To My Daughter Who Was Never Born

 

To My Daughter Who Was Never Born

I know you are a daughter because
we already had a boy, a girl, a boy.
It was a girl’s turn when two cells
in a womb chanced not to meet.

Now here’s a prom date waiting, corsage in hand,
at our door. Aren’t you ready yet? Our family,
never big on proms. Or dressing up.
Will you dance in blue jeans?

As parents, we made it hard.
You, only seven when your mom got cancer.
Not easy. I’m sorry for that.

In your fourteenth year, daughter,
we blew up. Yes, I came down hard on you.
Stealing a car is serious trouble.
But I promise not to dwell on that. Except to say
I secretly admire your gumption to steal
the candy of a billionaire’s spoiled brat,
to without lessons drive that Jag to San Diego
to free a dolphin who, it turned out, didn’t want
to leave his private tank where fish appeared
like magic twice a day precisely timed.
Some souls prefer order. Not you, not me,
this family, beyond the bedrock expectations:
Get an education. Be kind. Don’t steal cars
to rescue dolphins.

Here, daughter, some fish.
Next year again I will lose you who I never had
as you burst from your tank swimming,
leaping the prow of this aging boat
with such grace, such hope,
your home the ageless sea.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Califragile. Thank you Wren Tuatha, editor.
Photo by Ameya Bhavsar

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Jean, Fifth Grade

 

Jean, fifth grade

was a practical girl
with a bony nose
skinny as a straw, gap in her teeth
dusky brown skin.

Chinese, somebody said.
Mexican, somebody else.
Never asked, now I wonder.
I was a practical boy.

She wore dull clothes
but she was bright,
smart as my dog, maybe smarter
always danced in bare feet.

Those days, maybe still, boys lined
one side, girls the other.
I’d head straight to Jean, offer my hand
because we danced good together.

Black hair bunched in a rubber band,
no bow or ribbon except her smile.
Girls teased, Jean scowled but
always took my hand.

Nothing planned, it just happened.
Dancing we hardly talked,
I was shy.
Without music we stayed apart.

Sixth grade she was gone.
You don’t know you’re in love
first time
until you do.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Third Wednesday. Thank you David Jibson, co-editor

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Ode to a Leather Tool Belt

 

Ode to a Leather Tool Belt

You, my old companion,
I’ve junked three trucks and still I keep you.
Buried five dogs. Raised three children
who are now raising children.
And still I wear you.

You jingle when I walk.
Nails clink in pouches.
The drill in its holster slaps my leg.
The hammer in its clip spanks my butt.
You bristle with screwdrivers, chisel,
big fat pencil, needle-nose pliers.
You call attention. Random kids
who have never seen a tool belt before
follow me around asking
“What are you doing?”
Then: “Can I help?”

You smell like me (and I, like you).
Leather, fourth decade.
I’ve washed your pouches with saddle soap,
sewn your seams with dental floss.
Now the web of your belt is fraying,
wrapped (silly, I know) with duct tape.

Your pockets fill over time.
Once in a while I remove every tool,
every last screw and nail.
I hold you upside down and shake.
Sawdust, a dead spider, little strippings
of insulated wire will fall out.
And once, my missing wedding ring.
I had taken it to a jeweler
for repair, but when I got there
I couldn’t find it. A year later,
you coughed it up.

When your webbing finally snaps,
when you drop from my waist,
maybe it’s you, old tool belt, I’ll take
to the jeweler for remounting,
for buff and polish. He’ll understand.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Workers Write!
Photo by me. I don’t remember what job I was doing that day or why I had a pouch full of screws along with a 32-ounce framing hammer, an odd combo.

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Rick's Orchard

 

Rick’s Orchard

When we lift our arms
apples seem to jump to our fingers
as if squealing Pick me! Pick me!
while we navigate among chickens
underfoot and a guard-rooster
who glares, who disapproves,
who follows our every step.

Bees from a stack of hives
hover and buzz about our ears.
Sun heats, shade cools,
the hose washes apple-skin sugar
from the flesh of our hands.

It is not toil it is faith
as beneath our feet roots pull
nourishment from earth,
water glistens from leaf-tip
and I cry to the sky
Pick me! Pick me!

……

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in Roanoke Review
Photo by Ralphs_Fotos on Pixabay

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Working graveyard shift

 

Working graveyard shift

my sleep is nuts
so on nights off I walk the dog at 3 a.m.
hoping a German shepherd normalizes me
except Quinn growls at the cop
who stays in his cruiser
talking through the open window
just letting me know somebody called
from one of those dark houses
but there’s no law against walking at 3 a.m.
so have a good night.

Sometimes I jog the golf course under quiet stars.
I let Quinn off the leash.
Together we run over grass.
Even without a canine nose I love the smell,
the sound of sleeping snoring chlorophyll.  

One night I’m running when the sprinklers start.
Immediately before I can think better
I pull off my clothes, every stitch.
I run. So free! It’s fantastic, the dog agrees
until I trip
and roll
but that’s fantastic too
except the bruises
and suddenly the spotlight, the cop.

I have mud on my body, grass in my hair.
The sprinklers keep chug-chug-chugging in circles
splat with cold bullets across my butt
as the cop writes out a ticket
for an unleashed dog. That’s all,
because there’s no law against
running through sprinklers
on graveyard shift
when you’re white.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you Hayley Mitchell Haugen, editor

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Road Dog

 

Road Dog

We’re driving fast through farmland
when a roadside man waves his arms:
Slow down! Slow down! A dog, mid-highway.
I stop, blocking the road, turn on flashers.
Rose leaps out. I join her. We’re dog people.

Rose can’t catch the dog.
The man is shouting “Grab her! Grab her!”
By size and shape the dog is a shepherd,
colored like a beagle, looking friendly as heck
but confused and frantic.

I suspect this shep-beagle just wants
somebody to tell her what to do,
so I crouch and call “Come!”
From the center of the highway she runs
straight to my outstretched hands.
I seize the collar and command “Sit!”
She sits.

The man waddles over and takes her by the collar.
He’s overweight, bald with a white beard, bad hips.
He says, “I know where she belongs.”

Now I check on the cars behind my flashers,
engines idling. Drivers waiting.
Are they annoyed?
Nope. Big smiles.
Dog people.

…..

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in Your Daily Poem. Thank you Jayne Jauden Ferrer, editor
Photo by Sajaggg on Pixabay

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Quinn is So Sorry

 

Quinn is So Sorry

Quinn is so sorry.
When a full-grown German shepherd
bites a baby, the dog loses.
Quinn knows the rules.
His canine tooth ripped a small hole
in the baby’s cheek. Now all is confusion
as Quinn grovels for forgiveness,
baby cries in mother’s arms,
mother dabs at the little spot of blood,
no big deal.

Baby crawling across the floor
touched the food bowl
while Quinn was eating.
A flash of reflex.
Wolf instinct, defend the food.
It’s our fault for not watching out.

Baby cries, Quinn whimpers, we explain,
guilty parents, guilty dog
all needing translators
but we know Quinn the protector
would die defending that baby
and no great harm is done,
lesson learned.

Forget the doctor
who might report us for bad parenting
or bad dogging
or — jeez — they might kill Quinn so
we treat the babe ourselves and
my son, now age thirty-two
still has a scar in the cheek.
He loves dogs.

……

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in MOON magazine—thank you
editor Leslee Goodman

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Catamount, Late Summer

 

Catamount, Late Summer

Come with me. Here’s
the secret trail. Pass the stone
foundation of an old homestead.
Enter the maple forest, the green oven.
Bake, slowly rise like a gingerbread figure.
Follow, it’s fine (there’s no witch).
Release rivulets of sweat.
This is nothing, the foothill.

Listen: the purr, the burble, the rush,
the small canyon of Catamount
Creek. Remove boots, splash yourself.
Splash me. Cup water in hands
to pour over the face. Let water dribble
inside the shirt, drip to the shorts.
Relish the shock of cold
against hot parts.

Work uphill now, at last
out of the trees into the land of
wild blueberry. Pluck, taste
tiny nut-like explosions of blue,
so intense, so different from store-bought.
Gorge, let fingers and tongue
turn garish. Fill pockets.

Climb with me now among rocky
outcrops like stair steps to the Funnel,
a crevice where from below
you push my bottom, then from above
I pull your hand. Emerge to a view
of valley, farmland, wrinkles of mountains
like folds of flesh. How far we’ve come.
This is the false top.

Catch your breath, embrace the vista,
then join me in a scramble up bare granite,
farther than you’d think, no trail marked
on the endless stone but simply
navigate toward the opposite of gravity,
upward, to at last a bald dome
chilled by blasts of breeze.

At the top, sit with me, our backs against
the windbreak of a boulder.
Empty your pockets of blueberries. Nibble,
share — above the rivers,
above the lakes, above the hawks,
among the blue chain of peaks
beyond your outstretched tired feet.
Appreciate your muscles
in exhaustion and exhilaration.
We have made love to this mountain.

Hear a sound like a sigh from waves of  
alpine grass in the fading warmth
of a lowering sun. Rest.
After this, the return
is so easy.

…..

From my book Random Saints
First published by Plum Tree Tavern

Note: There’s a new trailhead to Catamount. No longer secret, and no passing an old homestead. A few more folks on the trail. But it’s the same great hike.

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All of your ancestors come to your wedding

 

All of your ancestors come to your wedding

By horse, by canoe they come
dressed in grass skirts and beaver pelt hats.
They bring amphorae of wine,
barrels of ancient beer.

They fight. Belch. Kiss both cheeks.
They hug too tight, make ribald jokes.
They embarrass you utterly.
 
They paint flowers on your face
and weave sunshine in your hair.

They smoke sacred herbs. Chant,
pound on drums, sing in lost language.
They puff music in hollowed bamboo,
dance in circles, juggle flaming torches.
They draw antelope on the walls of your cave.

As dowry they bring generations of struggle,
millenniums of sacrifice. They will come
to your wedding whether you invite them or not.
 
Wish them welcome.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you Hayley Mitchell Haugen, editor

Note: A few years ago I attended a backyard wedding, a humble affair, a small gathering because the bride’s parents and her entire family refused to attend. The groom was the wrong color, the wrong religion. He had worked for me briefly in construction until he realized he’d rather drive a truck. Bride and groom both had nothing in possessions—only love. When I looked into the defiant eyes of the bride taking her vows, I saw the spirits dancing there. In no way could her family boycott this wedding. You could sense them in the air. So I wrote this poem.

Hear me:

Wolf Spider

 

Wolf Spider

Hey, wolf spider
on the bathtub bottom
scaling porcelain, slipping —
uncatchable. I want to shower.
You dodge my washcloth, you dart away.
You idiot. I’m trying to help.
Must I spray you to the drain?

Bare-ass, crouching I pause,
resting my fingers on the tub bottom
when suddenly you are tickling the hairs
on the back of my hand: a greeting, an asking.
So I lift.
Rapidly I escort you to the kitchen door,
set my palm on the porch floor
where after rain there is the scent of fungus
but you remain,
you stand on my knuckles with sensitive feet
straddling two prominent veins.
You take my pulse.

I lean close,
eyeball to eyeballs unblinking.
We both are hairy.
We frighten women.
We mean no harm.

Suddenly shifting your perch
you read my palm:
heart line, life line, fate.
Almost a handshake.
My future, would you tell?
Then jump, Brother.
Peace and farewell!

…..

From my book Foggy Dog.
First published in Ink Sweat & Tears. Thank you Helen Ivory, editor.

Hear me:

Like Pigs

 

Like Pigs

It’s Janice on the phone
from her sailboat near Madagascar
(background sound of waves slapping hull
half a planet distant). Her tenants
here on this side of the planet
have a stopped-up sink,
their own fault says Janice because
they live like pigs packing five kids
into that two-bedroom cottage
but I should fix it which is how
I meet freckly smiley Georgia
who is discretely nursing a blanketed babe
as she leads me to the one and only bathroom
where opening the sink cabinet I find
giant brown fungi in a pool of slime.

Georgia says Yikes!
Baby starts fussing
probably about the smell
like raccoon turd pudding.
I have to scrape out fungus,
run a snake through black goo,
then straighten the drain
which was never installed properly
causing the whole problem.

Georgia is stirring soup over a stove,
babe in arms like a copper cherub
while four kids of laddering ages
play kick the can. Tom the father
arrives in his old truck, joins the game.
Georgia calls to him
You done it for today?
Tom shouts back
I replaced a windshield wiper
on Bradley’s car, he don’t know.
Georgia explains to me Tom’s a mechanic,
performs a secret good deed each day.
It’s so simple, she says.

Back to the bathroom, quickly
I replace the crappy shower nozzle.  
I won’t ask.
Janice won’t pay.  
Like pigs we nurture, we bless.

…..

From my book Random Saints
First published in MOON magazine. Thank you Leslee Goodman, editor
Republished in Braided Way and nominated for Best of the Net. Thank you Laura Grace Wilder, editor.
Photo by Roy Buri

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The Family Tree

 

The Family Tree

From this tree, they lynched John T
for the crime of preaching against slavery.
Hollow now, like a scolding ghost
this spar stands among Holsteins
in the pasture of a man who figures
we’re cousins somehow.
He, a midwestern farmer,
me, a California craftsman,
political poles apart but
blood is thicker than geography.

Tough to salvage, ancient black walnut
riddled by woodpecker, softened by rot.
Working together with chain saw and wrecking bar
we find a section of solid core.
Here’s a scar in the bark like a grinning face
where the branch broke off, long gone.
That happy limb held the rope
swinging John T’s massive frame  
of muscle and blubber and bluster.
Until it snapped. And he ran.
Fast as a fat man could run.

John T, grandfather of my grandfather,
ran into the forest hiding until his best friend
rescued him, a man named, ironically, Lynch,
grandfather of the grandfather of the man
with whom I speak. Thus,
cousins in the country way.

I’ll make salad bowls, I say,
wooden forks and tongs, walnut plates,
maybe even a tea set for your daughter
who seems so outspoken, so feisty and strong.
Tea set? he says, she needs a lectern!

So here it is.
The grinning knot on the surface.
Those holes in the side, from bullets.
Lead slugs. I dug them out.
Here, this cloth sack.
May she heft them in her fist.
May her words fire like cannons
for freedom.

…..

From my book Random Saints
First published in Dove Tales. Thank you Carmel Mawle, editor.
Photo by Roger Culos

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Little frogs are hopping

Little frogs are hopping
from the pond to the weeds,
hopping in the headlight beams
across wet asphalt through strings of drizzle,
hopping where my car can only squash them
so I stop.

You take my hand.
“Thank you,” you say.
You like frogs.

There is another route, an extra mile.
I back up, turn around.
“More cars will come,” I say.
Again you take my hand.
“That’s on them,” you say.

We do what we can do.
And maybe, just maybe,
we spared a prince.

…..

First published in Your Daily Poem

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