Living with Daughters

They are amber saplings from my heart
pushing against the world
making room for themselves
amongst plastic hangers
and fast moving traffic

the eldest comes into my room
throws herself across my bed easily
says hi, school’s just ok
there is nothing more to talk about

we sit together
me looking at her
she, my daughter not yet a woman
looks at the ceiling
there is a warm quiet between us this night

I turn and go back to my writing
she stays a little longer
then makes her way
to the kitchen
teases her sister
filling some of the
emptiness of the day
from the ice box

A Lilith Moment

I have lived my years on a razor wire’s edge, learned early of its broad line of sight, but when I
step off it dissolves. I try to make my way on the rocky soil of choosing, but it either turns my
ankle or trips me up because on solid ground I think I know.

I wrote a poem of repetition
It came quick and easy
but knew I couldn’t trust it
cuz there’s never just one side

Living on the razor edge of understanding
So you can see both sides
Is fine for knowing where you are
but challenging to balance

I cleaned it up and cut it down
made the lines much longer
then cut and sliced down again
bringing me closer to a goal

Living on a line so thin
can slice you right in two
knowing changes nothing
and balance doesn’t allay the cut

I wrote a poem and named it at the end In just 5 minutes
Then forgot to mention wobble
and the potential cleaving the razor edge creates

I work best, that is at living, when I stay on that safety line, stretch of seeing both sides, and
understanding where truth lies, when it’s dark with evil for its coat, or of course the opposite
with sun bright smiling answers lined up neat and clean. Just allow me to use a balance pole
across that edge between, and still know there is no power that keeps my footing firm.

In just 5 minutes I can unload my mind
In just 5 minutes I can lose my balance
In just 5 minutes it could all be over

Momma, Max Factor & The Catholic Church

If i were to tell ya how i felt bout this man
first ya might wanna laugh, but a’ course
ya woodn’t cuz you could see in my eyes the passion
an’ you’d wanna hear the story, but there ain’t
no more story. it's over. i mean it's done.
there ain’t one drop a’ nothin between us, but
mostly there’s no body left.

Ya see, when we fell in love
he saw who he'd been looking for since
he was just a little tyke when his momma
walked out on him. It made him so scared, he started figthin
right from the start in all kinda ways with me instead.
Now don’t ask me how sane folks could do
somethin so crazy as tanglin an’ wrastlin over mostly nothin,
but finally we both saw that’s what was happenin,
he even said it. Add on top a’ that we owned a business
an’ were riding around in a truck all day together.

So, he's lovin me who he saw as
some perfect somethin or other,
an me, i'm lovin the guy i see he could be,
but instead a’ being happy, i was more afraid a’ us
than if i'd been facin off with some wild cat.
i ain’t been that scared since i was a little girl
fightin with my big brother, worryin somethin awful
would happen if he got any madder,
me, who wasn’t afraid of nothin, an’ always had
a smart comeback, i couldn’t find no words
to make either one of ‘em stop.

Now, i knew there was somethin not quite right about
who we thought we were fightin an’ lovin, but
there was so much love, i thought i’d die if i lost him.
So, we kept trying to fix it, but almost tearin the earth
out from under, then we'd cry cuz we'd hurt each other
an’ we'd be sorry an’ close an’ then, it'd happen again.
Sometimes i'd be shakin so hard i'd have to stop what i was
doin just to keep from fallin down. One time
when he was mad an’ i began to shake, i thought,
Wait a minute!
He's just a puny little thing, no stronger then me, i could
make pancakes outta him! Why am i so scared?

That was the beginnin of me seein he wasn’t
a monster bully, but some shadow from my past,
an’ when he began to see i wasn’t gonna do it
no more, well, i quit lookin like that wonderful
momma he'd been cravin since she locked him
in the closet, an’ he admitted he couldn’t love for fightin.
When we got so we weren’t seein who wasn’t there
we realized we didn’t recognize who was
so that’s when we began to disappear. i ain’t never
disappeared before an’ it sure does ache from a feelin
inside a’ empty like i'd been swallowed up
by the bottom of an ole dried up well, a blackness
that ain’t got no sound, no name, no breath.

Not only did i finally rip away my dream of who he was
but i lost my own me image in the bargain, at least
the me i'd been wearing all a’ those years,
an’ without her i wasn’t sure who was hiding inside a’ me.
The pain was there, the love, the used to be knowin each other,
but the us? the people? we just faded inta some fog bank
just disappeared. There just wasn’t
no body left there anymore.
A few years after that, he drowned saving his daughter.
And I gave myself a new name.