How He Died

Not with lively grandchildren tossing frisbees,
shaking hula-hoops across a greener lawn.
Not with friends recalling poignant stories
to a flower-crowded church as mourners mourn.

But with a passionless son leading the awkward chill.
an estranged wife once beaten barely alive
a weeping granddaughter he entered as a child,
Descendants, searching for the correct emotion, arrive.

As the son and his son embrace beside his open grave,
knowing without speaking that one will die first
and rather soon. Whoever it will be, will leave
a hole so wide the world could pass unnoticed.

and I who have learned nothing from this journey,
watch you descend, with one eye moist the other dry.

Lot's Wife

She had no name, she was property
until that glance reduced her to salt
a stain on the fabric of history
if curiosity were her only fault

then she must have been a poet,
whose righteous husband offered daughters
to enemies before deflowering both
so unfurl the centuries and watch her

change costumes, customs, names and faces
betrayed by friends, raped by gangs
scorched at the stake, sold as a slave,
declared a witch, tried, and hung

until she steps from a cafe in Leningrad
tucking her blouse in a thick waist, she glances
back to describe the circumstances
that drove other women mad

Recounting in lurid detail the pillars of flame,
collapsing causeways, Trains tremble
past peasants plowing old fields
husbands and sons are tortured again

She should have never looked back
she should have turned to salt like the rest
she could have left for Paris
never once turning to witness the wreck

or reopen the wounds of her nation. But poets
seldom make good citizens. Their heritage
is to survey and record the wreckage
with the passion of one possessed

So she wanders deserted streets, over and over
who never averted her eyes or chose to fled
articulating through parched lips, desperate for fluid
I am she who turned back, I am Ahkmatova.

Marriage

We are bound by this deed
a dried corsage
yellow parchment and dead
friends still manage
to hold me to you, dear,
distant mirage

Now force or torture me, Delores
from my silence
Return in your white dress
Bearing violence.

Resurfacing

When she boards a train back to New York
to remind me that an ambivalent life
seldom crashes perfectly into place
regardless of the countless foxhole prayers
and promises to lesser gods

When she casually hints
that I should follow him to the ledge and beyond
and ask questions while fishing for compliments
and don't be surprised if all catch I is
more questions and minnows

And some answers should be structured without emotion
even though every syllable of every answer
is posed and sickening sweet

because lacking emotion is needed
to fill the space between two people
when there is nothing else
but air between

So ignore her warnings and lead with this line,
past the mustard colored barns,
and suburban tract housing and new brides,
round with the promises of the first child

as the train enters the concrete
blue and green of Penn Station
in this post apocalyptic City
you still call home

Medical Update 3

I'm getting better

I'm fine today

I really am

Between

Somewhere between the boy and the man
floating between one drink and drunk
we push the speed limits while we can
angling the curves in your truck.

Your hand rests between the gunlock and my shoulder
as we speed from the town of Mount Olive
I awake from this glorious dream, older
and unexpectedly in love.

We travel between late April and June
on that highway between 20 and death
I stumble, say "I need you" too soon.
You smile through a nervous laugh

Radio static between Madonna and salvation
rises as the fuel needle drops below E
I search the street for a gas station
and an arm that no longer surrounds me

The last mile rushes between silence and madness
while intentions sputter, then careen
among your lowest priorities, and sadness
drops me somewhere in between.

revised December 2008

The Horse Race

There they are
lined up in on the shelf like orange traffic cones
as many as my grandmother had before she died

If there were natural remedies
or holistic healings
or medical fastings
or christian baptisms in sacred waters
that I trusted as much as these ponies
at this track

I believe that all good things bring the mind body and soul to perfect stasis
but right now, this is a Saratoga horse race in August heat

If I had to bet,
my life savings on this race
it would be Reiki Master to show
and Alternative Therapy to place
and Western Meds to Win.

at least for this leg of the triple crown

Bashing

We forgot that we're
still in Raleigh, when you strapped
your arm around me

Medical Update Part 2

I've been out of the hospital for nearly 2 weeks
trading a poly blend hospital gown for aged blue jeans

I've regained my wardrobe
now that I've lost weight

My calcium rises and falls
like the stock market

I do not know what caused this cancer
maybe something I did (or thought)
perhaps the universe is punishing me
or most likely its random,
no more complicated than a statistic
somehow this makes me feel worse...

there's no use in trying to figure it out
it doesn't change my current body
or the cancer that resides in it

so just for today,
I know recovery is possible....

This is too much

Ask me the difference
between a heart beating and one breaking

or blood that manages
both oxygen and that virus

and velvet horses endlessly circling the trainer's ring
or the mechanical up and down on the carousel

Ask me how old that sequoia is
and I will confirm she lies about her rings

Except for the trout, much can fit
between breathing and living
but today I'm not much for listing.

Medical Update

Day 11 in St Vincents Hospital in Greenwich Village.
I'll be here at least two more days.

I've been out of the intensive care unit for three days now.
still requiring moderate doses of morphine, calcium, and faith.

With one parathyroid gland rebuilt,
the medical team, friends, and family wait patiently
for the refurbished parathyroid to get its foothold
and to produce calcium

I donate blood twice daily to the vampires
the calcium numbers hover between 6 and 7
(what, you ask? I have no idea...)
ever watchful for numbness in the hands and around the mouth
or abnormal muscle constricts

Finally, when that number reached 8, there was mention of going home
this was late Thursday. Then in dropped to 7.8 then 6.8 last night
placing me back on a calcium drip and more calcitrate

I miss my dogs--Buck and Maggie...
I miss showering, I miss not having bruises up and down my forearms
and a constant needle in a vein
I miss blue jeans, I miss restaurant food.
I miss meetings. I miss the Ledge.

but this is where I'm suppose to be right now
So I accept it.

so i continue to learn how to pray, to meditate, to appreciate.....

thank you for your amazing support during this difficult time.
I will stay focused on the bigger picture, and not the calcium number.

Ice Skaters

Racing down the glacier,
I've been monitoring the spot to my left for days now
Moving at the same velocity

I haven't seen life for some time,
no polar bears, seals,
an icebreaker chugging across the pole
and I'm unfazed but it all...

the speed is what keeps me alive
the blinding white from every direction

somewhere in the frosted air
I lose that mark and I continue the down hill descend

The glacier is rougher at this spot,
uncharted territory

When she appears,
(her hand exactly where it is suppose to be)
we touch, synchronize our speed,
our gait, our movements

We never forget the choreography
the sequences are the same
our revolutions, mirroring each other
are perfect, but whose watching,
where are the judges and cheering crowds
on this river frozen since pre-hysteric times?

Most of our skating is solitary, unprofessional, uneven.

but our direction has remained the same,
crossing paths unevenly and unpredictably
over the last 27 years
if only for a short time to continue the routine:
the beautiful choreography that is instinctual
without practice, without speaking.

Her Journey

Our journeys are perhaps identical,
not to the untrained eye.
but experts in the forensics of the heart.

We travel the same blind alleys, suspicious cul-de-sacs,
isolated traffic circles with no exits

we pick up the occasional hitcher
with the sign "To Anywhere"
we sense a kindred spirit,
trust our instincts, and are seldom right.

But never were we shot and left for dead
slumped over our steering wheel,
car horn screaming,
with money, music, and laptop missing

Did we love too much or
expected to love
too much?

She is here now
like she has always been
when leaves are falling, or off season, after 9/11
when it is necessary to comfort, to relate
and never a moment late.

Horse Heads

Their steely eyes and velvet mouths
whether carved in marble or against
a rainy field of relief, are constant.

I slow the Jeep and wave,
a reflexive wave, beyond my control.

If they were God's translator,
do not ask for gains, but guidance
do not ask for more, just to be.

Forgive me for writing this. It was an accident.

This energy that surrounds
me in hospitals and cornfields
on riverbanks and cafes
It resides in that perfect water droplet
on the white petal of this phalaenopsis
reminding me that there are no coincidences

First thoughts from the ICU, recovering from thyroid cancer on November 5

I have hope again
for my future
and this Lady's future

we are not reds and blues, blacks and whites
but recoverers

for every achievement, I learn humility
for each adversity, I seek the lesson.