Going Home


Mondays, in her wash house
between the garden and the hen coop,
my grandmother sang,
“Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord,” while she
pulled khaki pants and denim shirts
through her wringer washing machine.
Work clothes that bore a day’s
cargo of sweat and red dirt,
without daring to wrinkle.

Before the dust kicked up
or the storm blew in, she unpinned
the wind stiffened clothes, singing
“I’m forever blowing bubbles,
pretty bubbles in the air.”
Tuesdays, brown beans and salt pork
hissed on the stove as she sprinkled 
and rolled enough clothes
to fill two bushel fruit baskets.
Only towels and wash rags
escaped the grip of her mangle,
the hot kiss of her iron
as she sang, “If I had the wings
of an angel, through this prison
wall I would fly.”

Some days I crave the smell of steam
rising from clean cotton,
long for the steady slow pulse
of Tuesday routine:
pillowcase, tablecloth, handkerchief,
press, fold, press, fold, press;
rote progression of blouses and shirts,
facing, yoke, facing,
back, “Swing low, sweet chariot,
coming for to carry me home.”

Swing low.  Carry me home.  Swing low.

-from Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, PEARL Editions, 2004




From a Rhizome


What grows from a rhizome
rises Dutch Blue,
Bearded Purple, Japanese.

Iris, amazing peasant orchid— 
such homely needs:
winter rain, half-day sun,

ordinary soil.
Distant cousin to the onion,
root that cures any bland soup,

greets each child at the door
saying come in,

this is love, you are home.

-from Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, PEARL Editions 2004




Beach House


Everything quickly fades here,
is abraded or decays.
In just four years I’ve had it painted twice— 
south-gazing face of my beloved house— 
vain work to stay ahead of rust 
bleeding from nail heads driven 
deep in wooden planks.
At first, too mid-western for my taste— 
I value now the sections made of brick.
Brick, steady against the beat of sand.
Brick, already colored rust,
so I am spared its marching into dust.

-from Transforming Matter, PEARL Editions, 2000




Deshacer


I open the garage door
and our dog bounds free
across the street, 
disappearing down the alley, 
her black form unmade 
by the moonless night.
I panic, run in circles with the leash,
but you calmly cross the street
calling her name.
Because she loves you
she lets you bring her home.

I won’t repeat the dream
in which you leave me.
Let’s just say I know the world,
how it alters in an instant,
that I awaken sick 
in remorse and dread.
I can’t face again the dinners
with other lonely women,
then late-night TV
until the dog and I can bear 
to go to bed.

I don’t need again to learn
the bitter lesson
that everything I love 
is a flame between two fingers.

-from The Congress of Luminous Bodies, Aortic Books, 2013




The Angel Garmin


Long have I wished for a calm voice 
pointing me home,
a confident voice telling which fork
in the forest road,
leads to the soup, the bread, 
the welcoming bed,
and which to dead-end
doom instead.

One night I circled a flat Texas town
for hours in my rented Ford
searching for the Hampton Inn 
I’d left in daylight before 
the unpredicted storm blew down.
The water rose; the gas gauge fell.
I surely had fore-tasted hell
lost in the unfamiliar, flooded town.

Now, the Angel Garmin takes
me through the four-level interchange,
over cloverleaf and roundabout,
keep left, exit, turn right,
she tells me.  Perfect
mother, guardian, guide 
all knowing, but flexible, kind,
never scolding when I fail
to turn as I am told,
she simply recalculates
finds me, brings me back home.

-from The Congress of Luminous Bodies, Aortic Books, 2013