Spring Rain was her name

 

Spring Rain was her name

To behold her would wash your eyes.
Her child she named Bebop Blue
but we called him Bop.
Spring Rain and child, they lived
in a rusty old van. At school she volunteered
teaching the Great Books to ragamuffins
with a wild passion until the day
she parked the van, middle of the highway,
locked the doors blocking traffic
behind mandala curtains screaming
too much evil—Evil!—in life.
At the sheriff she slashed a knife.

Bop disappeared wherever kids go
until thirty-two years later I’m talking to a guy,
he’s planting roses while I’m installing
outdoor lights. “My name’s Bop,” he says
with a handshake, “I used to live around here.”
Far out! So I ask about Spring Rain.
“Her name’s Jane,” he says and shows me a photo.
Gray hair, a beaming smile. So fresh. Like new.
No anger has Bop. A man at peace,
at low pay digging holes for roses
to please rich people’s noses.
He learned the Great Books.
“She’s a good grandmother to my kids,” he says,
“though we never leave them alone.”
To behold her would wash your eyes.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in MOON Magazine—thank you editor Leslee Goodman
photo by Gita Derkinte

Multnomah Falls

 

Multnomah Falls

Mrs. Peters who just last week was teaching you
handwriting on Zoom, sweet Mrs. Peters
just died of the virus.
Died really fast.
I hold you and ask how you feel.
‘Small,’ you say. ‘Really small.’
Me too.

We go to Multnomah Falls.
On the footpath bridge
water splashes cold wind.
Droplets form on eyelashes
which makes us feel we’re crying.
In the roar we have to shout.
A couple of bare-face teens are kissing
and couldn’t care less. You ask
if you may pull down your mask
to spit and watch the gob fall
down, down, down.
I say ‘Me too!’
and then we both spit.

I say ‘You know, don’t you,
you aren’t so really small.’
You, my spirit guide, you
take my hand and say
‘The gobs will reach the ocean.’

……

First published in Bracken. Thank you editor Alina Rios.
photo by Abhay Bharadwaj

Crush

 

Crush

Sharon in middle school floated as a cloud,
some days a fragrance like ferns unfurling,
others a wincing waft like bad hygiene.
I sure as hell wouldn’t ask. Others would.
“Sorry,” she’d say, her voice deep for a girl,
her eyes a flash of anger. No excuse,
no explanation. Kept to herself.

A pear-shaped body, a gorgeous smile. One day
in the library the warble of a thrush startled me—
Sharon, her laughter over a book.
She had a boyfriend who was older, prep school.

Rode my Raleigh 3-speed the miles to her house.
From the wide street I stared at sunny windows,
white curtains until I felt stupid. Pedaled home.
“Did I see you on my street?” she asked next day.
“Yes.” No excuse, no explanation.

Twenty-six years later like a bullet, sudden pain.
I fell down shouting AAGH. The ER doctor called it
epidemic pleurisy also known as Devil’s Grip,
an infection surrounding the lungs and yes,
it comes fast and feels like it’s crushing.
“Took your breath away, did it?”
Above the white coat her face, a fragrance
like ferns unfurling and I said “Hey! Remember me?”
The thrush laugh. A gorgeous smile.
Deep voice: “You were the quiet type,
so this should be easy. Just go home and rest.”

Twenty-two more years pass and yesterday
out of the blue she messages me: 

——You okay? You keeping safe?

No explanation, no excuse.
Some threads are invisible as virus.
I tell her I’m safe. Sheltering in place. What’s up?
She’s still ER, pandemic front line. She writes: 

——A surgeon died. 

A moment later: 

——My husband.

I tell her I’m so sorry. How awful. How sad.
A minute passes. Then her final message: 

——I don’t know what made me think of you.

……

First published in Halfway Down the Stairs. Thank you Jeannie E. Roberts, editor.
photo by Engin Akyurt

My Blue Heron

 

My Blue Heron

My blue heron
is actually gray.
And actually
not mine.
She visits,
then vanishes.
On land she carries her feet
floppy as waffles on jointed sticks.
In flight she flaps slowly, folded neck, gliding
just above water, then stands
still as sculpture
toes in mud
until with a sudden cock of head
(can she hear them?) the swift beak
plucks a fish, lifts, grips like pincers,
points to the sky.
A slight shake of head
to reposition above gullet,
and she swallows
with a smacking of mouth,
a gleam of eye.
She is a beauty.
Sorry, fish.

……

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in Your Daily Poem. Thank you Jayne Jauden Ferrer, editor.
photo by skeeze

Hospital, Indiana

 

Hospital, Indiana

Phil is so restless, Air Force vet,
big black beard, hates hippies
though he looks like one.
“Flag-burners,” he calls them.
From war he learned: “Life changes fast.”

As tech support Phil has seen every corner
of this hospital, pulled every wire.
Hear that scream? Burn patient, little girl
in physical therapy, breaks Phil’s heart.
Want a poker game? Always one in the morgue.
Walk into the autopsy room, you might see
a doc pulling parts from a man’s chest
like lifting the head gasket on a Jeep.
“Death never changes,” Phil says.
“And it sucks.”

In the recovery room this hippie nurse
is changing an IV bag over one man after surgery
when another guy goes into convulsions
so the nurse drops the bag on the first man’s chest
and he grunts, eyes roll, and he passes out
while she runs to the spasm guy.
There’s no other staff. Phil tries to scram with
“Um, I’ll come back later to fix your terminal”
but the nurse with big dark eyes
makes a for-God’s-sake pleading face,
so Phil holds the IV bag.

That night he sees her waiting for a bus
clutching herself like a freezing gypsy in tears
because the guy with convulsions just died
so he gives her a ride home but first
he takes her bowling, she needs it.
Life changes fast. Turns out they both
love bowling, who’da thunk it?

A peacenik and a flyboy.
Hospitals heal people, sometimes.
“Now we got three kids. We all go bowling.
Good karma, ya know?”

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Fifth Wednesday. Thank you editor Vern Miller

One day there was no day

 

One day there was no day

One day there was no day.
No birds sang at dawn
because there was no dawn.
We walked our dogs by flashlight.

One day there was no sun.
Through smoky veils of wildfire
we stared directly
at a floating tangerine.

One day there was no noon.
Owls hooted. Porch lights never dimmed.
Deer wandered the streets
blinking tears of soot.

If you can’t count on
day following night,
what can you count on?

One day there was no you, no me.
One day we were we.
Scared. Seeking touch.
Please. Hold my hand.

……

First published in Monterey Poetry Review. Thank you Dr. Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, editor.

Or They Will Destroy

 

Or They Will Destroy

You must learn the appetite of insects,
the temper of trees,
the love life of local fungus.
Or they will destroy.

Know the mass of snow,
the force of frost, the strain of stone,
the habits of soil,
even the perfume of the local air.
Or they will destroy.

Talk to people.
Customs are the accumulated wisdom of a place.
Respect the soul of these folk, this land.
Or they will destroy you
as they should.

……

First published in Verse-Virtual. Thank you James Lewis, editor.

She (a girl!) was the best finish carpenter

 

She (a girl!) was the best finish carpenter

we’d ever seen. Her age, seventeen.
Learned the trade from her dad.
After hazing (nothing nasty),
we sort of normalized her. Sort of not.
Found reasons to be within sight of her for crown
molding as she was short and had to stretch — until
she called us creepy and we stopped. But, jeez,
hanging a door was like a ballet, strength and grace.
Not classic beauty, more stocky and square.
We gave her the tasks where perfect would count.
Because she was.

By end of summer we all treated her
like a kid sister. She brought Vivaldi
for the boom box to replace our twangy slop.
She chalked little flowers, hearts and dragonflies
in the rough opening before trimming the frame
so in demolition a century from now
somebody might find them.
Earned enough for first semester at college.
Promised she’d come back and visit.

Maybe she forgot.
Maybe she met some brooding poet.
We speak of her sometimes after all these years.
It’s like opening a wall,
finding a chalk dragonfly.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Your Daily Poem. Thank you Jayne Jauden Ferrer, editor
Photo by Rudy and Peter Skitterian

The stranger in the car behind

 

The stranger in the car behind

A mighty gust of fog rips 3 bicycles
from the rope-and-bungee web atop my van
to fly past the rear window as my gut drops
in a center lane on the Golden Gate Bridge
so I stop. God help me, I stop.

Jump out. Run back
to where the stranger in the car behind
blessedly not a tailgater braked in time
now has put on his blinkers and hustled forward
as together under steel cables
while wet wind howls with diesel smoke
as cars roar by on both sides
while an oil tanker glides beneath
he says not one word in the quick desperation
helps gather 3 bent bicycles from the roadway
which I stuff on top of 3 scared children
as the stranger to whom I said not one word
not a thank you not a moment for it
runs back to his car in the mad din of about 30 seconds
while I hop into the driver’s seat
and stomp on the gas and — gone.

And the stranger whoever
never asked to be a hero
pumped adrenaline scrambled amid traffic
where no trucks or busses plowed into us
survived and drove on and — gone.

So to you right here right now reading this poem —
    Yes, you —
To all you strangers in all the cars behind
let me say in advance:
    Thank you.
Bless you for what without hesitation you will do.
    Thank you so much.

……

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you Hayley Haugen, editor
photo by Hafis Pratama Rendra Graha

Note: This is a poem of gratitude but not of instruction. Really, this stranger should not have stepped onto the Golden Gate Bridge. People die doing that. Just stopping his car was enough. I’m so grateful but please—don’t get out. We were very, very lucky.

Henrietta: A Summer Love

 

Henrietta: A Summer Love

I do not claim to own this creek
but it flows through my property
and perhaps I own each day’s gurgle
that wakes me, and beds me, alone
after a winter of slow goodbye.

Today, a new sound: splash and thrash.
A salmon the size of an otter
struggles upstream over gravel,
pool to pool where she rests, gathers strength
for the next leap and spurt
driven by a memory she does not remember.

Nine miles from the Pacific she stops
at this dark pool under my footbridge.
In a drought year, no farther. Henrietta,
I christen thee after my favorite aunt
who has your face.

I do not claim to own this fish
but all summer she hovers in shadow,
fins barely moving, facing upstream.
Water enters, water departs
too shallow each way for escape.

At the post office I happen to meet Debbie,
a biologist who knows salmon, who also knows loss.
Something compels me to bring her to my bridge.
A secret. In a town of anglers, we tell no one else.
Debbie says Henri is waiting for a lover.

Next day, and next, Debbie drops by.
I’m not sure why. Together, daily we watch.
Henrietta says little. Avoids eye contact.
Same with Debbie who says they often starve.
Waiting to spawn, they die.

One morning, October, I awake to the rush of rain.
I run to the bridge where Debbie is already waiting.
Her hand on my shoulder. Mine, hers.
Henrietta is gone.
Debbie says Henri might return next spring.
Please, she says, call me if and when.

I’m still waiting.
Strange, the signs we miss.
The love. The fish.

……

First published in Silver Birch Press: I am still waiting
Photo by Jessica Weinberg McClosky

Note: The “I” of this poem is not me, but Henrietta is a true fish who made a summer rest stop in a pool beneath a bridge leading to a friend’s house. Taking weekly walks with my friend I always paused to visit Henrietta. From such waters, the poem swam away and took on a life of its own.

Sometimes rural America looks like crap

 

Sometimes rural America looks like crap

especially in sleet when you’re driving
a vintage VW bus with a weak heater
north from Chesapeake Bay.
It’s all gray. The railroad tracks.
The town with three bars and no cafe.

With my six-year-old son riding shotgun,
shivering, toweling the windshield,
I’m looking for some dead ancestor’s homestead
but we’d settle for a warm drink and a cheeseburger.
At a gas station we get heat-lamped hot dogs,
a basket of backyard apples (tart and crunchy),
their last pair of gloves (I wear left, my son right)
and directions.

Here, this dirt road. Cows plod in front of us
sloshing their udders until a wet dog chases them away.
There, a barn missing half its wood. Rock foundation.

We poke around. A red pickup stops.
A farm boy asks what we’re doing. He says
somebody’s been stealing the weathered siding.
“Not me,” I tell him, and we make to leave.
He tells me the land we’re looking for is under water
since they built the Conowingo Dam
and we’re in Pennsylvania now, anyway.
There’s no sign when you cross the line.

We pass a dead horse, vultures. Farmhouses
surrounded by trash and cars. A hawk glaring
from a bare tree. To get home it’ll be two hours
by freeway at the mercy of tractor-trailers
through the tunnel under Baltimore Harbor.
“Sorry,” I say to my son.
“This is great,” he says.

From me he got the explorer gene.
Icy road, we take it easy.
Somehow, a fine day.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in San Pedro River Review. Thank you Jeffrey & Tobi Alfier, editors
photo by StockSnap