In Memoriam: Human Hands

I pull my metal chair up to this glass table with my morning cup and unshakeable sadness. The violets in their plastic pottery spread and droop, withered heads of blood and rust curled in on themselves, ready for burial like composting beautiful, spent fruit. A single silver strand arches and shines beside me on the porch. No visible web, only this simple sturdy thread, tiny rope from which the morning spider must have propelled itself. Or perhaps its construction was made in the night and abandoned with day. Tiny bowl of orange, body mostly belly, skittering into hiding when the humans wake.

Here a burst of sage burns in a shell atop a red shawl spread on the city’s plaza. Priests and politicians on the bandstand. Around the city perimeter, native yucca sends up its tall, protective spikes. Century plant’s tightened coil unbraids itself, surrenders shoots nearly drained of color now. The opposite of surrender: fists exploding.

At the scene of the shooting, we are shown how dancers lifted a man in a wrap of
human hands as stretcher and carried him away, toward safety. Down to an ocean of
armed cars. Lit in red. Swirl of blue and shock. Blinding, this shuddering night. Another trapped in the bathroom with only his cell phone, a small rectangle of light, texting his mother that he believes he is going to die. I nearly cannot type this part of the story. But I must.

Lift the bowl, and swallow all their names. Make them mine. The quiet and the shattered.
Their haven of night. Broken into come morning. The thread that risks the slope from
solid into air. Without a net.

In Memoriam: Akyra, Alejandro, Amanda, Ángel, Anthony, Antonio, Brenda, Christopher, Christopher, Cory, DJ, Deonka, Eddie, Edward, Enrique, Eric, Frank, Franky, Geraldo, Gilberto, Jason, Javier, Jean, Jerald, Joel, Jonathan, Juan, Juan, Kimberly, Leroy, Luis, Luis, Luis, Martin, Mercedez, Miguel, Óscar, Paul, Peter, Rodolfo, Simón, Shane, Stanley, Tevin, Xavier, Yilmary. (Orlando, Florida, June 2016)

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Grit and Sunlight

What springs up: insistence in this persistent mother of mine (still breathing) Even busy ashes from a rescued urn float up reconstituted as morning dew She unfolds her tendril arms from shadow (shaking just five days ago as if in temporary surrender) (that moment when I am less certain of her longevity) this woman ever present (anyone’s mother) aging when even the most spindly clover of her fragile skin captures the sunrise light like anticipation’s shower blood underneath all humming bird or spores from her heart and in her mouth inhale (frightened) breath exhale grit inhale (certain) breath exhale grit

Open Mic, Cafe Babar

I remember arriving, not the prettiest but appealing to certain bards in the back room, entering through the Castro Valley corner door, walking the postage stamp sized Cinzano bar curated by a man from Detroit who named his establishment after a certain French elephant in a children’s book I arrive with budding consciousness around politically correct solidarity for disheveled neighbors, entering the cigarette lit night rising to tin siding ceiling to floor thumping insistence Bruce and Joie and David and Laura and John, their ash and sweat accumulating as I waited patiently for my place on the crumpled sign-up sheet Today, three decades later, I sit in a Santa Fe gallery named simply Here, and a poet reads to us of roadrunners and a bear and a continuation of the call for preservation of our environment There is an otherworldly hum outside the window of leaded glass The owner sidles up behind me and pushes the frame down to contain what we came to hear I have applied lipstick

A Matter of Travel

Solstice, 2019, for Tracy 1. And cross borders we do often without leaving our houses. Our bodies dream of gardens. Our hands flutter as feeling exits as we press hard against the solid entry door. I type the names of cities. My search reveals rivers, airfares, temperatures in July. 2. Seeking sleep, I am transported through music piped into tiny earbuds. While on an island my father has two seizures in the night. His ten children fly to one another with cautionary fright, typing. Time zones vary from each cell phone exclamation. Two sisters, you and I, raise questions that barely touch down for others but I witness you. 3. By morning we’re assured was merely fainting, and I reconsider change of plans. No emergency to rush to his quiet side. I walk no farther instead to this table for eggs, an English muffin. Arrive inside my individual conclusions. Concern that happiness, once again, is quickly stymied.

As Mourning Doves Persist

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