Articles

the glass woman is an empty feeling and an enactment of power
the bubbling up of a spectacular nasty
the pink velour fabric that cools the hairs on your thighs
the hairs that stick out of the black tights and itch so damn bad

You bring out the emerging QTPOC poet in me.
The only fits in a three dimensional Venn diagram in me.
The she hasn’t taken an English class since high school,
who does she think she is, in me.
The woman-loving-woman, yes also married to a man in me.

These two dead painted themselves
before a mirror, but now, flour-dusted, they blush

under the powder, less than bloodless,
and, yes, eyeshadow shadows the draws

they sucked into their cheeks, but those hollows
also shimmer, belied by porch lights-

You drove this way once and found God, or re-found
Him (and who wouldn’t?)
a splintered table, through-bolted, and the wide Pacific,
gray clouds layered three fingers thick atop. If you were here,
you’d carry a bucket and a heavy rod
to the surf edge and cast long.

I thought I understood time,

how a day began at five,

how I began in 1954

after the war and before

the war and during the war

my father fought alone each night,

like everyone else–

Blue-black hair against skin like milk. She leaves red lipstick prints on all my drinking glasses.  Chipped-tooth cherry smile, tattooed wrists, golden-downy-hair on arms and thighs, breasts like apple dumplings. Just look at her. She is mine.

I am driving. My daughter is in the back in her booster seat. My husband is up front beside me. We’re on an on-ramp to the I-8 somewhere between Gila Bend and Yuma. My daughter is screaming, kicking, and pounding her fists against the upholstery. My husband is trying to soothe her by singing Itsy Bitsy Spider.

On this morning, clouds the color of faded denim pad the sky, a wintry San Francisco sky, and it is the perfect sky for the work that lay ahead. I put on some Dwight Yoakum, he of the Bakersfield sound, crooning about the late great, golden state.

The front door is open, and the fan above creaks. Her right arm chops the air in declaration, her eyes never leaving yours. The ring on her finger glints. Ghosts circle the living room, swishing, floating, witnessing. They whirl with the wind.

Here is my compass    my parting gift 

Flattened pennies    half a heart    would do

but this is my chosen pact:    point of reference 

place of convergence    no one’s destination