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After The Mosquito by D. H. Lawrence

You don’t know that I exist, and I don’t know that you exist.
Now then!

It is you, Trump,
It is you, hateful little Trump,
You pointed fiend,
Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:
It is your small, hateful bugle in my ear. That incessant buzz.

Why do you do it?
Surely it is bad policy.
Melania says you can’t help it.

If that is so, then I believe in Providence protecting the
innocent.
But it sounds so amazingly like the slogan, MAGA,
A yell of triumph as you snatch my scalp.

Blood, red blood
Super-magical
Forbidden liquor.

I behold you stand
For a second enspasmed in oblivion.
Obscenely ecstasied

Sucking the live blood,
My blood.

You stagger
As well you may.
Only your accursed yellow wavey curls endure.
Your own imponderable weightiness, your bulk
Saves you, wafts you away on the very draught my anger makes in
Its snatching. A dirigible of lies, a blind torpedo

Away with a paean of derision, like a shrill Kamikaze,
You winged blood-drop, you speck, you ghoul on wings.

What a big stain my sucked blood makes
Beside the infinitesimal faint smear of you!
Odd, what a dim dark smudge you have disappeared into!

In grief’s darkest moments, she aches
for him,
The turmoil within her soul, only he can
calm.
She needs him most, but won’t whisper
a word,
She only listens to songs they shared.
Looking at the sunset sky.
For she knows the pain of losing a
loved one
Lingers far beyond a day or a week.
Yet, only his presence can give her
strength
To bear the weight of this heartache
To navigate her shattered world, to find
her way
Through the haze of tears and sorrow
The reason no one else can draw her
near
Is that she’s still entwined with him,
In denial, refusing to face
That her heart remains forever his

I met her at the door
on that warm June evening,
and we headed into town.
I did not know what to say then
Both from my nerves
and the towering language barrier that divided us.
Even if I could say something, would she even understand me?
The train brought us right to our destination,
some katsu shop at the station.
Would she like the food? Did I pick a good spot?
She seemed happy, at the very least,
or so I could infer.

Despite the language gap
we made awkward small talk
throughout the meal.
We talked about family,
hopes and dreams,
life and culture.
It was strange but cheerful.

Macarons on a peaceful evening
shared atop a ruined castle
Seemed right to continue the mood.
Nighttime city views
melded with flavor of the dessert.
The perfect moment had come.

My heart was racing as I prepared the words.
「付き合いたいですか？」

She said yes.

We headed into the mountains
To view the basin from afar.
A vast lake of twinkling lights below
Mirrored the stars in the sky.
I cast the awkwardness of the evening into that sea
And love blossomed above the city lights

It is going to be a normal day of school
Leaning against my locker, I was killing time

Locked and loaded, he said it’s killing time
People running, screaming and dropping

People dropping, not running, not screaming
Falling against my locker I’m like a paint brush

I am like a paint brush painting my locker red
My mom’s favorite color is red

Red was always my mom’s favorite color
Dad got her red roses for her birthday

What did I get her for her birthday?
Have a good day my dad told me

I always have a good day I told him
It was going to be a normal day of school

Flowers bloom
In their room
Birds Zoom
In their plume.

Man, he sits
In his fits
And he zips
Up his lips.

The flower shows
All it knows
As it grows
See its pose.

Man cares
As he shares
All his fears
Through his tears.

Flowers bloom
In their room
Men fume
Troubles loom.

© Joy Fairclough 2002

She died yesterday
A heart problem
The physical kind
shovelled onto the metaphorical
We shared one night
years ago Buried
in non-chronological memory
Valueless
hollow, coffin-like intimacy
Empty sex
The kind reserved for the lonely
the desperate
the dead
A feeble attempt
to cling briefly to humanity
Now she clings no more
and I am numb to her passing
Simple guilt of feeling nothing
She died yesterday
A heart problem

You knew exactly
what it would do to me. You,
who knew me best. It was like the death
of three of my people, two of them
grandchildren, one of them
you,
my daughter.

I have to go about
like an amputee:
a quarter of a heart,
rubber legs,
arms sawed off
limping about avoiding
the toy section,
Christmas,
the pail and shovel,
“Baby Shark,”
grilled cheese,
and the whole world.
You all are so woven
into the tapestry of my life, I spend
my hours trying not to remember
the touch of his tiny hand,
his head in my lap,
your soft hair, gilded waterfall.

Sometimes I think
I hear them, stumbling
up the stairs, spilling
into my room, they poke
their heads in and
then, amazingly,
there you are just behind them!

I dream of all of you.
I call your name but can make no sound.

I can make no sound.

my grandma is dying
I guess
we don’t act like she’s dying
but she is

not right now
not for a few years
but the doctors put a name on it
tell us it’s coming

I don’t know this kind of dying
the kind where they forecast it, only
couple-days-ago-dying, only
late-to-find-the-body-dying

so I’m a bad granddaughter
I forget the name
I don’t read many articles
because it hasn’t happened
yet, and I don’t know
how to know
alive-dying

In spring’s embrace, the earth reclaims her voice,
A verdant song where life begins anew,
The buds unfurl, the rivers dance and rejoice,
As light and warmth weave through the morning dew.

But Shelley’s world, where beauty met despair,
Now speaks in tongues of fire and melting ice,
The blossoms’ blush, a fragile, fleeting prayer,
As earth’s own pulse is taxed by heavy price.

Summer strides bold, with golden, burning hand,
Her breath a heat that sears the weary ground,
Yet nature’s cycle spins, as once it planned,
Though now, its rhythm altered, sights confound.

We stand within this altered cadence, torn,
Our echoes lost within the thunder’s cry,
What once was life in birth, now scars adorn,
The seasons shift beneath a darkened sky.

Look at it she says with a firm but gentle voice, you will feel better if you look at it.

I knew in my heart and in that moment, whatever blood and tissue or perfect baby girl lay on that cold steel table would get no acknowledgement from me.

I desperately pressed my face away, against that same cold steel, I could feel the tears pooling on my cheeks and my legs straining against the stirrups.

The joy we felt just weeks earlier, when the plate on my full belly danced as she explored her secret world.

Anastasia, curly red hair, big blue eyes and a future of endless possibilities.

Syphilis the Doctor gently murmured as he stroked my hand when the quickening stopped.

After that, I found myself at the hospital on the Gulf where all the poor girls go.

I should have hated the man I married.

I should have left.

I should have listened to my family and his and never married him to begin with.

However, his training was ironclad before I was on the shores of the Gulf.

Cut off from anyone who had ever loved me.

3 AM wake up calls when the clerk was too friendly or I smiled at a random stranger.

Always known for my strength my moxy and my humor before I met him.

It took three years for his family to call my parents and explain that I would not survive.

I bundled up my new son and went home.

40 years later secure and happy with the man I love.

I console my friend as she gives me the details of her daughter’s miscarriage.

With tears in her eyes she ask, “How do you get over something like that”

With no confidence in my voice, I say, “You just do”.