Another False Daydream


I say to myself, Anne Sullivan
will meet me
in a late spring garden
tasting of violets and wild garlic

my palm will curve
round the bony press of her fingers
re-arranging my thoughts
sprawled across the grass

heat will gather
in the cotton of her dress
soft against my cheek

lilacs bloom by the picket fence
and maybe she will teach me
by their scent
which of them are white
and which are common purple





Hot Flash


To forge weapons
with fire
is a sign that we are civilized
but the taste of knowledge
had its price
dealt in a currency
of fertility
in calendar clicks of counted days
a real blood bargain
paid periodically
paid in labor pains and 
in pre-menstrual syndromes

but now I wield 
my own damned fire
to cauterize the wound
the first sin settled up
my womb
now sweated caustic clean
Adam’s bones are mine
and he is scorched
turning on these embers
he re-arranges and adjusts
looks at me
across his stiff
cold shoulder
and winks

-first published in Red Cedar Review




Price of Peace
 
During the American War in Vietnam, the network of paths that traversed the Truong Son mountain range was dubbed 
the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Northern feet affirm 
a narrow mountain path
first tread by farmers on their way to paddy fields
where sunshine floats and sifts like memory 
to dazzle a shadowed world 
like fierce and youthful love 
unafraid
warms a spirited land that provides the rice
to feed the journey south

sandals cut from discarded tires 
tread secret pathway
footsteps drive down through dust and smoke
sting of chemical mist
taste of acrid ash

landmines and daisy cutters cut with fear
miles of dominos set up and knocked down
set up again
dominoes clatter in the bones of resolve

invincible invisible Truong Son Trail 
a tourist highway, now
in tribute to an ethereal dance
that laced the north to south

today American school kids,
blaze hallway social networks 
in shoes from Vietnam
curious when I tell them
bend down to check it out

dominos fell, indeed
but of a different kind
dominoes of finance
multinationals and debt

finger flick of the IMF 
shudders down the spine 





Duplex


Duped by a rectangle of glass above the door
in the way its light came in
but we could not see out
like the eyeless yellow marigolds between our walks
all fringe with no insight
tough alchemy of the nearly defeated

sometimes a warmed patch of light drifted in
to land on dust mote winter days
we played with paper dolls

our fathers once re-shingled the dilapidated roof
outside our back doors were sets of stairs
they had agreed upon 

edgy summers drummed time 
the staccato whap whap of screen doors
our lives latched to the people next door
in the jumpy bang bang of summer 

I used to dream of a house 
I could run all the way around
timed myself over and over

we shared a chimney, devilish bats
would echo their way down its dusty tunnel
and then have to decide

sometimes we heard the neighbors’ shrieks at night
and sometimes they heard ours.

-first published in Making it Speak:  Artists and Writers in Cahoots