Garland Girl

June 7, 2012

published in on the cusp's magazine "cycle" Summer 2012

Garland Girl

My sister, she sits on her summer swing, dressed in red,

the wind making her skirts billow, and all the cotton

seeds drift and scatter.  it seems like something more

should be happening, as she clutches a handful

of faded white daisies, flowers from her youth.

she stares off at the coming autumn, as I stare at this photograph

of her.  Years ago, she used to photograph

everything, especially the valerians in their dying reds,

the ancient daisies as they lost what youth

they had.  She’d sit by the foot of the poplars in a cotton

dress, watching summer disappear just like the handful

of dusty petals she held.  She would say, no more

are the days of sun and daisies.  And no more

were her days of sundresses and songs.  The photographs

she’d taken she burned until all that remained was a handful

of ashes and aged coals, the embers left burning red

only in her eyes as she watched the snow come down like cotton

quilts over the earth, like down plucked from goslings in their youth.

She longed for something golden or green, for the youth

of saplings as they stretch up to the sun, needing more and more

every day.  She wanted once again to dance through the cotton

fields as they spread their seeds.  Like a postcard photograph

the poppies would all bloom, gold and violet and red,

and their pollen would cling to her hair and her dress, a handful

of summer fairy dust.  In the long winter nights she had her hands full

of old daisy chains and pressed petals, stripped of youth

by january’s chill.  One by one, she pasted them all onto little red

valentines, her fingers shaking and tired, until she had more

hearts and dead flowers than she could count.  No photograph

could keep them alive, as no enchantment of the sun could keep the cotton

from blowing away in the wind.  While the world was draped in a cold cotton-

white she sat resigned, but in march was she ever a handful!

when the first green appeared in the snow, slowly showing through like a photograph

developing, her body remembered all the wildness and youth

it had lost when the leaves fell and the flowers wilted.  She needed more

of the life she saw growing, digging through snow and earth until her hands bled red.

Growing with the cotton, changing with the seasons of youth,

living and dying as inevitably as a handful of daisies; it’s hard to tell anymore,

but in this photograph, as we sit on her summer swing, our lips are stained red, red, red. 

Adirondack

June 6, 2012

Adirondack

I clamber over rooftops,

perch on lighthouses, to watch

the dawn as it breaks, overlooking

the rocking masts in the harbor,

a few early boats with their sails up and full

of the morning breeze that swells

along the lake’s glassy surface.

I lie in the ferns at night with the does

and fawns, white-tailed and calm

as their felt-furred bodies settle into sleep.

I sing to the birds as they dream,

as I slowly number the trees

and the stars. The breathing

of the forest is hushed

and soft.

I gallop through the ravines,

the glacier-torn canyons,

a hand along the worn-away, pock-marked

granite or sandstone sides. I

touch all the splintered trees, war-wounded

and crutched, where lightning struck or fire
raged or floods ravaged.

I chat up the waitresses in cafés

and bagel shops, sitting out on the patio

at a black metal table, talking about the weather or

how lovely the water looks today. At the bar, I lean
against the solid, polished oak, tracing

its knots with my nails as the bartender

and I stay late, discussing the meanings of things,

and the sun drowns its sorrows in the dark lake

behind us.

I walk along village streets, gazing into

cheery little shop windows, all bright and lit

with color. I’m counting the thousands

of cracks in the concrete, visiting the soup

kitchens with their old and cobbled stone,

pounding the stakes of foreclosure signs

into the soft earth.

This place,

I become its wildlife: its predators

and its prey, padding over entangled roots, drinking

from cold streams, diving down

the waterfalls. I cry from its canopied leaves

for more, more, more, because

nothing I have is ever, ever enough. 

paper dreams

March 4, 2011

paper dreams

when I think of what might become of us later, my mouth takes on the ashtray taste of probability, a dark coffee that sweetens slightly at the thought of you, staining and becoming the gold rings that sometimes appear in your blue eyes, as bright as the sun that shone above us ages ago when we laid on our stomachs in soft grass, with friends, laughing, not knowing what was in store for us in the future, just like

I don’t know now.

my words, they live in the palaces I built for them in the rich deserts of my imagination, with the air stirring around them filled with the scents of spices; in skyscrapers I constructed among the vivid city streets of my past, all thronged with pigeons and raw beauty; on midnight lakes under the golden august moons of my memory, the seagulls nesting quietly on the shore; but my words, the poor orphans, will never know

who their author is. 

we are swept inexorably onward by some dark, ancient wind, caught at the moment in the slow death throes of snow and ice; as this bitter breeze bites at my back and at my heels, I begin to shiver from damp and cold, from longing and regret, but then, as always, you, with your isinglass gaze and lion’s heart, remind me of cherry stems and seashells and pennies face-up.  you hold me close and reassure me,

summer will change that, too.

technicolor

January 25, 2011

technicolor

hospital white, blinding fluorescent lights:

you can’t see the dusky boardwalk outside,

it’s too bright in here.

they wash out the acrylic t-shirt designs

hanging on the far wall, the shelves

with glass globes of smiling sapphire dolphins diving,

the shiny silver plastic toy guns with fire-orange triggers.

everything drowned out, overwhelmed

by the rushing tide of stark, shallow white.

a string of flowers in my hand, all chemical,

a fabricated, fabric lei.

burn copper, you get the emerald;

sulfur gives you the acid blue.

but not here.

here, it’s all

sparking magnesium white.

beyond

January 22, 2011

beyond

our dirty black honda

makes its way down rockwell street

in alexandria bay,

searching.

which one of these

cookie-cutter houses

do they live in,

my dad’s friends? 

we find it,

an old, washed-out,

robin’s egg blue

with peeling paint,

just like the rest. 

on foot down market street,

the dog is yanking the leash,

snuffling this and that,

as we pass a million

gift shops hawking

the kinds of delicate

things you buy

and then leave on your dresser

for ages, just gathering dust,

even though for now

they’re all on display, safe

in tiny glass cases.

we turn onto fuller street.

the sun glints

off the metal garbage cans

along the side of the road,

and we hurry to the beach

before it sets.

with the same puppy-dog precision

as the gray schnauzer we’re walking,

we sniff out the best spot

on the coarse, littered sand

in order to watch

the conceptualized, euclidian

sun as it melts

into the saint lawrence river

behind the shabby sailboats

all trapped in the rotting harbor.

oh, but now,

for the briefest moment,

a pure, fugitive fire ignites

the autumn leaves

of each of the thousand islands. 

and even from our trite,

mainland shore,

you can catch just the smallest glimpse

of the castles.

indian-ocean blue

November 17, 2010

indian-ocean blue

i remember one time when we

walked through that abandoned

apple orchard, hand in hand.  it must

have been late summer or early fall

because there were still blossoms

on the branches, pink and soft

as the birdsong and your newspaper poetry. 

we came upon the apples, cold and

hard and bright – peridot; it didn’t matter

that they still had weeks to ripen, because

our rosebud mouths opened, ate them,

and laughed.  we thought

that the clouds gathering were only doves

coming to nest in the sky until it began

to thunder, but even then our eyes

like sunflowers turned to search

for some remaining trace of light

as we held each other close. 

yesterday, we didn’t walk through

apple trees, but through city streets,

and you whispered that you missed

the songbirds because they had all become

pigeons.  our sad talk is of statistics,

not of verse, and our voices fight the steel

and concrete clanging.  construction scaffolds

and littered cigarettes are all we know

of beauty. other people pass on the sidewalk,

keeping their faces down, rushing

off to their challenging jobs and busy

lives.  the rain streaks down our dirty

gray windows, and yet we pull

out those old, perennial smiles and think

about the days when the sky was still

that indian-ocean blue;

we remember, we hope,

and we hold each other close.

boardwalk

November 8, 2010

boardwalk

at night,

seagulls ride like embers above bright white

roller-coaster fire. 

the people on the ground don’t look where they’re going because

there are too many mesmerizing

lights

littered about like sunspots.

and the people,

they pretend that they’ve not yet been

blinded as they count the money

still left in their

tight hands. 

the shops are all full of things

that they’ve always wanted, and the

vendors with their sharp wolf eyes watch

with smiles that everyone else takes for

happiness. 

the people on the rocket rides scream

like the seagulls burning above them. 

and you thought you were a good liar

May 24, 2010

and you thought you were a good liar

we exist quite cautiously

in this dark space

before the sun rises,

imagining the scent of summer

in the air.

in a place where your eyes can’t see,

my left hand, like a small ghost,

glows.

it’s something exquisite:

parhelia in the arctic,

fish scales,

or a mirage.

the effortless black-ink words read,

I’ll carry this secret to the grave.

what I can see from here

October 4, 2009

what I can see from here

it’s a familiar domain,

this expansive view,

with a similar terrain

to what I once knew.

I think that I thought

that it seemed I was home.

so what is this now,

this strange new land,

that I somehow know

like the back of my hand?

the sky, diamond hard;

night gleams with the stars.

the trees are dark, empty,

but with soft summer air;

an october breeze sifts

through my fingers, through my hair.

what a changeling dream,

but what does this mean?

where am I now?

I’ve been lost here so long.

but can I find myself

before I’m too far gone?