Facing Forward, Looking Back

Patsy Cline is singing in the living room while I wash the morning's dishes. My husband is at the computer refashioning his novel. Last night I sat at the table with two other poets, thoughtful women with whom I will read tomorrow in a local bookstore on the acequia in Santa Fe. We practiced tentatively at first with one another. Barbara pretending to look up and out over her glasses at the imaginary. I closing my eyes to gauge the distance between the reader and the song spun out to the songs inside of others. Tania brings her elegant, old world surname which we mark into syllables for proper introduction though, under the influence of two dark beers at that lesson-taking, I am not even entirely sure where I scribbled the phonetic cheat sheet. Not to worry. We will forget certain things and remember others as we stand to clear our throats and aim to remain calm projecting the humor, our compact stories, and favorite music to those present.

When the cowgirl's nostalgic afternoon set is finished, I shut down the player and retype a single poem in my line-up, whittle the questions to the immediate, conjuring the hands of masseuse on the surface of my skin. My daughter calls and I read her the last poem and she fondly repeats back to me her favorite line about shredding the expected menus and escaping the mundane and the muddy, and assures me that the early review - even before we've taken the stage - is truly a necklace of shiny compliment.

Jointly we peck at the find and replace command, clean up the page, and sweep the room. My husband changes the name of his villain to something less tongue-in-cheek. I look up the name of posterior muscles and practice their pronunciation to myself and to the sleeping black dog in the cool afternoon study.

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