Be Still and Write

You had never heard of Sylvia Plath until you read about her in a hard-covered, non-fiction book you bought at the airport in Arizona.  The slight mispronunciation of her last name,  the mild interest in how this strange, suicidal poet was woven into a book about miscommunication with strangers. This seemed oddly delightful to me.  You never experienced Plath’s poems, read much too young grief, confusion, raw, open-mouthed pain all there in tiny, neat font on the page, an abstract fear that your happy childhood, your seemingly effortless life could not understand. Sylvia Plath poems HBO movies late at night Those magazines under Mr. Babcock’s bed that you found while babysitting his sweet son only a few years younger than you. I curl my toes around yours, under our warm covers and rest next to you, quiet pages turning, as you peer through your reading glasses at the life of Sylvia Plath neatly placed in context. 

I love you fiercely Like afternoon winds that  Toss the almond dust, Tear palm branches and  Send them crashing onto Robertson Boulevard, Just the way we kissed the last day I saw you Before your flight Hungry Never close enough. I love you patiently As a tree expands Enlarging its circumference, Adding cells upon cells, In silence and slow, Only after the sun has moved from equinox to equinox, Just the way I tried to refocus your jagged, anxious thoughts With our lips. In quiet kisses, Now. Here. Here again. Stray and return. Stray and return. Come back to our breathing together as the afternoon light slips across the leaves outside our window. The trees breathe. We breathe. 4/10/19

"You're right-handed?" the question posed as an almost declaration, as if he was fairly sure of the answer but made it a question just to confirm. "No, I'm left-handed," she replied, thinking he was just curious and the handle on the green, ceramic mug had triggered the thought.  She quickly realized that was not why he asked. He twisted the mug until its handle was in his left hand.  Then he slid the lid clockwise until the opening of the lid faced the correct way, the way she would need it to face when she held the mug in her left hand. At that moment, she merely noticed this gesture as another she had noticed all evening--opening her car door and pulling open the door to the restaurant, paying for dinner and reaching for her hand as they rose from the intimate booth with white tablecloths and red leather. It was only later, in the quiet of a twin bed, the eight year old boy snoring loudly in a matching bed next to her, that it was different.  It ...

Twisted and wrung out by the indifference of the day Peace comes now,  dropping slow and graceful upon us Unwinding furrowed creases and smoothing over anxious jangling left in our ears Quiet rest settles along our intertwined bodies,  its starry glitter and  blue-violet swirls  curve into every angle we share peppermint breath and sweet-salt skin kisses the cooling wax melts down into our bones then turns solid, safe, certain  as drowsy darkness  blinks  and blinks again slowly  into place. 

A Brownie Tale This event is recorded precisely as it happened. The names have not been changed to protect the guilty. Mom cut the brownies. No, they need to cool. x Mom, please cut the brownies. No. Mom, cut the brownies like Mary cuts the cheese--quickly and in front of everyone. They really need to cool and if you don't drop it, they will need to cool until morning. Until morning, are you kidding me? No, I'm not.  Turn on "Doctor Who" and be quiet about the brownies.  I guarantee the quickest way to get me to cut the brownies is to drop it and hush about me cutting the brownies. Mom, please cut the brownies!  Oh my gosh!  This is ridiculous! Yes, it is.  Start "Doctor Who".  I promise I will cut them before the episode is over. Are you kidding me? How about before the opening credits are over? Maaaaahhhhhhmmmm! Pleeeeease! Okay, I promise I will cut them before thirty minutes in. 5 minutes. No...

May 18, 2018  Numb. No shock. No more reassuring thought that "it could never happen here." Of course it can. Of course it will. My child chooses her seat in each class based on how quickly she might be able to exit when the shots begin. Our children know we will not listen, Or legislate Or leverage political capital to change this. Nothing will change. You are expendable, Children. We will be over here quibbling over the phrase "well-regulated" and the contemporary corollary of a "militia." We will wring our hands and unconsciously drool "thoughts and prayers," But we will not stiffen our spines, nor stamp down our feet, nor speak in any kind of emphatic declarative sentences. We will perhaps mutter or pontificate, and we will probably mumble and bloviate. You are right, Dear Children, not to trust us. You should be ashamed. This is not how we raised you. But not to worry, In cities and towns across this nation, th...