Ostrich

I’m (not )Crying; You’re(not) Crying

Poem in which I Attempt to Repair that Which is Irreparable

Dear dead leaves poking through last nights snow, alas, I cannot
rake you. Branches, broken, downed by the ice storm, I cannot

reattach you. Fat white cat snoring behind my back, I cannot
teach you new tricks or wake you. (which cat, I ask, which cat

do I refer to? Ghost cat or living cat; nothing, remember, nothing
and no one is replaceable.) Dear brother, walking away from me

 in a dream, I cannot stop you. You will ignore me even after
you transform magically into a deer (misspelled dear just now)

and disappear into woods where I cannot follow. Younger
brother and older, and me, forever in the middle,  we were three

in the forest, now we are two and I am screaming but you cannot
hear me, dear deer and I cannot hear you. Dear stone walls lost

in the wilderness, gapped with missing rocks, dear Robert Frost,
fences don't always make the best of neighbors. Dear wind and rain

and sleet, endured as I walked every winter night, elements beating
at my face or a back, I cannot ask you to make me any stronger.

First Grief

The time you were told to stop
crying. No one likes a crybaby,
she said. You were sitting in the sky
blue station wagon with your mother.
You were seven. You'd made a scene,
pitched a fit, completely lost your shit
on a first grade field trip to the zoo.
You dropped your souvenir, a sticker
book, into a stream running through
the world of birds exhibit after leaning
to far over the the railing of the bridge.
A snowy egret pecked at the wet pages.
A great blue heron continued to fish,
uninterested in the tragedy of your day.
Your mother, a class chaperone, said
your name once. Then, as you wept
and wept for the grandmother no one
told you was dead, she put on her sunglasses
and turned her head. Roll up your window,
she said. The wind will tangle your hair.

Ode to a Horse Taking a Piss

You meant to write a poem about the black horse
you passed driving too fast, standing still  in the field,
legs oddly spread--you briefly thought he was suffering
 a seizure--as he took a piss from his rather large penis
which made you think  of Sharon Olds and her ode
 to dicks and slugs, which caused you to avert your eyes
like a girl who's seen something she shouldn't see
which reminded you of your parents' locked bedroom
door, how once, when they were getting ready to go out
on a date, the door was ajar, and through the crack
you saw your mother, stunning, pale, in a black dress
and your father, handsome and tall in a suit pulling
the zipper carefully up her back--you never saw them
kiss--and you felt like a spy in your house of unspoken
love in which body functions, parts and appendages
were kept secret, and you wonder how you different
you would be, as that silent girl, as this strange woman
if you'd been able to figure out a balance between
being a stoic or a crybaby, between biting your lips
until they bled versus just blurting out what needed
to be, what you longed to, what any human being
would have said. 

Enough

You're never sure, if you pimp or whore your
life, memorizing every memory for the sake
of "art." Poetry. Ha. You're not ashamed
to admit you writing poems in your head--
you couldn't help it--the weekend your father
was dying. From the alien purple sky at dawn
when your friend drove you to the ER
after being awakened by your mother crying
like an animal into the phone to the moment
you knew you'd never not say I love you
to your father ever again after beating
the ambulance to the hospital only to watch
him wheeled in like a sarcophagus and giving
the okay to the nurse when she asked permission
to intubate him. At that point, his right hand
was still knocking at door, trying to get out,
or trying to get in. From the three crows that flew
past the waiting room in slow motion to the brown
grocery bag containing his clothes, wallet, watch
and shoes that your mother handed to you to take
home, you knew, even as you filmed it all in your head
that there was no going back, that you could never
to the shared silences, to the regret that you had nothing
to say to him until he figured out that you could chat
about poetry. He rewrote The Colonel as a sonnet
because he refused to recognize prose poetry as valid.
From the huge,  unblinking blue , a stained glass
window staring from the historical church across
the street where your mother walked out after vespers
because she could not feel god's comfort, to god incarnate
roaming his garden as he assessed the progress of his corn
and tomatoes in the tiny yard below the looming hospital.
Admit it. You are a pimp and a whore. Shameless.
You were writing it all down in your head as you lived it.
Don't beat yourself up for being who you were, for who
you are, for who he was. You were his daughter. He was
your father. Love, even not said out loud, is still love.
And, is enough. 

Selfie with Marmot

Can the groundhog standing on your patio,
taking a break from the neighbor's barking
dog and the April rain see you? He puts
his muddy paws on the sliding glass door
and stares into your living room. You stare
back trying to shake the certainty that
this fellow mammal is judging you.
Your life's a mess. Ugly rugs and mismatched
furniture and cheap lamps. Does he loathe
the mammoth sofa, resplendent in its
sagging, cherry red? Would he redecorate?
Does he think your unkempt hair, curly,
au natural, is ridiculous?Would he gently
suggest a daily dose of Prozac for your crazy
cat who's staring at the contemptuous woodchuck,
scared shitless? The rain slows to a drizzle
and the yapping dog goes silent. The rodent
holds your gaze for a moment in assent
as if to say, girl, it is what it is, then leaves. 

Resist the Sentimental

Resist the sentimental. A deserted beach
in Maine on Easter Sunday. The ocean was cleaner
back then, the sand littered with shells
and sea glass. Your family ate ham sandwiches
and tossed the crusts to hungry gulls.
Your dog ran up and down the beach barking
at the waves as the tide came in. The wind
whipped your hair and ripped at the kite
in your hands, a giant black bat that flapped
 its wings ready for flight. Where was Christ
in this? Your little brother laughed as he released
his bat and watched it fly away. Your father
held yours like a peregrine and told you
to run, so you did. You can fast across the hard
wet sand and looked back to see your kite rise
up. You held tight to the string as your bat
became a black dot in the sky. You didn't cry
when the string broke and the kite disappeared.
Then your mother said, it's cold, let's go home.

Crepuscular

No poem tonight. Instead, everything
in silhouette. The courthouse angels, trumpets
silent, high above a dead president;
a century ago they could be seen shining gold
from miles off. The dark blue clouds, juxtaposed
with a night sky filled with light. Call the color
not yet midnight. Name the moment missed
sunset. A Canada goose drifts alone
in the middle of the lake. Don't ask yourself
the question. Where is its mate? A woman
driving home, Boy George on the radio,
sings out loud. I'm a man without conviction.
No one in the passenger seat to add harmony.
She senses but does not see deer at the edge
of darkness watching the headlights, biding
their time until it's safe to make the crossing.
Tonight she will dream of fawns and wings,
abandoned nests, and unhatched eggs.

Holy Saturday

I don't feel like writing a poem right now.
I'm tired. It's late. I want to go home.
To New Hampshire. I want to talk
to the ocean. I want to get lost in the woods.
I want to go back to that big brown house
on the hill in the middle of nowhere.
I want to see that silver wolf dog
 who only lived two years sitting on top
of the boulder in the front yard surveying
everything that was hers. I want to go
back to the Holy Saturday when I split
my knee open on the driveway playing
basketball in my white sandals before
church. I want to forgive the young man
who rang the doorbell as I stood in the kitchen
bleeding, and cried as he told my parents
our dog was dead. He struck her with his car.
He never saw her sleeping on the cool pavement.
How do you explain to a stranger that your dog
took naps on the long, winding rural road
on which we lived. Londonderry. She was at heart
a wolf. A wild animal. She loved her family
and no one else. I don't want to write a poem
right now about one of the only times I saw
my father cry as we huddled together and tried
to grasp what was lost before we went to mass.