writings
the final goodnight
may it be on a summer evening
when it is beginning to tip
into cool after a day so hot
the plants turn into themselves
to survive. may my sheets
be clean and white and hold me
in a way that feels more like a life
loved then betrayed.
may there be yellow flowers
on my kitchen counter and a new poem
in my mouth. and may I sigh with relief,
eyes open as I kiss the final goodnight.
Slow Shoes
Occasionally,
When I walk the three blocks
To the dollar store around the corner,
I wear my slow shoes.
The pretty, uncomfortable ones
That pinch and rub my feet red
If I walk too fast.
If I don’t wear them just right.
So on those days, when I walk
Through the small streets of my town,
Wearing my slow shoes,
I amble, I mosey, I glide
Like a old-time movie star
Entering the scene.
With each slow step,
My hips have time to sweetly swing and
I take to humming and smiling,
My face composed like the popular girls
Who own the high school hallways.
I lift my chest,
Wishing my breasts
Were a little higher in a way that is
Fulfilling but not provoking as I
Lengthen the telling of my neck, that
Old worker bee of aging.
And I sail,
Smoothly, along the street,
My skirt dancing wildly around
My calves, my bracelets sliding up and down,
Shining in the April sunlight.
My body singing in my slow shoes
On my way to the dollar store.
Fate is the pull
Of migration towards what
We are longing for.
Dreaming of Another Woman
There is a woman on the other side of the world
Who is somewhat like me. Perhaps a little shorter.
Perhaps a little more delicate around the mouth.
There is a woman who sighs softly in her sleep
As she wrestles with a dream that lingers
In my mind as I sleep so far far away.
And that woman turns over in the empty bed
She fills easily. Or perhaps she turns and wraps
Her arms around the quiet form of another:
A lover. A child. A parent who is dying cell by cell.
And this woman, on the other side of the world,
Will never think of me, waking and taking my staircase
Slowly, up and down, as my thoughts of her fade.
The wandering seed
Does not question its fate
Turned by wind and storms.
