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I wonder when her mind started to overflow
so much that she couldn’t control the direction
like a garden hose left on by some kid
without a hand to guide the water to the lilacs
just starts whipping around the yard, dancing
like one of those avant garde troupes, supposedly artful.

I wonder if it was after her husband’s death
or if I was just too young to know when I could talk
adult to someone much older so I didn’t notice
the train careening wildly off track. It was more
of an adventure then, discovering suddenly the end
of the line left you at some guilt ridden station
or a park full of dead Jews. But now the ride isn’t there,
shut down and the places aren’t places but flailing arms
grasping for a piece of logic here, a piece of logic there
and only getting random assortments
of an eighty year old life unraveling at the end.

Family Vacation

    I sit with a turtle on my back discovering the waves lapping at my toes and I hear him singing, “Why don’t they call a life a death”, and I think his eyes are facing the wrong way into his shell but I don’t prod, it’s not nice to pick at something so old.
    The clouds shaped like cars keep the sun tripping over my skin and the high rise sky line sits witnessing the pulse of the ocean and I can feel his stomach slowly peeling off my back and I say, “Isn’t the snow three thousand miles north west?” to the response of a furled eyebrow, didn’t know turtles could lift a doubt in any direction but then again there’s the suction sound of a wave scraping the top layer of sand off the beach and it makes me want to scream:
    I want to be alone! here not tucked in with ligaments but awash in a beer tide hammering the shell into tiny musical notes so I reach into my pocket where I have bone, cast far into the air until the horizon splits dark light and shouts back something about the length of a day but it’s too late, the turtle has gone and buried his head in the sand, I thought only bears hibernate but I guess Florida’s just as good a place as any to escape for a week or so.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The note said: drunken saddam,
but that’s not what she meant,
my Grandma had sloppy writing,
now I don’t know what to do
and I have a feeling it was really important.

Guess I could ask if I dug a little
but then again the answer can’t breathe
underground. Get out the ethereal directory
and phone, there must be someone
who knows what to do with this orphan

apartment. The frowning oven,
the furled brow of the light bulbs.
It’s a lonely place now
with so many furry memories.
I wonder if she was watching

the news about Iraq, maybe having a little
Manischevitz and on the grocery list
on the fridge next to cherries she wrote:
drunken saddam while her heart
made the encore performance pump

for the untouched china in the cupboards
and the over polished silverware in the drawers
and she grabbed the list to hold on, it ripped
and she fell to the linoleum kitchen floor.
They found her cold fingers wrapped tight

around those indecipherable words:
drunken saddam.

Concourse D

Here I could describe the sensation of knowing no one, of being human, of waiting for a schedule, of announcements, of footsteps, luggage, of the Eagles in the background, of groups of boys in uniform, of uniforms transcending time to WWII, but you already know this feeling, this holding, this delay, this overwhelming, this no-sleep place, these fluorescent lights and rows of slightly padded seats, all those leavings and all those arrivings, all those tears and all those smiles, all those hugs and memories and fears, all packed into a small suitcase, all shoved into terminals, all swirling around the stuffy air – there are designated sentimental areas – please refrain from weeping in public– please don’t leave your relationships unattended– if you see lone baggage please contact your god’s organization or the nearest TSA member.

Flying Into ATL

I’m always in awe of landing
again and again, this giant vessel
straight out of the sky makes toys
grow up, those little sand piles
in the backyard, mills.

We zoom closer and closer
to a little gray strip. It’s not getting
off the ground, that’s too easy,
just flick the imagination switch,
run into abstract planes, all those

airports for birds in the sky
and Orlando is the worst,
you get held up for miles,
wings worn out for hours
but anyway,

it’s the landing. When you trade
in those wings and hit the concrete,
when you break down your dreams
with a mallet made of dirt,
that’s the part that makes me stare
out the tiny window watching

life become real again, watching
suburbia outside of Atlanta, watching
so much construction of new roads
and countless ends in cul-de-sacs
and knowing

how many don’t have homes
and how many reasons there are
and how many reasons there aren’t.