re Eyes Were Watching God and 1984.


Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Absolutely. I think I had vague crushes on both Michael and Katherine, the title characters in Judy Blume’s “Forever,” a coming-of-age story about first love and first sex. I felt, rather deliciously, like a voyeur during their bedroom scenes.


The last book you bought was:
Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, and Moments of Desire by Carole Maso

The last book you read:
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

What are you currently reading?
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Five books you would take to a desert island:
Forever by Judy Blume, anything by David Sedaris, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality by Shere Hite, and probably a book of Mary Oliver’s poems.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Andrea Scher, because she may enjoy answering the questions; Mikhal Stein (sister), because I’d be interested in what she had to say; and Cara Wick, for both reasons.

what happens before sleep

i notice the three
pairs of shoes hogging the doorway,
an obstacle course of danger
should i need to get up during the night.

i think about the laundry piling up,
a new favorite shirt with a coffee stain
deepening with each moment of neglect.

i am aware of the blank space
on the wall opposite the bed
which for six months has been begging
for a bit of art, fabric, a photo,
something to fill it.

i set my alarm for an earlier time
than i'm willing to get up.

i read 10 pages of a book that makes me laugh.
do not watch, on my laptop,
the depressing but award-winning movie i ordered from Netflix.

i fall in love, again, with a souvenir i bought
twenty years ago, a bright splash of something Peruvian
that's survived all of my moves.

i place the stuffed animals
in an arrangement that might please them.

i tilt the pillows just so.

i locate the moon, or at least
a bit of neon cityscape.

---

i am, as always, grateful
for this need to sleep,
whoever was responsible
for coming up with the concept,
i thank them.

how wonderful it is to know when to stop
the brute shenanigans of wakefulness,
to know when to put it all down,
excuse yourself from the party downstairs,
the long night, the difficult conversation,
the whatever it was that tipped the scales
from being there
to being here.
i am grateful for this.

---


i rub my feet against each other,
take my contacts out so the room
blurs with beautiful obscurity.
and
there is that good sinking feeling
of the mattress accepting
the weight of my torso.

sleep, i think,
always begins with this.
an acceptance.

march rain

there's nothing quite like watching the sky
grey over into monochrome,
the diminishing light sharpening this city's terrain -
a crosswalk a brim of puddles,
the squeak of the trolley turning down Market
a child's boots making their comical splash
against no one in particular

there's the sudden itch for soup, hot coffee, casseroles,
matinees with overbuttered popcorn,
wool socks
the handknit sweater hiding on a back shelf of closet,
slippers and late-night snacks.
spooning.

in bed, i watch as friday's rain gathers into
a glassy quarter inch on the deck.
i am thinking of
how warm it is under these covers
and the ecstasy of sleep tonight.
while clouds and god
release their yearning from the sky,
i find myself burrowing,
the blanket easy, warm, permissive.

outside, the deck chairs are
stoic under the wet
the sirens oddly silent
friday coming to a gentle, tap-tap of a close.

somehow, like surprise,
like a promise,
this city feels pregnant
with spring.

the coatcheck girl at OgilvyOne

if you'd been there last night
the grand opening
of the san francisco office
of the world-famous ad agency
you'd have had your selection
of impeccable hors d'oeuvres,
free drinks, a karaoke machine
and a chance to rub shoulders with the mayor.
if you'd been there
you'd have seen all the hand-pressing
and the "you must meet"s
and the "have you seen"s
and the speed with which guests,
after a deliberately conservative first drink,
downed their second.

if you'd been there
you'd have seen me too.
i was
the coatcheck girl
for just this night
wearing a strange blank smile
and an ill-fitting company logo t-shirt and
feeling the furthest from home
amongst these streamlined, shiny-haired ad people,
wishing i could have come in a long
black dress, wishing
i was crazy enough
to ask the vp for a job, wishing
i could make use
of the free cosmopolitans.

if you'd been there
i would have asked
if I could take your jacket
or hold onto your briefcase.
i would have directed you
to the cheese table, the bar, the restroom.
you might have given me your empty glass
before you left for the night.

for a brief, stunningly unambitious moment
i was the coatcheck girl at OgilvyOne.
a writer
in her off-hours.

observations on the return trip

the first thing i notice is
i always pack too much.
didn't need the extra pair of jeans
the three shirts, the five pairs of underwear
it would not have been catastrophic
to leave the second jacket behind.
the TUMS, the bandaids and Neosporin,
all those first aid essentials,
proved not essential after all.

after all this, it turns out
all i need
really
are contacts
a sweater
a pillow
water
a piece of fruit
toast and butter
laughter
and
someone to say goodnight to.

with these,
i decide,
on the return trip,
i could probably go anywhere.

this weed

came home today to find a spot in the front garden
occupied by greenery i hadn't, myself, planted, though someone else
had clearly done the deed -
the gardener next door, perhaps,
bent on spreading good cheer,
might have dropped by while I was away
to spread the surreptitious seedling.
now, a nascent, naked shrub
lay dead center, halfway between
the hardy aloe and the unkillable jade,
ringed by a swatch of wet chocolate soil.

the whole scene was optimistic yet, somehow, eerily
plasticene, on the verge of havoc,
the shrub improperly armored,
the new kid on the block,
untested on this end of the house,
the exposed, windy, earth-spewn side.

I had a feeling
it wouldn't survive the week.

there had been a weed growing there before,
a thing which had sprouted
magically out of the near-fallow dirt,
flourished, despite the sudden
bouts of rain pounding our coastline
our defenseless western facades,
this weed had grown tall and proud,
faster and higher than the intentional plants
mottling my feral city garden.

this weed
had sprigs of flowers even. this weed,
it seemed to me, had become
the greenest thing on the block,
a cheerful sight
on the grayest mornings,
a length of stalk defying both grafity
and the nutrient-poorm dirt out front,
this weed
growing by leaps and bounds sometimes
like a teenager hurtling out the house,
until its architecture was all
vertical, until
it got so interesting i couldn't bear
to hack it down,
each weekend promising a new shoot
each rainstorm a test of wills
each exit from the car door a silent greeting.

hello weed.
goodnight weed.

and it became rather like a pet
but without the clocked feedings.
a pet without the midnight mewls and the
unpleasantness of deworming.
it became rather like MY weed,
these last months,
not necessarily the reason
to get up in the mornings
but evidence that it was entirely possible
and even necessary
to leave certain things alone
since they would flourish
regardless.

the divided things

so much can happen
with the palm of the hand
the way it cups the small of the back
or holds a cheek during a kiss
the way it warms itself on the skin of a stomach
under pliant cotton sheets
its earnest support of a neck
to prevent cramping
or just for the benefit
of comfort.

the palm of the hand
this soft animal body
and something about the permissive
hour before sleep
the desire to hold, engage, commune
through the simplest touch
collapsing the space between the divided things
a hand, the neck, a stomach, skin, the back, a cheek
this bridging between us
my palm, your back
my palm, your skin
and what becomes neither mine
nor yours
but just me and
you.

freethrow

here I am
coming home from a loss,
the semifinal basketball game
that could have been a sweet victory
had the final seconds played out differently.
we'd been ahead for most of it,
plunking down the key rebounds,
and these funky shots which somehow
wound their way in. yes it may have been luck
and it could have been skill, save
our poor showing on the freethrow line which,
in the end, probably cost us the game.

-

this could be a poem about underwhelming
shooting percentages and the reliable left-
hand hook of mine which, for once,
didn't cooperate. I could grouse about that, or
about the way my tummy hurt from eating too soon
before the game even started,
a full meal that should have waited,
and so maybe it was my fault we lost,
(though I wouldn't be so presumptuous). Or I could
go on about unfairness and what I believed in my heart
we had earned, a season of showing
up and working together and blah blah blah.
I could plea in this poem for something
better next time, or talk about lost chances
and bitter ends and why nothing's fair even when
you want it badly enough.

but what I want to tell you is this:

how long those last seconds were,
a beautiful ache of time,
as if God were gently pushing thumbs on a clock's hands,
slowing down the spinning earth
just for us, just here, in the fertile air
of the gym on a Tuesday night,
our hightopped feet all planted on the same parquet floor
and what a gift that was
time slowing down
feet planted on the same floor
and the lungs working
and all eyes on the ball.
and something about the gym, too,
the safety there,
this reprieve from everything else that wasn't safe,
which barely needs mentioning but
there was luck there, too,
for the reprieve,
even as the seconds dwindled and there was no
miracle three-pointer at the buzzer
and we went home without the trophy.
luck in those final moments, I felt it,
the strange sensation of hope
passing through on its way
to somewhere else.