Why can’t it ever run backwards,
pause by a fishing hole
and catch a glimpse
of that sixty pound
granddaddy trout,
shiver with the
skinny little kid
jumping into April water,
spy on the old woman
spinning about
on an inner tube
stuck in an eddy,
feel dizzy
watching fall leaves
turn to green to pink
to trees that are bare,
defy gravity,
fly on the backs
of fish clambering
skyward
to the plateau
above the range?
The old woman,
does she ever escape?
Long memory of old friends,
jubilant greetings,
happy reunions.
Trunks twine like hands,
shoulders rub,
bodies lean into each other.
Family squabbles,
territory, pecking order,
things sort themselves out.
Lingering, reluctant
to be parted, to leave,
even after death.
Graying. Wrinkles.
The elephant
that is me.
My first administrative assistant, lovely Edna,
so kind, so Southern Baptist. I can hear her
booming voice with its hint of a chuckle.
Edna prayed for me. She prayed for everyone,
but especially for this beer-drinking Yankee
who didn’t believe in heaven,
and so surely is going to hell.
My definition of hell is to never know
the answers to my long list of questions,
while forever craving, deeply yearning.
I had a boss say, “I don’t know what you don’t
know.” I said, “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
I know which of us is smarter.
I dwell on life’s great mysteries but find
the small ones equally confounding:
The Bermuda Triangle and traffic circles.
I flinch when I see a silverfish
or a centipede in the house.
I ask it: What are you doing up here?
You have the entire basement.
Even when they trespass, like the thin spider
that dropped from the ceiling
into the white porcelain bowl
while I was making breakfast,
rather than squash it
I transported the creature outside and
shooed it into the strawberry bed.
I strive each day to be more a source of light
than just a reflection of it.
Human cruelty perplexes me.
The death of a glacier saddens me.
Kind acts make me cry.
While human indifference incenses me,
my cat’s indifference makes me laugh.
If I’m wrong and Edna’s right,
I’m going to miss seeing
a lot of good people when I die,
and I know I won’t get answers there.
And still I ask the questions:
What is my place in the universe?
Where did I park the car?
Ignoring the squeak
of metal against metal,
I spin the pockets
around the pole,
looking for the right postcard
the waterfall frozen in sunlight,
the golden autumn scene
etched in silver,
the waterpark slide with
air-gasping laughing families,
looking for the one that reads
I’m having a blast.
This is the best vacation.
I stop turning the cards.
I’m looking for you.
That bristled, cream-colored caterpillar tractored onto the searing black asphalt, unaware it could be scorched, or squished by a passing car. I scanned the nearby verge, cool and green under a canopy of oak trees, found a sturdy leaf, and gave the prickly creature a lift. Placing it beneath a hedge of laurel atop Pennsylvania soil rich and promising, I recognized I too have wandered onto that expanse of blistering tar. Of slightly sturdier substance, I've survived being singed. Perhaps more aware, I've avoided being squashed, or was it a kindness, a word or gesture, giving me a lift, giving me another chance to become a butterfly.
Crossed ankles, rocking heel,
jiggling one leg, jiggling both,
the slow fast toe tap,
the quick bounce off the ball of a foot,
sandals, high heels,
Dr Scholl’s, mules,
flip-flops, sneakers and socks,
quiet feet,
left behind right,
tucked in and still.
All this movement,
an extension of our thoughts –
anxious if she’s called on,
or eager to be heard.
My own foot sways,
slow and comforting,
marking time like a weight
on the end of a pendulum.
The woman next to me
eyeballs the motion.
“My mother would have said
to stop that.”
My mother said,
“With all these meetings,
when do you have time
to get anything done?”
my brain does not
focus?
go ahead, aske me a question
an
easy one
I can’t
miss my response:
huh
through a white
thicket between mind
and thought
comes fever,
flu,
nausea,
the shakes, my stomach lining
jitters, agitation crawling
up my throat
trapped
the room has no air
another thought
sifts
through
the porous membrane: not
flu
stuck in an anxious miasma of
too warm, but not hot
can’t achieve hot to
let me go,
the nausea to abate,
to move on no
crest to this tepid flood no
breaking and ebbing ten
minutes of it twenty
no cooling comfort that
perhaps
this
is the last,
my very last
hot flash. Ever.
I’ve had a million
trigger them with
candy, a glass of wine,
hot tea, spicy Mexican,
nothing at all to
hate the feeling of
scorched sand frying
up my veins, under
the skin of my
arms, giving me hot chills,
sweat breaks out on
my shins, hair dripping at
the nape of my neck, knowing
only one hot blast will
end the faulty surge
I want the worst,
ready to breathe again.
Welcome, baby,
to end of day.
Time for dreams
to carry you away.
You’ve kissed your mommy,
your daddy, too.
Hugged your brother
and he’s hugged you.
We’ve read a story,
now your head nods.
We say our prayers,
give thanks to God.
Good night, baby.
Welcome sleep.
In my heart
you’ll always keep.
In my heart
you’ll always keep.
~ AJ
It used to be round,
and now it’s square.
Too many years
in an office chair.
Sunday is wash day
separating dark and light,
removing stains and sweat
from shirts and sheets.
It’s not as if I’m prostrate
kneeling on the river bank,
stones digging into my knees,
knuckles scraped on the rock
I use as a washboard.
It’s not as if I’m standing
knee deep in the River Jordan,
proselytizing my beliefs
in the one true God,
or even that there is a god.
If not absolved,
at least clean.
Does being next to godliness
still count?
buffaloed 