Marcy calls to the attic

 

Marcy calls to the attic

where I’m banging around rewiring
“Come down right now!”
on a day the office is supposed to be closed.
Marcy needs to move a patient
so I walk into a room where a naked woman
lies on the heavy chiropractic table
with chunks of ceiling plaster,
a towel over her bum.

Marcy lifts the table, foot end.
I lift the table, head end.
Table-woman stares at my tool belt buckle
and smiles at the absurdity. We are all human.
We all maintain dignity.

In the hallway Marcy explains
“It’s her attendant’s day off but her spine
went berserk so here we are.”

Later, Marcy asks me to help lift table-woman
who is now in flowered dress and hat,
lift from wheelchair into a Rolls Royce
so Marcy grabs beneath the arms
while I (dusty with attic dirt)
grab table-woman’s bottom
and together one-two-three we hoist,
my hand of necessity on a soft spot.
Which is briefly weird, I tell you.
Marcy notices, cocks an eyebrow.

Table-woman thanks Marcy, then smiles at me,
above me, sweetly but with condescension
as if I never, squeezes the hand controls
and drives stately away.
My hand remembers.

Marcy whose job is bodies says
“You touch a person, something changes. Right?”
……
First published in Sheila-Na-Gig —thank you editor Hayley Haugen

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This longest night

 

This Longest Night

Gusty snow rattles
    window glass
as one child wakes with a bloody nose
    which wakes the youngest
    which wakes the middle
chain reaction
all sleeping in one room
    for warmth
as nesting mice huddle
    among woven grass
    under sheets of ice.

Mom and dad juggle
    tissues, laps,
in this thin-walled house
this longest night.

We are poor.
We are parents.
We are not poor parents.

……

First published in CultureCult Anthology "Nocturne”

Note: The winter solstice of this poem was 4 decades ago in harder times. We shared our warmth.

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I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse

 

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse

Please don’t tell her.
Not that she’d want it.
She’s 40, lives far away.

The furnace broke,
there’s no sunshine in December
and I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
that I built with scraps of pine from a paying job
for a Nobel Prize professor of economics,
a fancy wall of bookshelves that I underbid
one cold December long ago
for a moneyless Christmas
full of joy.

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
that I painted white with a roof of red
with finger-size doors on tiny hinges.
From bits of wire I made tiny coat hangers.
From scraps of mahogany I made
a double bed for the mommy and daddy
plus three small beds and a cradle
that I oiled and polished until they glowed
so she could be proud.

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
where meals were cooked,
where babies were born,
where children grew until gone.
Giving warmth, an orange flame
tinged with blue.

……

First published in Steam Ticket

Note: In December of 2018 my furnace broke, so I was depending on my fireplace—for six weeks, midwinter. At the same time I was cleaning out my garage and burning stuff for heat. Some I regret…

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Lester and Maggie and the 4-Wheel Bed

 

Lester and Maggie and the 4-Wheel Bed

Gruff gray Lester and Navaho Maggie
have no offspring but treat me like one.
For Lester I knock down a wall
and install fat rubber wheels under
the walnut monster of a double bed
they've shared 60 years—so he can roll
Maggie to the dining room and kitchen.
Magpie of Dawn, Lester says.
She keeps an eye on me.
Maggie's delighted, room to room
joking and chattering sometimes in Navaho
and you get used to the scent of urine.

Rolling is difficult for Lester who limps
and later more cumbersome with oxygen tanks
so I'm replacing cupped floor boards
when Maggie who is watching me work
points to a pair of coyotes—
one large wary male, one smaller calm female—
outside the window sitting on haunches
by the broken-down tractor staring right at us,
not unusual for a ranch house outside town but
then we hear a gurgling sound like water in a drain.
Lester a big man leaps to Maggie's side.
Bends his head to her heart while outside
in broad daylight those coyotes start to howl.
The two. Aroo-oo.
It tingles.
The air itself seems to glow.
Lester grabs his rifle from the wall and runs
to the window but those coyotes don't flinch.
Aroo-oo.
He lowers the gun with shaky hand, says
They're calling her home.

A couple weeks later after the service
Lester in his old wedding suit tight and ragged
hands me a cardboard box containing the wheels
he's removed and there's a note:
    For the next.
    Help them go home.
Now I'm no coyote but that box is
on the top shelf in the garage.
I'm telling you, son, so you'll know.

……

From my book buck naked is the opposite of hate

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig

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Message to a Womb

 

Message to a Womb

She feels your hiccups
knows when you’re sleeping
says you move toward me
when I place cheek over womb

Gurgles but
all communication seems two-way, within
I’m without
It’s so quiet out here

In a belly-bare contest
    she wins on convexity
    and stretchity
I win on hairity

In a breast-bare contest
    she wins on utility
    and again, on beautity    
I, on muscularity

In a time-keeping contest
    I win on wrist-watchity
    She, on moon-cyclity

In a baby-making contest,
    no contest. We win.

I’m just the outsider DNA-supply
can’t nourish, can’t caress
the curly fingers twitching legs
the lips mouthing baby lyrics
when I sing to the navel call-response    
    Me: Oh you can’t get to heaven—
    You: bup lup, bup lup
    Me: —in my old car
    You: bup lup, bup lup
but we both know you’re in heaven on earth

What I’m trying to say is
you touch my spirit
and when you bust out
you’ll call, I’ll respond

……

First published in Red Wolf Journal. Thank you editor Irene Toh.

Note: I send poems on postcards. Lots of poems, lots of postcards. Playful or serious, depending on the picture. The stakes are low, the audience is a single person, so I feel free to make up spontaneous poems — some good, some terrible. Last year I came upon a series of pregnancy images and composed little poems to go with each. Good ones. Later I combined several of the poems and edited them into a longer poem. These are images of 3 of the postcards.

bust-out photo by Anouk van Marsberger
silhouette photo by kalhh
belly baring photo by Patou Ricard

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Bell-bottom Jeans

 

Bell-bottom Jeans

At a suburban garage sale
on a wobbly table among lava lamps
I find bell-bottom jeans, one pair,
lovingly patched.  
Peace, brother, the ancient man says
as he pockets my single dollar.

Never in that style mood,  
I store them like an old photo,
mellow in my closet.
A quiet vibe, these threads.

Until my daughter
discovers, wears the jeans
as a hippie Halloween costume
to a high school dance and looks great.
Absolutely great.
Groovy! she shouts.

Now may her children find.
May peace endure
like pants.
Patch. Love. Dance.

……

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

A big thank you to Katie Col — with love and dance — for creating the painting at my request for this poem. 

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@joecottonwood

She grows bristlecone pines

 

She grows bristlecone pines

as house plants, drops little seeds
into paper cups with harsh soil 
from Sierra mountainside,
sunburnt seedlings frosted,
parched, neglected for weeks 
fitting nature’s plan,
her windowsill a forest
growing with the speed 
of centuries.

Her bedroom is cramped. 
She sleeps by the door. 
Her love is prickly, remembers 
wooly mammoths, survived asteroids. 
She gets angry when I suggest orchids.
The landlord wants her out, 
wants to build condos, turns up 
the heat. 

In cups her love grows
for grandchildren to transplant 
to faraway years, to unfriendly soil, 
to ever struggle, never thrive.
Please, may they survive.

……

From my book buck naked is the opposite of hate

First published in Amsterdam Quarterly. Thank you Bryan R Monte, editor
Photo by Rick Goldwaser

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Last time we see Bogey

 

Last time we see Bogey

A three-tooth smile on a rattletrap bike,
refugee from a warm place fled to a cold one,
he sweeps sawdust, unloads bags of cement.

Pointing at the face printed on his T shirt
he says Hoom-fray Bah-gurt
so we call him Bogey. Nearly deaf
except at the boom of a lumber drop
he ducks for cover, searches the sky.
Tremors, the hand.

Bogey brings a single mango for lunch, so we
“share.” He loves bologna and peanut butter.
We give him steel-toed raggedy old boots.

Autumn comes fast with a sleet storm.
Kerosene heaters indoors (not safe)
hanging drywall when we hear a rattle outside.

Bogey’s in an eggshell of ice
cracked at knees but frozen like glued
to the bike so we wheel him inside,
pour a thermos on gloves and boots,
then stand him dripping in front of the heater.

Jumping up and down trembling laughing
in a puddle of Guatemalan coffee he shouts
Cray-zee! You cray-zee! Won’t let us
drive him home. Snot nose, body shaking
he cleans up scraps of drywall,
coughing at the gypsum dust.

Sleet ends, sunset is gorgeous,
color of passion and peace.
Bogey is shell-free, wobbling,
riding away with his small pay.
Not crazy. Gone.

……

From my book buck naked is the opposite of hate

First published in Anti-Heroin Chic. Thank you James Diaz, editor

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Alone, Moose Mountain

 

Alone, Moose Mountain

Foolishly alone
he climbs into clouds.
He snaps branches, cleaves cobwebs
to reawaken an abandoned path
found on a faded map,
first footprints to this loam in years.

A final, steep scramble up rocks.
Clouds lift. Atop Moose Mountain
a brilliant view, shared: perched on a spar,  
an alert falcon. Companion.

The descent, again no escort.
Crossing a creek, he hops to a
green rock algae-slick — and upends
flipping like a pinwheel so fast
there’s no time for hands, for reflex.
Jaw slams against boulder.

A moment, stunned.
He's in cold water, soaked.
Stars spin across eyes.
He springs up to scream at nobody,
the gods, the cussed green rock.
But can’t scream—jaw too sore.
Where's the hat? The camera?
He stumbles down the creek, spies the Nikon,
and slips again. Crashes. Aargh!  

He's too tired, too wet,
too banged up and crazy with pain.
Farewell, beloved Tilley hat.
Socks squish inside boots. Jaw throbs.
Arm, shoulder, stabs of heat.

A doctor purses her lips saying
"You're crazy, hiking solo where nobody
would find you. You almost broke your jaw.
And didn't it occur to you," she asks
shaking her head, "you dislocated your shoulder?"
She pops it into place.

Above Moose Mountain,
alone, a falcon soars.

……

First published in Peacock Journal
Note: Yeah, it’s about me. At age 60-something I set out to explore rough country alone. This particular Moose Mountain is in the Adirondacks of New York State and was seldom hiked by anybody back then. The camera was ruined, photo film got soaked in the creek when I fell, but this picture I salvaged—falcon’s world.

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Blonde, tight skirt, leather vest,

 

Blonde, tight skirt, leather vest,

she knows her privilege and uses it
smiling at the young JetBlue attendant
who mentions nothing about size limits
as he helps her pummel a gigantic
purple duffle into the overhead bin
occupying the space of two bags.
I have the aisle, she the window.
From her body, a powdery scent
like fresh-cut sugar pine. Perhaps I stare.

“Something wrong?” she asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “First time I ever
smelled sawdust on a jet plane.”
“My first husband,” she says as if that explains it.
“I just spent two weeks at his cabin.”
A chatty woman. I soon learn she woke
to the call of loons, had to brake
as a dozen geese held a family meeting
on the road to the airport. She wished
she could stop right there,
paint plein air on Interstate 89.

She’s bringing maple moose lollipops
for the evil stepchildren. “They’re frankly
glad I’m gone,” she says. Now we’re over
Lake Champlain. Destination JFK.
“Goodbye Vermont,” she says to the window.
“I’ve cleaned his cabin, I’ve brought you
his ashes. Stay green and may we all
dwell in peace.”

……

First published in Freshwater
Photo by sumanley on Pixabay

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