laps

Is my mind growing duller in all of this heat?
Am I losing my edge, slipping off of the seat?
Are my eyes missing focus, my voice dropping a note?
What if all I can do in this water is float?
The duck seems quite happy to take all his naps.
The goose doesn't care about swimming his laps.
The heron just hovers, the wren's not clairvoyant -
the birds in this lake are quite fine being bouyant.
So why is it me who is beating her chest,
who can't stand the silence of water at rest?
What is it that matters when lungs are so brimming?
Will things make more sense if I speed up my swimming?
'Cause the sun's bearing down and I'm working so hard
to keep pace with the world - every foot, every yard.
My arms are so tired; my legs aren't that strong,
and now that I see it, this lake's far too long.
If I swim it all now, my whole heart will be seething,
But my lungs will both flail and I'll likely stop breathing.
If I speeded things up, I will get there much faster,
But once at the end, I'll be courting disaster.
So I'm better off swimming in far smaller movements,
traverse this whole length just by catching some currents,
relinquish control, offer water my laughter,
embrace all its stillness and forget what I'm after.

to-do list

Unpack the groceries.
Pay the electric bill.
Throw out the old nectarines rotting in the fruit bowl.
Vacuum the dog hair from the couch.
Clean the muffin pan from Saturday.
Take the trash out.
Get that last load in the wash.

Now forget all that.
Loosen the knots in your spine.
Unwrap the tightness in your chest.
Unfasten the weight from your shoulders.
Distentangle the ropy chords of your voice.
Ignore your expectations.
Suspend your disbelief.
Deliberate only
which song you want to sing,
and whether the window is open wide enough
to let it out.

the glance backward

isn't it remarkable, how one decides, finally,
to do away with the old habits and eccentricities,
to chase away the squirrely demons of indecision and avoidance,
to be better, and wiser, and more generous of a person?
isn't it amazing, how on the cusp of this great leap
of loving someone more fully than you thought possible,
because it's time and because you are ready,
and because you are more than the sum of your fears,
et cetera, et cetera,
isn't it strange how just then
the neck swivels wildly to the left,
and the eyes arrow downward, near the shoulder,
then careen to the side and back,
and the ears cock to the wind, listening
listening
as if feral animals were chasing close behind,
as if danger were looming and near-vertical,
as if there were, finally, no stage curtain to dip behind,
some soft velvety thing to fold you in like a caress,
as if you were stripped of skin and down to the barest
of your bare bones,
isn't it funny, the glance backward,
the making sure, the strange, prickly desire
to rewind, start over, and be lost again?

It's as if we know full well
what exactly we're leaving behind
and what we're incapable of escaping -
the ecstatic, liquid momentum
of this body and these legs,
this unstoppable heart.

on other people's weddings

You never imagined being the bride
swirling in taffeta, chiffon, or crêpe silk,
whatever strange fabric blankets the gowns of those magazines
littering your doctor's office, next to a Time Magazine from 1995.
Something of the bride always lacked dimension for you,
or otherwise too much dimension, occupied too much time,
twittery talks among girlfriends, things whispered in one's own dreams
about belonging with someone, finally,
a penultimate union that required dressing up,
getting fitted with the dressmaker's exacting inches,
weekend visits to the jeweler's, eyefuls of platinum potential.

You never imagined the ring, the swoon around a brunch table,
the bend of a hand angling for compliments. You went to those movies
and sighed somewhere between the first kiss and the proposal,
but the film always ended too early, just after the big day,
before the uncle of the bride got drunk,
cornering an unsuspecting guest with bad jokes about infidelity,
before the best man contemplated his own faltering marriage,
before the bridesmaids went home hungry and alone.

You never imagined the first dance, all eyes on the happy couple,
something electric and yearning passing between them,
some unknown thing, a secret, some unshareable memory
locking them into a tandem swish of the hips,
their mouths still beading with the word "Yes" and
"I will" and "I do."

You never imagined the primping and prepping,
the French manicure, the oxblood liptick, the small fake daisies
announcing themselves in an up-do. You didn't care for
conversations about strapless bras, invisible thongs
or the endless tug of war of shoes shoes shoes.

You never imagined the bride and yet last night
you danced right next to her, breathed in
the gardenia of her perfume, saw the line of sweat
forming just under the armpit, the crucial seam
she hadn't anticipated. You saw the tiny smudge of kohl
at another crease, a stain on her eyelid she couldn't erase,
a black smudge of near-permanence.
And then came the other slim, almost missable fissures,
the groom's mother grimacing slightly,
the priest clutching his bible like a security blanket,
the wind blowing indiscriminately at hair,
at napkins, at rose petals.

And something of this gave you hope,
not that you needed to know whether
you would be here one day, tossing bouquets,
making poetic announcements to a large and weepy crowd,
but that where you were was just fine
which is to say close enough to the cake
to manage a slice or two
with room left over for later, just in case.

verbs for summer

build
broaden
bridge
bloom
deepen
enrich
engage
embolden
enliven
inspire
perspire
permit
play
muse
imagine
captivate
participate
fascinate
illuminate
wonder
wish
magnify
vivify
amplify
unhinge
unmask
unplan
discover
listen
learn
love
leap


enjoy.

any closer than this

and you would know everything,
each flickering, inconsonant truth, the bumpy burlwood
of me, the deep and knotty reserves, the lines below
the lines. You'd know each agitated syllable,
every small, ruthless detail, the tinny cries I make in the night,
dreaming of a ludicrous escape from the bones of myself.
You'd know the imprecisions, the false starts, the swath
of stormy, sea-churning, furious rebellion,
the bitter, artless farewells, the way I never look back
at the wreckage. Any closer than this,
and you would know everything,
each stubborn, silly lie, each half-pursuit, each early exit,
every shadowy despair and disillusionment, the way
I can take my promises back for good.
Any closer than this…
But you are, aren’t you?
You are just steps away, not even, you are one step, not even,
one fingertip, I think, one single shuddery centimeter.
I can feel the paper-lightness of you, the slimmest graze of you,
a miniscule drop, a sly, unrepentant, liquid contact that hits me
at the solar plexus, dead center, something of you dead center of me,
and it feels impossible, it does, a collision like that,
in this tumbled, dizzy world, it feels impossible
you could get any closer than this. And yet you insist.
You insist.

on order

the dog is not good on the leash just yet,
veers this way and that, careens
into my legs, and i could almost be toppled
were it not for this decision i've made to
keep upright, away from cars and sidewalk
slippage and inopportune gravel that could, if i let it,
release me from my righteous grip on gravity.

i don't want to fall, i just don't,
don't want to hurt myself from the silly, undangerous act
of dog-walking, and it would so great if we could
just move in one straight line,
down the straight streets and sidewalks,
down the straight narrow aisles
of doorways and stairwells and
poison oak-lined bike trails in nearby Fairfax,
if i could keep that dog in order, maneuver him just so,
keep him fixed on the same horizon
i'm looking at.

the dog doesn't care about lines.
he prefers the chaos of off-track, untimed explorations,
even if the oaky undergrowth makes him sneeze,
even if he trips on exposed roots and rock-strewn creeks.
in fact, he likes it that way,
likes the obstacles that Mother Nature,
in her infinite wisdom, has thrown him.

we walk together to the trail head but he bucks wildly.
i'm thinking of dinner, and timing, and traffic,
but his feet don't care about the shortest distance
between the two points of arrival and departure,
about making that kind of order.
he prefers straying where he can
nestle his nose in the dirt undisturbed
forage for goodies like dead things, difficult climbs,
and dog shit that's not his,
these are his treasures,
what keeps his ears on such alert,
what makes his mouth water, and lips fly open
in total disregard of the nearby tripod of shiny leaves
oozing trouble,
his fur happily gathers it all up,
his body has been hungry all day for this,
the unseen, the undiscovered, the map below the map,
this is what he's here for, and I know I can only take him
as far as i myself
am willing to go.