I love September...
today the wind hit me
and my future pushed forth
as I tip-toed across the street in
plaid high heels
with brown bows on the tops
and a darker shade at the heel
I wasn't rushed to meet someone
or make supper
fall nights are empty
I rush home to nothing
and no one
I sit on the bathroom floor
eating skittles I find in the bottom of my purse
skittle, skittle, star burst, skittle
while the bathtub fills with frothy
sweet smelling samples
from the Macy's perfume counter
there's a girl there who looks like she walked
straight out of a magazine
sometimes I think I'd like to kiss her
but... bye bye free samples
hello full priced perfume
I'd rather close myself up in the bathroom
with Troi's forever thankful
and think about what September's back side
is going to feel like when I get that far
not like magazine girls lips
or Ame's arms
much more substantial
like what's left of the tree
constant and watchful inside
once the color of the leaves has been spent
the trunk and branches
stand stripped of beauty
solid and real
leaving their possibility
up to my imagination
I dream about root formations
while other women shop for shoes
this summer I bought a dusty pink motorcycle jacket
at the animal arc thrift store up the street
the woman behind the counter was withered
like the leaves in fall
not so much the sepia foliage of late
but the deep crimson that lines highway 61
inside my dream scape road trips
my mind races some nights
I lay in the water and listen to the voices of my life
and try to make sense of the unknown dialect
of my spiritual process
on a good night
the letters come together
form words that bring peace
and I find sleep
on a bad night
the letters come together
form words that bring peace
and I find sleep
my ability to reason
makes love with my physical exhaustion
and there is always an answer
waiting in the wings
to be uncovered and viewed by foreign eyes
and familial hands
running up and down the spine of my
darkest hour
this season of my life
resembles the infinite colors that lay before me
when I stand too close to the ledge at Maiden Rock
Poincare holds his breath
knowing my next move
could never be calculated inside the frenzy of a life
the season wraps its arms around me
mistakes itself for some other self
and we watch the seconds of the chronophage disappear
reinventing freedom
from the asphalt up

the final toast in Gods kitchen
a sacrament of blind trust
separated by names  social security bar codes  
breaking the chain of our conjugal history 
myself dispersed amongst the ruins
it eats us from the inside out
spread out across thousands of miles
along with so many others
we lead silent lives
solitary, quiet, simple 
we take to gardening and the arts
sometimes the wine
our solace from shunned memories
both pride and disbelief
nestled in between the two
the truth sleeps with one eye open
we dream of better days and
honest worlds
where we can break bread at the same table
eat and drink with our loved ones
have the windows open 
and not hush laughter 
my name is a port of ships
followed by a calling from the cosmos
my soul never crossed the waters of separation
and my heart will always belong to the tyrrhenian sea
my husband looks for me from the deck of his entire world
he looks to the sky not knowing I walk freely among a ocean of incredulity
I live in fear that he will never find me here

Yesterday afternoon
Victoria joined me on my ride home
she is my most beloved bus friend
we meet unplanned and often
which I think is a wonderful sign
when we sit together - it feels safe
we huddle in the others direction
like birds, cold on a sill in winter
even when it's 90 degrees
she is the wife of a preacher
works in a homeless shelter
sings in the choir
and does volunteer work in her spare time
she loves to tell me about what is
and isn't christian
and I love to listen to her voice explaining
all of the good intentions
of one of the most prominent religions
our time knows
If Victoria tells me
I take it in faith

we reach st. paul and I run to catch
the connecting bus to home
I don't want Victoria to run
so I stand in the threshhold of the bus
waiting until I know she is close enough
the driver won't pull away
leaving her standing in her red skirt suit
under the hot sun, thirsty and tired
two things she announced upon our meeting

there is no room for us to share a seat
I scurry to the back
setting myself next to a woman
dressed in housekeeping garb
she's reading the star trib
and I can see she's had a long day
I look over her shoulder and join in
she acknowledges my weirdness
but welcomes the interest regardless
simultaneously we eye an article
along side the front story
about a woman being raped
in the neighborhood we are headed into
home to
the woman was 6 months pregnant
walking down the street last saturday
during the day
while I was, in fact, circling the lake with elias
if I had known I would have held his hand and talked less
she was taken to a garage
where some awful things happened to her
at the hands of several men
the act was viewed by children
who came into the garage
because they heard sounds of 
a pregnant woman being raped
to put it bluntly
as it most certainly should be put
the woman beside me shakes her head
we don't say anything, just share a moment
that certainly isn't the first
nor will it be the last
like this one for two women on a bus
going home to the east side
we are good women
we would never ever say
"I'm glad it wasn't me"
our wings just stretch out real far
then go back in...
when I look away from these words
my eyes instantly fall on a little girl
she is wearing a white garb on her head
you can just see her face
I remember an article I wrote in college
just after 9/11 that lost me my job
at that time the head garb was seen as
an oppressive symbol of americas enemy
I wrote sarcastically about how we should
free those poor abused women
so they could spread their legs in playboy
and wear stilettos on street corners
like us cherry pie eating american gals
the real and free thinking women of the world
who get breast implants and
smoke virginia slims
my editor said their were more complaints
in one week, than they had ever had
and handed me my final check
ironically at that time I held a subscription to playboy 
and happened to have taken notice that
there is something very powerful about
a woman's body
I'm not sure cultures that blanket it
are going in the wrong direction
at least not anymore than we are
at forest Victoria and I rise simultaneously
across the narrow windowed room
I want to tell her about the article
but I can't because
Raine is there waiting for me as usual
and I don't want him to know the details
so I just say
there was an article in the paper
about a woman in our neighborhood
who was mugged the other day
right by here
"oh dear" she says "have mercy"
have mercy I say - it feels like opening a freezer door

Raine asks about the mugging
and wants the details
I tell him not to worry about it
nothing bad would ever happen to us
* that's what mothers are supposed to say
he asks me "Why not?"
and when I open my mouth to speak
feathers fly out from between my lips
and I feel warm, my stomach lightens
my angels laugh and run up close to hear the answer
I want to tell him I am not afraid of men in a van
because I'm not really here
just parts of me are for him
that I'm spread out across time lines
and old country roads
that my heart belongs to
the purple mountains just east of
greenville, tennessee
the waters that touch the coast off palermo
the yangtze river and the sharp peaked cliffs of thailand
I want to tell him that my heart belongs to
an old woman named grannie maylan up
around mcgregor minnesota, who used to
sell me cigarettes when I was a teenager
the men rotting in jail for killing her
the men who put them away
and the ones who will let them go
I want him to know I love all kinds
that my heart belongs to a writer in bhutan
a kind and simple man who lives just down the street
a woman in iceland and one in fridley who has a good son
an herbalist just off the coast of california
one over in nordeast and a man who owns the bar on 6th and cedar
that a drunken poet living along the shores
of lake superior, keeps parts of me hidden under rocks
and sometimes in the water
that my heart belongs to everyone at the hoot
a certain senator with nice teeth, a thousand burly bikers
a piano man I name birds after, a jehovas witness with bedroom eyes 
a dimple laden shop boy and slim jiver 
who isn't very good at anything...right now
my heart belongs to a plump belly dancer and ambrosia
a universe who turns across the alley from me
a pink house in italy and the old woman who sweeps the steps
over and over again wondering when I will run up them  

I want to tell him that I am not afraid of men in a van
because if they ever come for me, or him, or the preachers wife 
I'll borrow Troi Atkinsons soul and slit their throats
like they taught him to do in the black clothes of the seals
and the deep wet mud of nicaragua  
where I stood behind him and watched towns burn to the ground
chased shadows because I thought they were angels
and gambled too much with other people's life stories

I drop down into golden bridge pose and shout
"Because I know Kung Fu! and I am the fastest woman alive!"
and take off running as he screams
"no yer not!" chasing after me...
as I run the soft fingers of my lovers fall away like a silk burka
and my thoughts drift to a woman in a red skirt suit
I wonder what I should make for dinner....

When your 30

you can write all the poems

you want to

and you never get fat

they don't even have to be good

no body cares what they're about

- you realize

no one ever did....

when I was a little girl
I thought my mother could shape shift
one minute
we would be walking through a forest
lady slippers and
lightning bugs
the next
sleeping on a basement floor
children on all sides
fighting over the same flowered sheet
my mother smelled of patchouli,
cheap alcohol and virginia slims that wouldn't wash off

she could paint
like translation from the gods
were in her fingertips
begging forgiveness
for the condition of the world
she could dream
like you wake up and
you're still sleeping
the room is a different color 
and angels tell you to go back to the other place 
she could dance
like the whore of babylon 
thought no one was watching
but
the symphony of the world
played for the movement of her limbs
broken and small    
she was the loveliest thing
any of us had ever seen
or ever really will...

today is damp
although completely devoid of rain
my thoughts are in epitaph
and with each action
I give penance for
life kept
and thus feel the
endless, dark, ocean - internal
complete with sunken ships
and little sea fishes
feathery tendrills
and vast nothing...

I'm in the garden
my hands deep in the dirt
and moist
I am committing war crimes
against dandelions
while simutaniously each seed I sow
is an act of my faith in miracles
I pray that I am not
just unearthing tiny mass graves
to mourn in fall
the sea welling up inside
churning small ripples into tidal waves
that tear through homes
wash away families
and release the nothing
with no regard for the integrity
with which I have planted

this small plot of land
an empty canvass in prospective
under aurora borealis
the ocean is a slave
to the impassible commands of the universe
and the greater good of gravity

I try and keep that in mind
as I sink my dreams
into a future
plagued with floods...

Simone de Beauvoir
would sleep until the sun went down
and go looking for Jean Paul
when she'd found him
she would watch from afar
I wonder how a woman of such stature
stood behind trees
like a shy little girl

when the sun reached for her
she held a hand over her eyes
as if it were a mistake...
Sartre ran to cover her up with his coat.

we all have our reasons...

I own 62 pairs of shoes
984 books
and 1 set of sheets
I have 3 brothers
2 sisters
and 1 son
I've driven through 42 states
and been in love 1 time
I've been at my job for about 590 days
I have loved 580 of them
my room is 10 feet by 9 feet
there are 2 windows
it's affordable depending on the 4 seasons
when I ride my bike to work it is 14 miles each way
they are beautiful miles
I grocery shop every 2 weeks
and spend around 200 dollars each time
I buy 4 cases of water
3 cartons of organic whole milk
whatever my 11 year old  wants
and 1 container of sugar free whipped cream
which I eat while waiting about 10 minutes
for my cabby whom usually talks the entire 2 mile trip
I live on Hudson Road - the 900 block
oddly close to 94 and 35
there is a lovely little store just 3 blocks down
2 bars and 1 liquor store
smashed in between them is 1 food shelf
and one adorable little theatre
there are 8 things of bubbles on the shelf in my room
along with 1 bottle of oil (tea tree)
23 pens  (various colors)
2 notebooks
and 1 deck of cards..
I don't own a TV so 0- also my number of parents 
but I have 7 pairs of sunglasses
and 2 books of matches
I have 38 pairs of earrings
17 rings
and 19 bracelets
1 spool of thread
1 compass (stolen from an actual ship)
1 sewing needle
and 1 polished rock with 2 googly eyes on it
which Raine gave me for my 29th birthday
when I get to work in the morning (about 7 AM)
I have 2 voice mails from Trish
1 telling me she loves me
1 telling me what she wants for lunch
I take 1 vitamin in the morning when I get up
and 1 vitamin in the evening - when I get down!
when I go to the gym (1.2 miles away)
I stay near the 3 televisions
so I don't have to talk to ANY people
then I sit in the steam room with
approximately 985 blue green tiles
I have 1 pet spider named carol who lives under
16 cupboards in the kitchen downstairs
she has 3 egg sacks
this makes my 2 roommates angry
my ex husband lives approximately 2400 feet from me
in a lovely 2 story home with his 1 girlfriend and 1 brother
both weighing in at about 150 pounds
they have 3 cars and no pets
there are 13 rooms in the house that I live in
I clean 11 of them
1 of them used to be the office of a famous doctor
now it is where my 2 jade and 1 bonsai share the sun
I have 13 issues of Scientific American next to my bed 
none of these numbers represent anything to me anymore...
they are like flowers in a garden
random
special
beautiful
meaningless...

I'm thinking red
not so much the predominant red of the color wheel
more the burgundy
that slid so easily down my throat last evening
perhaps a bit heavier
than the feather of a small,
although not infantile
dove
sitting outside the window

but not like
hippopotamus...

I'm at a table seating
stuffed suits
lots of them
stripes, stars and phobias...
pretending to pay attention
a talent I have mastered
laugh, smile, glance, repeat
in that exact order
in truth I am exploring the swollen innards of my tea bag
imagining what story lives there

red
it's the color with the most spiritual weight
and
the color of this napkin
my uniball vision elite -
"my life partner"
loves napkins
I get excited when I spot one
of good quality

Does this tea bag know what I did last night
or just what I'm going to do tomorrow?
at the moment last night is the baroque era
and tomorrow
mars, robot armies
I pick up my dry cleaning...

yesterday morning - the dark ages -I lay in bed until 1 in the afternoon
it was the first time I have felt safe in a thousand years
I am completely positive
there were no arrows
flying past
the dead weight of my sleeping body
I did not wake up running
or gasping for air
in the night

I did not visit the vomitorium of my soul...

In approximately 9 seconds
I will rise smiling
and bring new meaning to the phrase
"please excuse me gentlemen..."

I want to go to the cave of the Makhpelah..

and run my fingers along stalactite tips

dripping with the humidity of ancestry

and be silent

as silent I have never been..

I want to listen to what isn't there

and accept that, I don't have time

for everything

that I don't extend far enough

into the past or the future

for these bright colors

to marry into the deep brown of my life…