Category: Uncategorized

The Price Of Salt

Originally posted on https://braveandrecklessblog.com

I went to all my baskets of words

To find them emptied out.

In fact, it seems

Anger and sadness

Sandblasted holes

Clean through the dang baskets.

Then I went to all my junk drawers of words,

Pulled each open and found each empty.

Frustrated, I tugged them all the way out

To make sure no junk, trying to hide away,

had shimmied behind the drawers.

But my efforts were to no avail.

All my words were gone, stolen.

Even my most treasured one,

Used ever so rarely for food or wine,

Used just once, only once,

For a love. 

Is this the price?

The price I pay for salt?

But this isn’t essential

To human existence.

No, I should report a robbery.

Call the cops and say,

“Someone stole all my words

And my most treasured one.”

Then I could file an insurance claim.

Perhaps collect something incalculable

And patch those dang baskets.

But how would they calculate

The value of such a word?

Used so rarely for things

And only once, just once

For something, someone rare?

How to calculate exquisite?

Happy Endings Are All Alike

Originally posted on https://braveandrecklessblog.com

Or so they say.

Wish I may,

Wish I might,

Find one to curl up into tonight.

But it’s too late.

Far too late for that.

I can imagine what those endings are like.

I’ve read them in books.

I’ve seen them in movies.

I’ve even lived them for little while,

A season, maybe two,

A few years and played a fool

Because I wanted too

And didn’t want to see

A truth or two.

I have friends

Who model happy endings.

It’s really sickening

In the syrupy sweetness

Of it all.

Yes, they are all alike,

I do suppose.

Perhaps,

Unhappy endings are most interesting

Of all.

I don’t really know.

I’ll tell you at the end.

Window Shopping

Oh, do so pardon me,

Window shopping only, dear.

No temptation to try it on for size

in some strange dressing room,

to look in the mirror to see

exactly how it fits.

No touch of whimsy

to impulse buy

only to return,

and God forbid,

pay any re-stocking fee.

I may appreciate the look.

I may so enjoy

reading the product description,

but no,

no thank you, my dear.

Please, no trial samples

to increase the clutter

I’ve collected over years.

You see, love,

it’s like in Ecclesiastes,

there  is a time to buy

and a time to leave it on the rack.

Yes, sweetie,

I know it’s on sale,

but the return policy

is too exhausting with disclaimers

to know if it’s worth the risk

of finding a good fit.

So, for now, my sweat pea,

let me just peruse

the clearance stacks

and perhaps read

the product contents

out of simple curiosity.

Perhaps, one day,

though, I doubt it,

my dear,

I’ll find something

that strikes my fancy,

take it from the rack

to the fitting room,

try it on for size,

and find a good enough fit

to buy.

The Bluest Eye

Originally posted on Whisper and the Roar and Brave and Reckless. Written for feminist book title prompt: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

In the bluest eye,
I thought I’d found
Home.
My heart’s desire,
As Judy, in the movie,
Once said.
Now, the bluest eye
Holds no warming flame
Of home.
It turns a mirror
Up to me and shows
The fool that I have been
For selling pieces of myself—
The plates, the cutlery,
The sheets, the towels,
The quilts and bedspreads,
The leavings of a life.
The leavings of a house.
The leavings of myself—
Without a proper winnowing,
And sold it all at Garage Sale prices.
In return, I thought I’d gained
What I’d always wanted.
But I leave emptied
Of all my leavings
In the bluest eye.

In the Songs of Birds

When I was three,
My mother taught me to read,
And words
Became playthings and playmates
As I sat in the back of the restaurant
Watching her work her dream to death.

Later, as I grew,
Family losses piled, heaped
Weighty upon the shoulders of a nine-year-old.
Words became
Escape, shelter, survival,
A path out of destruction.

And so, words stayed
For more years than I’d care to say.

But now here,
Waking mornings,
Hearing birdsong,
Or in early evening,
The warm sun blanketing
My skin as I fill the birdfeeders,
I hear words in the songs of birds.
Silly though it may seem,
The cardinals have much to say,
“It’s cheaper here. It’s cheaper here.”
To “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
The mockingbirds chatter away
Announcements of “She’s here, she’s here, she’s here.”
And I’m not sure which bird continually asks,
“Wanna see, wanna see, wanna see a receipt?”
All the while, the Blue Jays squawk away,
Warning all the others,
“Stay away! Stay away!”
Then in the chittering of the squirrels,
I hear the demand,
“Where’s the food? Where’s the food?
You let the food run out! How dare you?”
As they scurry away,
Pretending, at least, to be afraid of me.

Among all the noise and chatter
All the words of birds and squirrels
One word, never felt before now,
I feel move within my chest,
Peace.

The Mixed

Too dark
Too light
Too in between
Too bright
Too rosy
Too peach–

Just too much
Or not enough at all.
This has always been my plight.

I am African-American
But not black enough .
I am Native American
But not red enough.
I am Latina
But not brown enough.

Just mixed enough for most
To assume whiteness of me,
Sparking comments about a whitey master
in the woodpile of my ancestors.

In this ocean of the mixed
There’s affinity
But no belonging
As I reach for a new shade of blush
That is just close enough.

The Prodigal

Motherhood erased
The caesarean scar, the only trace,
A testament to what once was,
It holds a degree of lingering numbness
After these twenty years:
Nerves that cannot reconnect
To a self without motherhood.
Yes, a touch of numbness
As the child with her mother’s face
Turns away, rejecting the truth teller,
Rejecting the baptism of love, of name, of tears.

Let the child walk away.
Perhaps in losing her way,
She will find the path back,
A way to recognize being found
In the reflection of her own face.

The Brave Ones

(A Tribute to Christine Blasey Ford)

We reject the mother
Born to subservience
of ripped rib bone.
No longer will we accept
Bloody beatings and brutality,
Rape and rage,
Silent,
Powerless,
Fearful.
No longer do we accept this pain
As payment for the sin
Of seeking knowledge.

For millennia, we were lucky to live unbruised
As long as we were your possessions:
Your mothers, your daughters,
Your sisters, your wives.
As long as you owned us
And we did as we were told.

But through the ages,
The brave ones have shown us another way:
To seek the spirit of our true mother,
The one born in the same earth of equality.

So we find her voice and our own.
We speak.
Though you would silence us
With vitriol and mockery,
The brave ones have taught us well;
We will never be silent again.

Orchestra of Children

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An orchestra of children
Provides a symphony.

The violin of a two-year-old
Sings the plaintive cries,
“Daddy, Daddy!”

The lone flute of a three-year-old
Soars above the din,
A painful wail,
“Mommy, Mommy.”

Then the scratchy oboe
Of perhaps a four-year-old,
Keening for an aunt to be allowed to come
And take him to her home to stay.

Next all the whimpers,
Sobbing, moans
Squalls, and laments
Of trumpets, tubas,
Violas, bass and all the rest
Join the cacophonous clamor
Of such a discordant melody,
Harmonious to the hardened of heart
Who give ear to this orchestra,
Deserving of nothing but the pain
Contained within the symphony
The progeny play,
As less than they.

Falconry

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A screeching hawk climbs overhead,
Gliding, swooping in pursuit,
Her flight a perfect merger
Of beauty, purpose, and skill.

If only, if only
I could capture such a hawk
Train and bend
That beauty and skill
To do the bidding of my will.

Sent forth from my hand
In a powerful surge of wings,
Pummeling air,
Finding the perfect draught of air
To glide upon,
Turning, searching for prey,
Then sighting her trophy, her prize,
Sweeping down, a beat of wings,
A shift of body,
Talons extended,
What seems a pause,
A slowing,
Talons snatching,
Squeezing, sinking into a snake’s skin,
Wings beat, once, twice,
A cry as she lifts her body
And her limp prize,
Upon the air to glide,
Turning homeward,
The purity of her purpose,
A dance upon the air,
Done.

If only, if only
From my hand could fly
Such beautiful purity of purpose.