Category: Uncategorized

I remember
when I’d sit on the edge of a boat
watching little crabs scuttle across the shore.

I remember
when you’d buy me seafood
under gray skies at Pike’s Place.

I remember
when I’d cry every step along the way
when you’d scream and kick like a child
when you’d neglect and refuse to pray
when I’d keep things to myself

Now it’s too late.

Even after death you refuse to see me
when you’re burned and buried hundreds of miles
away from me.

I remember
when you’d cry with yellow eyes and wrinkles of regret.
The biting cold was comforting then.

I remember
when I’d walk alone
thinking of what I could’ve done better
after I refuse to see you.

I miss you, dad
and hope to be indifferent
the same way I watched crabs along Tacoma shores.

I hope to recollect
your caring for me

and my beating heart.

tell myself,
that today will be different
that the memory chains
will finally loosen

their grip.

I tell myself,
I will step forward
into the world,
leaving the past
behind.

As the sun rises
shadows lengthen

stretching long
across my thoughts,

binding me.

To the echoes
of your voice
and the ghost
of your touch.

Each step I take
heavy with weight.

My heart beats
a rhythm of regret,
a constant reminder

of the love
that lingered too long
that settled deep
into my bones.

I see your face
in strangers

I hear your thoughts
in whispers

I taste your smile
in the wind

and my mind wanders
down paths
we walked together,

retracing steps
that lead to nowhere

friends never see,
the scars

beneath the surface,

the marks
left by your departure

etched deep

into the fabric
of my being.

I try to fill
the void

with new experiences
new faces
new dreams

but each one falls
short.

A pale imitation
of life once imagined
a reminder of the gap

that cannot
be bridged.

Nights are the hardest
when silence falls
and darkness creeps in

I try so hard to forget
lying awake
tangled in sheets

that once held us both
wishing for sleep
that never comes.

I write letters,

to you.

That I’ll never send,
pouring out the words

I never had the courage,
to say,
to show,
to speak.

But as the ink dries,
the paper remains,
a story unfinished,
a chapter that refuses
to close.

I am caught
in the in-between

a place,
where the past
and present

collide

I left part of my heart on the CVICU floor
Somewhere between room 6 and room 4
And it has been missing everyday since.
Someone mentions your name and I wince,
Seeing you in that bed, I couldn’t even look you in the eyes…..
All I remember is holding my big sister as she cries,
The blaring of those alarms,
And all the IV’s sticking out of your arms.
Because somewhere between room 6 and room 4
I left part of my heart on the CVICU floor.

you smoke in my dreams
leaned up against the wall
long legs sprawled across the bed
your smile curling
playfully around a cigarette

in that realm you are
a fly trapped in amber
a leaf under glass
in my dreams you
are just a man

not any of the things you swore to me
you weren’t, tears brimming in your eyes
if only I had known all the last times
I had with you were last times
if only I had guessed (Somehow, I had known)

I would have been kinder
I would have hugged you more
I would have held you
for longer
as long as I could

in my dreams you are just a man
and I am just myself, and we were
as we met
curious but lazy, sparks of light
curled into one another

you- incredibly warm and incredibly tall
an iron giant with magician’s hands
and I was a small and nervous thing
I leaned toward you as a plant to the sun

were we both plants leaning
towards the suns of one another?
both moths with wings painted
the color of flames?

In my dreams you are just a man
with oil and grease under his nails
and a strange and terrible glint in his eyes
in my dreams you are laughter
and fourth of July, you are homemade fireworks
and breakfast at 2 in the morning you are
grocery store roaming in the dead of night
you are petulant and stupid and grinning
always grinning, like a fool ( like a mad dog )

I drew pictures of you in my sketchbooks
at school, hidden away like shameful secrets
I was so embarrassed, back then
to be in love

in my dreams you are just a man
just a man that I happen to love
in my dreams you are not
the worst thing that
has ever happened to me
you are not a collection of scars
stamped over my heart, you are not
a hole in my brain
dark and black and bottomless, you are not
those things, you are just

who you wanted to be while you were alive
(what I hoped you wanted)
who I wanted you to be while you were alive
a hand
ever so gently petting my head
gazing at me with a softness (real or imagined?)
in those gaslit eyes

you are car rides and rain and
when I pass someone who smells
like marlboro reds or I see the back
of a tall man with short dark hair
when I hear someone laugh
suddenly and sharply (Like an Axe)
my knees buckle and
I almost collapse

three years ago I called you
at my grandparents house
while I sat outside listening
to cicadas and frogs
and your low voice in my ear
you were the only person who existed
in the world then
I don’t remember what you said
I just remember that when I came back

you were waiting for me, arms full
of stolen snacks you knew I liked
sitting cross legged on the floor,
warm
and warm, and warm, you were
the only person who mattered, then
you were of my blood and bone, the first
person that I chose ( but was it my choice? )

and I was
a kid
that didn’t know any better

In my dreams you are driving
with one hand resting on my thigh
and one forgotten cigarette perched on your ear

and you’re smiling at me,
that smile you had
just for me
the one that made
you glow ( or perhaps absorb light )

we are not heading towards any destination
and we have all the time in the world
my arm wraps around yours
and my head rests against your shoulder

and we are only
two people who love
one another

I wish we could have only been
two people who loved one another
for the short time that we had

I wish for a great many things
that I’ll never have

Only the face that looks back at me in the mirror
is a painted expression of agony
this, at the very least,
I know is real
and true

it’s been even longer now
in my nightmares your eyes are caverns
and you are still alive
on the run
on the hunt
on my scent
on my trail
with pockets full of poison
and a mind formed from nails

and I am half insane and huddling
in a corner
thinking, just my luck, just my luck

Don’t go! Don’t go!
Pain of life was crushing.
Don’t go! Don’t go!
He took himself away.
We didn’t know.
We didn’t know.
Every second his body ached.
Every moment his heart ached.
He said few words
trying to “be a man,”
to attain the culture myth,
a fantasy for all.
Don’t go! Don’t go!
Locked himself in,
plastered brains
across the wall,
didn’t say, ‘Good bye,’
and left.

~ Duane L Herrmann

I lift my eyes from gardens pink and gold
Where glittering pollen anoints the bees’ feet
And black ants greet each other as they meet–
Spring’s dewy mantle over all is rolled.

One whom I love is buried in the cold
And cannot see the sunshine dance on corn
Or stroll with me past lakes some misty morn
While we share secrets otherwise untold.

Her loss makes heaven’s stars appear to dim;
Infinity itself seems more finite;
The moon has also lost a bit of light;
I learn to walk anew, sans phantom limb.

for a longtime friend whose adult child died a week before Thanksgiving 2017

We had just turned back the clocks:
we who are left stuck here had gotten more time.

Or really, nowadays, most of them turn themselves back.
How does who control what?

Remember when we thought it was parents?
When we chewed our nails as we asked

what happens to kids who paint badly.
How about who break toys? Leave the windows open?

Then, after so many years passed
in a horrible blur, we were the ones being asked.

Long before that, we had started carrying too-small bags
too full to close all the way, on our narrow shoulders

through the swamp under hot sky like our moms.
We were too soon wordlessly asked to commence aligning planks

of wood and triangulation and generational silence
to make something, anything, sure on shifting soil.

How long will anyone have to close up all the long, thin holes
between what can be counted on, to carry what they carry?

The doorknobs God booby-trapped the world with
fall off in my hands when I turn them and I fall to pieces.

Do I even want to strive so hard to find openings anymore?
To know how who controls what?

Maybe I will just make the floor again, get all those
brittle boards to kiss in this inviolably unfixable world.

The train sped by that night–
Crashing and clanking its wheels
Violently against the tracks, moving fast–
Only a snapshot of the graffiti on the cars
Was visible in the late summer darkness.
Since we were so close and unhinged,
We spoke of how it could derail right there–
Leading to our grisly destruction.

Now, in the midst of sorrow and questioning,
I think I should have paid more attention
To find a sort of legible foreshadowed message
In the hieroglyphics spray painted
Like some kind of omen.

That was the last night I saw you,
Before you sped off into the unknown.
The train only has one way to go—
With your destiny laid out on the tracks,
And a great plan to never come back,
You hitched a ride on one of those cars
Running towards the moving train to jump, to escape,
All the toil, the noise, the pain.

She leaves for the south
never to see home again.
The winds are at her back.
Red rock valleys roll and release
into the unfurled fields and flowers
The Great Plains stretch out to define
the sawtooth Appalachian mountains.
Her message has a mighty meaning.
She signals health and happiness.
Hers is a journey says to all,
Fertile is the future.
She rests on the corn plant.
A chemical rain descends.
Blisters begin on the wings.
The burning knocks her down.
Her flight falls furiously.
Her antenna curl over her eyes.
Tumbling and crashing,
her migration, invisible.

He headed to the north.
leaving a sailor’s life.
His family’s fishing ship;
an empty catch.
Searching for a home,
a white ghost forest watches him walk.
Concerned from the grave
their roots, ocean salted.
On day thirty, his breath shortens.
He lies on the ground;
Sees the burnt butterfly, eye to eye.
He buries the dead monarch.
Dirt over the wings
Blesses her and thinks,
We are all foreign somewhere.

I’d finger a bead for each death, counting the times
I’ve lost them–
though they still walk the planet.

First bead: Mom bemoans the “lifestyle change” eight years ago:
Dad missed some outing.

Next: my first book is published. She slips the slim volume beneath her glass coffee
table without fanfare.

The calls, the calls, the cradling calls.
I’ve become the crooner
of our mother-daughter lullaby.

My father’s blow-up, “You’ll do what I tell you!”
(invectives never uttered my entire childhood).
His sputtering he’ll empty
a forty-five into his only son.

Each bead would pang, jangling
in a shrouded pocket.