The Electric Ache

I've been collecting the bits for this poem for a while. It feels good to release it into the wild.

The Electric Ache

To me, dust in a sunbeam
looks like glitter 
and blood drops in
water could be a lava lamp. 

The blue-green sheen 

of a jellyfish also lives

in labradorite stone.

A light-falling snow

looks like fluff 

from cottonwoods.

And it all makes me feel

the heavy, infinite 

potential of beauty, 

like a Monarch's wings

through chrysalis. 

Curb drains huffing clouds 

into 9 degree air.

The buttery-ness of honey in mint tea.

Oaks puzzling with their jigsaw

 leaves--

 the fallen ones fluttering

 across the snow

 like sparrows.

 

And suddenly I love 

that all the beauty

is also balanced 

with sharpness

--the electric ache while savoring

dark chocolate and 

the biting

smell of sun-soaked 

tomato plants in June.

On Being Hairy

Another draft that I'm letting be good enough. Like many people last year, I did a lot of learning to sit with myself during lockdown. And honestly, I don't have the energy to be self-conscious any more, even about things I've always been told to especially avoid as a woman. So here's the result of my internal process.

On Being Hairy

To feel like a peach,

    with its velvet skin and smooth curve, 

a slight blush on the arc and a gentle 

give when pressed, could not be 

such a bad thing. 

But the fuzz on my 

upper lip, the few hairs

that prickle--should those get to stay?

And that cluster on my chin and the rogues 

between my eyebrows and that silly 

one that always regrows on my throat.

Those wisps of baby hair at the nape

of my neck, the ones eternally too

short to stay in ponytails but too long to pin up.

The shading on my forearms

or that soft warm ever-spreading 

patch between my legs. A 

coarse pattern down to my ankles.

The hairs on the segments of my fingers 

between each knuckle of my hands, and 

on the tops of my toes--. 

Is it all good enough reason to be 

uncomfortable in this one body I have?

Dental Office Assistant

Sometime last year, before 2020 and all of its decay, I finished this poem about my time working in a dental office. It seems apropos now, during the time of the year I always feel sad, in a year that has been sadder than most, and specifically in a month that marks the first anniversary of my grandma's death. I doubt that any of us feel okay right now, but I keep hoping that we will get there.

Dental Office Assistant

Symptoms of decay manifest 

as caries, chipped incisors, sharpened molars,

cracked canines crowned with metal and porcelain,  

foul exhalations, strong musk perfume, 

crows-feet around the eyes 

avoiding a bright light aimed at the mouth. 

Manifest as bills paid late 

or never or only because of collection agency 

calls. As dusty acrylic teeth waiting in drawers.

As hobbled steps hesitating 

at my desk counter. As warbled chit-chat

delaying a slow drive to an empty home.

As me, pulling paper patient charts

from filing cabinets, penciling 

“deceased,” and stacking in the back lab

atop the microwave until Dr. Allison

organizes them among the boxes labeled A-Z. 

Sounds Like A Bowl

I heard the earth drinking today.

A March shower came through this morning,

the kind that makes me impatient for spring, the oaks full with their jigsaw leaves and soft moss. My backyard soaking up rainwater made the same soft, muffled snap-popping as the miraclegro dirt does when I water my pothos. Somehow I assumed it would be different magnified on such a scale—the whole world gulping. I imagine how it looks under there—liquid pushing air up and out from beside the roots—like bubbles of oil and vinegar shaken together. Each complements the other, but the two never exist in the same place. A connection shared by absolute trust and complete knowledge. I listen to the ground. And all that friction sounds to me like a bowl of rice krispies in milk but quieter.

Upon Getting Inked

It’s a relief to have a companion, 

a fellow traveler, a hitchhiker 

riding along. A part of me, 

but not me. How I imagine a mother 

feels for a child--a being brought 

here by pain, enmeshed, permanent, 

but so distinctly chosen--a constant 

in churning daily life, a marker 

pointing “This way home.”

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

I've returned to this poem every fall for probably five or six years now. Summer is my favorite season, and autumn is bittersweet. This year is no different, maybe even more-so because it has been a joyful year and I'm sad to see it drawing to a close. The first few leaves are falling to the ground and my two remaining best friends in the area are moving to Tulsa and to Germany. I haven't found another piece that gets at this sharpness as well as Mary Oliver's "Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness." I actually wrote my previous post just after sifting through this poem.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

by Mary Oliver

"Every year we have been

witness to it: how the

world descends

into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.

And therefore

who would cry out

to the petals on the ground

to stay,

knowing, as we must,

how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?

I don’t say

it’s easy, but

what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world

be true?

So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,

and the ponds be cold and black,

and the sweets of the year be doomed."


>>>
Tabitha and Jamie,

I am happy for you as you leave in the same way I am happy the leaves are falling. I have no doubt it is what you are supposed to be doing. That the result will be hard-won growth after a time that may be dark and difficult. As Mary sums up so well, "I don't say it's easy, but what else will do if the love one claims to have for the world (and for one's friends) be true?" Our time together in NWA was longer than I dared hope for and I am grateful. I enjoy our quirky keeping in touch through all manner of things--Pinterest and Instagram and Marco Polo videos and snail mail and random pictures and Amazon packages and messages that start with, "Hey, remember when?"

I'm proud of you and I love you very much.

That Which Belongs to Both

A first draft poem that finally sums up what I've felt a long time about autumn. Unlike almost everything else I've ever written, it pieced itself together in a matter of minutes. I'm happy with it for now.

That Which Belongs To Both

The crisp green that belongs to both 

fall and spring is at the tops of the trees. 

Have you ever noticed that spring spreads 

from the bottom up, as fall does from the top down?

As if each lives out the verb with which it shares a name.

A certain few weeks each year, 

a photo can’t capture whether or not 

the green is coming or going. All looks the same, 

like pictures of sunrises and sunsets—I never could tell them apart. 

Something about that sameness 

in ending and beginning is comforting, I think.