September Poetry, Week 3

Day 15

Beach Thief

Clearly

there is a sign 

large print

red letters

I read

unlawful

to remove

rocks (sand too)

from this beach

but

these 

are my rocks

on my beach

the beach

where I 

grew 

learned 

everything I need now

perfect

all by myself, 

alone

fragrant ocean calling, sand beneath me

sun on my face, salt on my tongue

this rock in my palm, this sift of sand in my shoes

this beach in every heartbeat

in the last heartbeat

I will ever hear

tide going 

out.

Day 16

Deep Sweet Water

All her life we can’t afford it
from her parents. All her life this
was the answer to every request.
Her mother pinched the budget to buy material 
for school clothes. She sewed for them, 
Dad socked away quarters from overtime 
for his small Christmas shopping, 
each present a treasure.

She grew to desire
things not afforded, an ache 
like deep sweet water 
building, rising in her. 

That ring on QVC, the new purse
at TJ Maxx, the Van Gogh pen at Levenger
all out of her reach. I can’t afford it.
But what of the beach on a cloudy day,
or blue jays at the feeder, or the sultry snore 
of her husband beside her, his hand
on her thigh as they drift off 
to deep sweet water of dreams.

Day 17

Rainy Passage

Stop. 

Go. 

Stop. Go.

Moose 

no rod, cone eyes

no flares, no

orange triangles. 

Imagine woods 

without Moosba, 

soft sounds of rain-

hopping frogs.

Moose. Frogs. 

Headlights. Rain.

Stop. Go. Stop.

Time.

Day 18

Quiet

not the absence of noise —

still water not still

soft wind moves like water, 

makes itself known

without loudness.

A boisterous child asleep

in his cot, not calm, suspended

in time, stopped mid-burst,

but not absent his noise, his clatter.

In a bar, in the midst of noisy

band, screeching amp, foot stomped

bluster, one molecule of quiet

left behind. It waits for you

in the alleyway; find it 

in the huddle of rough sleepers, 

a breath that stopped an hour ago

from cold and hunger, that roars

from every cardboard box and doorway. 

Quiet. Noise. Noise that quiets. Quits.

Day 19

The sun

lifts itself on muscled arms

stretches its slow smile 

over the sea. Last night a storm 

creased the sky, the shore 

with electric lashings, ozone coating

the air. Ships groaned at their moorings, 

waited for calm. Before dawn, a bird

(could’ve been a gull) called the fog

to settle and make peace with the sea.

The Bible says He stretched out his arm

and the sea obeyed. If an arm can calm

the waves, a gull make peace, then sound

a horn, beat a drum, and be glad in all of it.

Day 20

7th grade self

hair permed at the kitchen sink,

socks slipping into the heels 

of size too big saddle shoes,

plaid skirt hiked up

at the waistband one block

from school, books

clad in brown paper bags. 

Just be yourself. Only who

is that girl? Peer into the mirror

this morning, no clue. Prayed

all night someone would come along

and tell you the rules to the game —

so far only jeers at your PB & J

sandwich, your frizzed up hair,

your sloshy socks. Hours go, no

one says a word to you, no one

says this year is gonna be so much fun.

The next two years erase themselves,

and all you remember is 8th Grade

Graduation, blinking into the sunlight

as your name is called, and the only two

who clap for you have to love you anyway.

Slow forward...

A blur. A slow cooked life — and a poem.

Day 21

Memento Mori

Snap. Shutter. Flip 

open, close. There 

you are: freeze-framed 

belovèd, mother,

daughter, poet, enemy.

Snap. Shutter. Eye. 

All-seeing

indiscriminate, brutal.

Click. Over.

Not lost, not erased. Click. 

In your head a moment, taken

on film, on line, on tap.

There it is: 

snapped — frozen 

landscape of childhood,

adultery, death-bed confession.

Memento Mori — life sliced

into pieces for frames,

minutiae of days, nights,

wishes & failures. Mutable

snaps and clicks, relentless time.

September Poetry, Week 2

Day 8

Hands

These are two miracles, fashioned
from bones and the skin I wear
that’s like your skin, and the skin
of every tree in this place.
I wear these hands like jewels
or stars, dress them in winter
to save them from the cold,
let them fly free in summer
to greet the birds who are relatives too.

I wave them in your direction,
Nid8ba, so you can feel me coming
from the breeze they make. 
When I arrive, you will take these hands
in your hands and we will feel good.
When I leave, you will clasp them 
again so we will not feel sad. 

These are two miracles, and so much
more. They are a history of family
and friends, touch that keeps us
together — never undone, never quite separate.




Day 9

Greed

Seagulls mimic us,
our faults, yawk them against
the sky and shore. Greed 
on full display as they fight
for every bit of food, and more. 

More than simple hunger, gulls 
wheel in to grab the spoils
of picnics, abandoned garbage,
all the same to them, beaks
sharp against sharing. 

Out back, behind the grocery, trash 
bins locked, guarded
against the homeless who need
a few bits of what didn’t sell,
what they couldn’t buy. 

It’s not safe food, they’re told. 
Move along. We can’t risk 
you suing us 
if it makes you sick. 

As if hunger isn’t enough of that.

Day 10

Dark & Salt

He knew me, the way spies know 

each other, stalking the corners, exposing

cover stories decided in dark bedrooms, 

or the murky edges of village lanes. 

He knew what to do with dark.

I knew him as ocean knows shore,

forever moving toward him, then away.

I am sea glass, tumbled to perfect color

by the tumult of being together.

I knew what to do with salt.

What we didn’t know: how bedrooms 

hold secrets; how the sea is filled with tears.

Day 11

Another Burning

What’s left after the burning
is another, and later another
burning translated into something
like grief. I tell you the ashes 
never cool, disappear,
even when the wind has blown
and scattered them far from here
where everything ignited. A spark
always ready to conflagrate, a coal
lighting me with what we started —
like a film in a movie house, 
curling, catching, crackling; our movie, 
dangerous, it burns, rewinds, burns again,
burns away everything but you, 
the fire of your mouth, a room key 
glowing in the ashes. We thought it was safe 
on our yellow brick road, until the sparks caught 
the hands of the scarecrow, his mouth.




Day 12

Bordereau

It’s a list of warnings. You’ve seen them
and hardly anything on the list
is what you’d give up out of hand: chocolate, 
coffee, Proseco, the man you love’s slick jive. 
There they are listed for you, a bordereau, 
documented reasons to be wary, 
to go the other way. Especially the man 
and his tongue, convincing though it may be 
on your own tongue. What about that?
Okay, so coffee could be omitted every other day, 
chocolate too. A small glass of proseco 
at weddings. But what about him saying nothing 
will ever be the same without you, 
you’ll always be his beloved. What about his hands 
on your thighs and hips, his mouth all over you?  
What about it, girl? Can you let that go? 





Day 13

In Service of Luck

Not a good idea to remodel
your room on Friday the 13th, 
when wreckage
is all that’s possible, screams
as your underwear pops
from under the bed, leaving

the contractor in the know about you —
how you wear a thong, how your bras
have lipstick inside the cups, how
nightshade grows in furrows
on your face. An auspicious day? 

Not the way your fortuneteller predicts, 
waving her fingers 
in the direction of the moon
which chooses to wane in a corner
of a window where you propped up a mirror
for checking your makeup, the same 
mirror that fell and brought years
of bad luck, as if you needed to be told

about that kind of wreckage
on its way. On its way, seven years 
of black cats and ladders with tippy paint cans,
underwear in glove compartments
of boyfriends’ cars, boyfriends
you trusted until the wreckage of the 13th.

Why couldn’t you stay under
the covers all day, let the moon wane,
the cats scream outside the window
you nailed shut against just this kind
of thing? Remodel, model again 
with three books of spells on your head.





Day 14

The T

Kissed by the breath 
of an approaching train, loved
by this city, place 
of Revolution, survival. 
If only my ancestors 
had seen it coming, losses
so great they’d get sung
for your grandchildren
to the thump of drums
echoing down these tracks
where sparks, electric fireflies,
zing into the darkness
light the way from the cave
where we gather
below the madness. Kissed
by the breath of the city,
listening to its heartbeat,
getting off at just the right stop.

September Poetry, Week 1

Day 1

Coffee House 

At a corner table, heads close,

doing the Sunday Times crossword 

sitting exactly like this every week 

for years, on the same side 

of the table, facing the street, away 

from the rest of us with our lattes.

Their fingers move over the folded paper. 

Using pens instead of pencils, 

they are sure of the answers.

They never cheat. 

She’s the beauty, he’s the brain —

so you might think. 

He gets every tenth word, only 

with her help. She pats his hand,

the hand that’s held hers for decades. 

I told you black, she says.

He says, I didn’t think you meant that.

Day 2

Motherly

—The base of all inks 

and pigments is seawater. Seamus Heaney

If mothers held conch shells

to their ears during labor

they’d be more careful 

to save the water than flooded

from them like a great salt sea

heading for shore, bearing myth

and history. They’d wait

between pains for the Mystery

to roll in, clutching brief stars

in one hand, tears in the other.

If mothers could make their labor beds

of kelp and sand, if they could sing

songs they learned before

their own births, no child would die

of loneliness or despair. The base of all

ink is salt, pigment’s black lava salt.

If mothers could hear the words

spoken by angels at the moment of birth,

echoed in the shells of their ears, write 

the incantations on their palms, 

they would grow strong as the tide. 

Later, floating in the water they saved,

they would remember their own births, 

see their mothers as heroes.

Day 3

School’s On

Wild as weeds running paths

to brick and mortar old 

as their great grandmothers,

they sport sloppy jeans and tees 

with New Direction emblazoned

on the front, stalk each other

for this year’s homecoming dates.

Time to dust and vacuum 

and pull out the space bags

of winter wear. Get the place

ready for tabletops loaded down

with homework, backpacks,

after school snacks.

Time too for mothers everywhere 

to sit on their front steps, fluted

glasses in hand, weary smiles

on their faces, looking to the sky,

the newly slanting sun,

from whence cometh their help.

Day 4

Shoes

No use trying to walk in high heels

on water; even a path painted

through the forest can slide 

if it’s not dry, make you tumble.

Like in fourth grade or fifth

when no one picked you 

for dodge ball, even though

the object was to knock down

the one picked. 

Dorothy dances down 

her yellow bricks, 

trusts Emerald City 

is just around the bend 

or over the rainbow. 

Her ruby slippers are sensible 

shoes, nothing bewitching 

to trip her up,

make the ending unhappy.

Day 5

Boston Marriage, c. 1890s

When ladies were alone, by way of death

or accidental fortune, they never spoke

of being on the dole, of material

too painful to declare. A camera shot

of two such women might reveal

their Boston marriage, the arrangement

some said that gave them oars

in storm-wracked loneliness.

If Sarah and Annie threw in their coins

to make the rent, if they ate at table

just the two of them, no more 

man in sight, could they be framed 

by society’s polite, accused of something 

darker than ladylike and proper news? 

And if they cry at night for someone

else’s arms, then what will be the harm

to light the parlor lamp together and to kiss?

Day 6

Ghosts at the Hotel

The maid cannot scrub the place

of lovers and their secrets.

Ghosts of other lovers 

watch from the ceiling, the drapes,

the half-open door of the bath.

For them, it’s like a movie,

a flickering on the TV screen

as night comes to its end.

You cannot make them look away,

no matter if you keep the sheets

tight to your necks, the music

of yourselves muted and low. 

They sigh, glance at one another,

wondering what that ache is 

she whispers about as you dress 

to leave her, the scent of her on you, 

lingering and dangerous.

Day 7

In the Pink Parlor

— Oceanic Hotel, Isles of Shoals

Swing out of the frame, 

squint or take off

your glasses, and there 

they are, ruffle-hemmed girls

walking arm-in-arm. They pass 

in the mirror glass faded to silver, 

hanging askew enough to catch them.

If you know where to look, you’ll see

them as they go by. The younger,

hair tied with ribbons, holds a book,

open to something worthy of a laugh

you cannot hear. The elder holds 

a cigarette, forbidden perhaps

by her father, who hovers in the lobby.

No smoke, no danger of fire, 

no ash to drop on the carpet 

they do not walk upon. I wonder

do they see me here too? I am quiet enough

they may just mistake me for one of them.

August Poetry, Week 4

So ends the month of August, now only 62 poems to go to finish my 365 Project. Stay tuned.

Day 22

Swimming 

I’m not going to swim

in the Dead Sea,

though I carry my swim suit

in case any sea or pond will have me.

I will not swim the English Channel

or across Chickawaukee, give up

on setting records in water. 

Ann Briley, Red Cross, held my head 

under water, at nine, my part 

to say how many fingers 

she held in front of my eyes. I guessed

and almost always guessed wrong.

I wanted the Red Cross certificate

of swimming, but my eyes stung

in the salt of the inlet pool. 

Now I only swim 

with my head up like a puppy 

paddling alongside the kayak 

gliding still water. 

I jump waves thirty feet off the beach, 

or fork back and forth 

neck deep at the lake. I will not swim 

out to the float with my friends,

certain to be over my head. 

They say you cannot drown 

in the Dead Sea. Ann Briley

would disagree. I feel her hand.

Day 23

Matriarch at 35

She sits, arms crossed

over flowered breasts, scowl

and jowls a mark 

of her generation. Block

black shoes the sensible ones

always wore, farm wives

or mail order brides, women 

who’d already buried one husband.

Hair drawn back, severe do

for a woman of thirty-five,

cheeks pale and tight. Her sister, 

a girl of ten or so, dazzles

the scene beside her. Slip showing,

braids caught in mid fling like wings,

an angel who’d not last 

through coming winter. But these 

are happy times, family in place for the picnic, 

matriarch in her place at the head of it all, 

wondering what she’d do later

when she’s alone in the bed 

they brought all the way from England,

the only possession she’d never sell.

Day 24

Little Fools

Low tide, the perfume I inhale

today, signals an early winter

with its deeper aroma, its fuller

slick on the surface of the inlet.

Beach glass rolls onto the beach

where I spend final summer days,

where I recall your hand 

on my thigh, your breath coming

beside me like the tide. Not many

more days like this one, warm enough

for a swim in the surf, warm still

for a walk along the cliff’s edge

without danger of morning frost.

Back then, when we thought time long

enough to be a little foolish, 

I was sure that you would wake 

stretching from our night’s sleep,

wake to the perfume of coffee

in our own kitchen. Little fools,

we had our time, did nothing 

permanent, but only out of fear.

Day 25 

Seven Boys

after Winslow Homer, 1873

They row back and forth

all day, dipping their feet and boasting

of what they’ll do when they are grown.

Too young for work at sea,

they harbor plans for money

in the bank, their own ships

to sail away on the tide,

then row back in 

for Mama’s cornbread and chowder,

and the tales their daddies tell

about life at sea. They row back and forth, 

waiting for the men they’re bound to be.

Day 26

The Visit

Why all those stars

gathered in the windows

bleeding through the glass

onto the table we refinished?

Why all that moonlight?

I’m back again

where every day was a year

and time ran down the walls

like melting snow. Not long

they said, and I felt myself lifting

over the bed where you’d tucked

the quilt up around my shoulders,

thinking the dying must of course

be getting colder every minute.

It gets old, this haunting feeling

that something was left behind,

something like ... I don’t know what

but something like an itch

I cannot scratch. So I’m here again

searching our room for what it was.

You lie quiet, as if not knowing

I’m here. I promised to come

and you have forgotten, or maybe

you’re just too tired to stay awake

for me. Like when you lay on the couch

night after night but couldn’t 

keep your eyes open and I watched

the ball game, extra innings and all.

Why is the radio silent? Where did 

you put my glasses? What’s become

normal for you? What’s become of me?

Day 27

Stone

A rolling stone

rolls to a stop, gathers

no moss, but plenty of dust,

dust from feet that stubbed it,

that kicked it aside

under a bush where two birds

are on hand for a lullaby

as the sun goes down.

A stone, stopped from rolling,

gathers with other stones,

becomes a wall good neighbors

call a fence. Moss gathers,

more dust, acorns too, carried

over hill & dale; one ripe enough

come spring, to famously 

become a great oak, or maybe a cradle.

Day 28

Summery Night Before the Frost

It rains while we sleep, urging

the last flowers to bloom in fiery voice

along the fence, against the house.

Soon snow will sift down or come

in fury, covering the last blossom,

the last leaf that will fall too one night,

a summery night before the frost comes. 

You roll to your side, cup my breast 

and sigh, as if knowing our days are like this.

Day 29

Riding

Like a feral cat, he has wandered London 

all night, rough sleepers rejecting his need to cozy 

in their doorways, their alleys. Near the bridge

by Embankment, he finds a fix to get him through.

Weeks ago he was on top, living a plastic

life with his mates, getting the girl, scoring 

every night. Now he is martyred to the life

he scorned when he was a lad, seeing the losers

slipping a few quid into the hands of seedy chaps

on corners. An easy enough slide, one night

at a time. Stoned, he climbs the iffy step 

to the bus, fishes in his pockets for change.

Three rows back, a girl he once knew

who doesn’t notice as he clatters

to the back, slumps in the last seat. 

Earphones in her ears, she moves slightly 

to inaudible tunes they maybe danced to before. 

He wants her

to tell him everything will be alright. 

She keeps on dancing alone. 

Day 30

Sometimes when the rosary

was said in Mossbawn, there was gunfire.

It’s all peace now they say,

but still a bullet might overpower

the night with its prayers around the table,

pints foaming on the sideboard for after. 

One voice is gone from the praying now,

needs prayers of its own to wake him.

On the other side, his white hair

takes on new light, as he passes through 

gates he stubbornly believed in, where he

may indeed tarry now with his moustached dead.

Spenser is on hand with fourteen lines 

about death and resurrection, great love. 

He reaches for aeonian words to weave like thatch,

a way to settle into his place. No hurry

Spenser says, scratching his chin over line nine,

it’s all about the turn. From far away and yesterday,

there is gunfire, and the rattling of beads.

— for Seamus Heaney

Day 31

Love, a fantastic tale

The yellow brick road has gutters too, 

mossy hedgerows or poppied fields

falsely safer than Alice's tree hole, 

more inviting than the gleam of emerald 

off in the distance. Certainly not Kansas.

And what of fantastic love? 

Tin men with no idea how to please her, 

bravery without heart, straw lovers 

who lose their stuffing at every turn. 

Poor Dorothy, dependent 

on witchery for a plan. 

No wonder she's so into her shoes.