Unholy Imaginings

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in deep winter’s sleep
a smiling, silent woodnymph
alights on my stoop

his cordovan boots
are two thai chili-peppers
– graceful, slender tipped

we speak through our thoughts
silver threads twined in gnarled trees
twisted by the moon

he asks, so i dance
intuiting each fresh step
of bright, snowflaked dreams

the raccoons raid the trash
i clean up their mess, my mess
cold rain gathers on the horizon
rivulets of decay pool at my feet
soaking the ohio soil
the bones of my old homes
the hurt of our past seasons

in the interstices of time
our lives pause and twine

two primates clasped
in the thick hours
of infatuation

i close my eyes
picturing saber-toothed tigers
stalking towards the parked car

kiss me hard
take me all the way back
to the pliocene

the bass player
runs his hand
through sweat-soaked bangs
his pinky bleeds
down the seam
he holds the cut
to his pursed lips
quick, gentle pressure
the blood never stops
the jumping crowd
moves the floor
this is a protest song

double pneumonia

it’s crushing me
nothing is on you
it hurts, i can’t breathe
the blanket? i moved it. how do you feel?
i just want to sleep

dad wraps me
fast in a quilt
runs downstairs
into the alley
buckles me into
the jeep wrangler
and we speed
through snowy
Lorain

he carries me into the ER
and maintains a hostile air
of businesslike irritation
until i am in a room
until they give me oxygen
until my brain can think
hear, see, smell, taste

i can tell by the way
he sits next to my bed
his huge shoulders sloped
head lowered, eyes on the door
he is tired, impatient, scared

every time i wake up
they are drawing blood
my fingers ache
from the lack of it

maybe i need it more than they do

fever subsides
blood oxegenates
nurses give me icecream
in little foam cups
with wooden spoons

i am myself again

dad stands up
holds my hand
we can leave when you are ready
are you OK to walk?

he would carry me to the ends of the earth if asked
i didnt know then of time and weight and distance
that this was the last morning
he could carry me to safety

yes. i can walk, now.

The Italian restaurant owner argues with the waitress about how there could not possibly be a leak in the ceiling, and that the water pooling in the hallway must be from something else.

I sit at a small table facing the back door, facing you.

We order dinner and contemplate a map of Italy.

The owner stares out of the white iron-scrolled door into the alley.

I am saying inane things to you to drown out the argument.

I can’t find the coordinates for Florence, but we should go there. And See Rome.

An ambulance arrives at the duplex across the alley.

They sell large cannoli and small cannoli, here. 

The paramedics in this neighborhood wear bulletproof vests.  I see them hauling a sheet-covered-stretcher down the stairs of an old duplex, partially obscured by the form of the Italian.

He turns from the screen door and puts on upbeat music.

The waitress glares at him from the corner.

You see the fear in my face.

You ask what’s wrong.

I cannot stand the incongruities.

The alley.  Our little stores of potential future pleasures, our play-acted tragedies, all of life amounts to Not A-God-Damned-Thing.

I think somebody died.

You search my face while I pretend to locate Florence on the map.  Despite my stalling tactic, I do not come up with anything more intelligent to say.

Life is terrifying.  Death is fucked.

Short-lived carnal appetites drive humanity forward.

The gnocchi is divine.  We order the large cannoli.

I once read that troubled spirits cannot depart.  They are believed to walk the same path over and over again, wailing, screaming, seeking closure, and a release from their trauma.  Steps on the flagstones, screams in the well, hallways haunted by the rustle of their garments.

ghost walk blues

morning, night
she walks the perimiter
a lupine shadow, trailing

she commands him to sit, stay
at the end of the driveway
then releases him

he runs, unbridled
sleek with kinetic wolfjoy
scattering leaves in his wake

april sleet
thick as frozen buttermilk
clings to her cold, pale fingers

she laughs, swears
scattering handfuls of seeds
for the chicakdees’ breakfast

who cry out
their highest alert level
until the forms disappear

blood-scented winter wind
tastes of spring mud
stings like paint chips
splintered into nailbeds

i look at my feet as i walk, collecting pinecones

feathered treebark falls
trodden down
on sidewalks
like crisp, flattened birds

saved between dictionary pages for decades

the hallowed parts of us
will transcend all
adversity
to be found and cherished

sought by the scavenger, immutable as nature

 

the sun edges beneath the hem of the leaden cloudbank
backlighting rosegold strands of vapor
spewing airy pellets, dripping sleet
onto bronze-leaved oaks

i ache for the warm brassy verve of summer sunsets
not iced bands of sepia-silver
growing cold as the sun slips asleep
drugged by November