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 - for melissa

i love your brain

i mean not like a zombie

just that i’m totally in awe

of the way your brain works

but man oh man

i know that 100 percent

if i were a zombie

i’d crack your skull open

sit you on the floor 

between my legs

and dig into your brains

like it was a goddamned 

Taco Bell burrito bowl

like i had a bony fistful of fire sauce

and the eternal appetite

of the undead

i’d have one single synapse left

burning in my own head 

and in its last few seconds

when i’d gotten all the way 

down to your hippocampus

when i was eating your memories of us

i just know that i would know 

i had just tasted

the tastiest bit of all.

Lucid

for Wendy Lutz

the most common way i've heard

to tell if you are dreaming

is to look for your hands

and when you see them you'll know

you are no longer in this world 

and then there’s another way

you can realize the friend

the one having an animated conversation with you

they took their life almost 10 years ago

but there they are

right in front of you

bubbling and effusive

and as you realize what your brain has done

your face stalls out

drops just a little bit on the edges

for one small moment

as what’s happening hits you head on

you stop yourself

and turn your face back on to them

because you don’t want them to ask what’s wrong

because it would just make it awkward

because you just want to stay there with them

having a normal conversation

it’s been so incredibly long

since you had a chance to catch up

and find out how they are doing.

 

minutes after midnight

as the late summer winds fluttered
through the aspens
outside our window
i reached my hand across 
towards you
through the layers of comforter
the tangle of sheets
and random tumble of pillows
hoping to find
one of the usual
curved stretch of quadricep
deep low back cleft of muscle
short hooked hold of a hipbone 
to lock my fingers around
side breast to trace in a hopeful semicircle
or a tricep to linger up
to the nape of your neck
and entangle my fingers into your hair

instead my hand met yours
suddenly sliding across your side 
grasping mine in yours so quickly
in the handshake of a long lost friend
or of an ally thought lost in battle

the perfect fit of it 
and the way your grip released so slowly
our carpals bumping tenderly across each other 
as they slowly drifted apart 

confirmed our connection 
more completely than 

any other touch of your skin
in any other place

stunned once again
by getting exactly what i unexpectedly needed
 

email to Matt on his 2021 birthday

on this day, i celebrate and mourn my previous creation of a beloved and sometimes palagarized bit of literature for you, and i replicate an annual tradition of looking downward and shaking my head sadly at the fearful burden of feeling that I cannot do even a small fraction as much or as well again, much as my friend mike mcenary used shake his head sadly after he would watch an attractive young lady walk by. contained in this motion of his head was a vast sadness, and internal acceptance of what he assumed was the fact that he could simply never approach or in any way interact meaningfully with that woman, and perhaps as well, an acknowledgement that he would never master the skill of watching someone without allowing his head to swivel along directly connected to their passage. i had long tried to school mike in an typically inherent human skill of moving only their eyes to follow an object in motion, but this skill seemed incredibly difficult for him to master. in my downcast head shake, and memory of mike mcenary, i find a struggle to not simply accept a limitation i have created for myself, but instead to muster the moxie required to somehow rise to the occasion of your glorious birth once again, and create something new that communicates to you a granule of humble truth that communicates that i understand some small iota of your life, your position, and your vector on this day.  the gift that is starting to sift from my brain this morning is perhaps simpler than i expected, and is simply to communicate to you with these clumsy tools that are my words how much joy you supply to myself and my household with your perfect presence in my sister's life, and with your indomitably, incessantly creative brain, and the mystery of it all that results in so many creative excretions. We wonder, our eyes agape, and watering from inability to blink, when we see your creations show up on our picture frame. We assign the title of Grand Systaner to one of the crowd, who is tasked with lubricating our balls of eyes so we can continue to stare, enraptured, at the twist and turns and shiny facets and angles of the beauty you bring into the world. 

i could not be any more joyous that on this day a mere few years ago, you came into existence athenically, your mother pulling you fully formed from the forehead of your father.

tender

last night when i started drifting asleep
i felt a sound deep within my body
a heavy coin spinning on an old wooden table
slowing down as it shifted 
from vertical to horizontal
wobbling out a rhythm
that i finally understood
was my heartbeat  

and the coin just keeps spinning
so here I am 
telling you all about it 
this morning

 

an effortless mirror of obtusion

for my dad

in our conversations

i find myself savoring the subtle echo

of the parenthetical ricochet

of the tone and frequency of the sound

and the vector implied

by your words

as they re-enter my atmosphere

garden center

i was waiting at the end of an aisle

watching you meandering among the plants 

considering color and composition

touching the leaves and petals

as you moved from flower to flower

i stood there surrounded by lemon coral

shasta daisys, creeping phlox, pink and purple petunias

and our cart was full of black-eyed susans

a small bee landed on the back of my left hand

a tiny compliment to my skin

in the middle of all these blooming flowers

and so much pollen in the air

it looked around at the moles and tiny hairs

inspected a small scab 

from clearing dead branches last weekend

then flew off again

the tiny sensation of its feet on my skin

then lifting away

sent a shimmer up my arm

i looked up and saw you again

an aisle of flowers away from me

and that shimmer ran across my chest

and up the back of my neck

out of everything else 

beautiful and amazing

surrounding us in this world that you landed on me.

strata

you realize

at least

25 times

each day

that i am a fraud

and every time

it comes

as a relief.

primatology

“Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” 

- Elizabeth Stone

Most people use this quote to describe a sense of extreme fragility

the risk of having something so tender and so pure

exposed to the random violences of the world.

But when i watch my daughter ride her tricycle in the kitchen

waving to me with half an oatmeal raisin cookie in her hand

rolling around the room 
trailing crumbs across the floor

her blue sparkly skirt twirling with her legs

i am not afraid for this outside of my body heart

i am simply enthralled by its fearless oddity.

This other heart of mine is inimitable, random, 
amused by the infinity of places to go
and the so manyness of the ways to get there.

extra value meal

the whole drive back home 
from getting our saturday breakfast
an egg mcmuffin meal
hotcakes and sausage
and an extra hash brown for mama

your words
sentences
paragraphs
and entire stories
percolated up from
the car seat behind me

your words, the sugar in my coffee
you, the coffee itself

a voice for one

we could always tell 

from the first words my dad spoke

when he picked up the phone

that he was talking to his brother Jim

his voice was louder than normal

had an ironton missouri twang

and it contained a unique

and exuberant joy

this voice was used by my father

only when he spoke to his brother

and today that voice is gone

having nobody else in this world
to talk to 

salina, ks

early this morning

as the thunderstorm rolled in

i fed you the names

to its each of its parts

to push aside your fear

we repeated the words

like mantras

each time a flash

came through the seam

in the hotel blackout curtains

your words smaller

and a moment behind mine

lightning...lightning

thunder...thunder

lightning...lightning

thunder...thunder

after the storms had passed

and the morning arrived

you woke

and turned your head

to the windows again

you spoke

as if you were talking

to your toddler friends

who were getting into their parents cars

the morning after a sleepover

bye bye lightning

bye bye thunder

bye bye dark

an axle in your bellybutton

just like the wind turbines
we saw driving i70 
through kansas the day before

you spun slowly all night 
between us
in the king size hotel bed
your head in my armpit
your feet in my face
your ribcage across my knee

the tiny mechanisms
of your sleep
groaning quietly
as you turned

scratch

If, as the cue ball
You could scoop from the pocket
And aim again




--------
the above is a "poemlet" from my sister
an amazing writer
and person of tender sentiments
and melissa and i am honored
and touched by her words.
and by the fact she allowed me
to post this here
with a title of my own addition
-------

are/were

for a few more hours today
You are Schrodinger's embryo
You are quantum
You are alive, implanted, thriving and dividing
and at the same time already gone missing
slipped away over the edge silently
while we were both watching so intently
and so unable to see

our only evidences
were twinges on tuesday
and nausea today
and all i have are those descriptions
and the wrong size boxes
in which to put them

it is now 6:29pm CST
and all week we have been on
increasingly sharpened tenterhooks
balanced between tears of two flavors
without a grain of middle ground in sight

captain nugget and the fuzzy cargo

it was probably 
the abnormal amount of rain
and the distant flashes of lightning
working their way
through the folds in your blackout curtains
at 3:17 this morning
that raised your alarm

we took shifts laying on the floor 
next to your bed
one hand extended up into yours
trying to soothe you back to sleep
but unable to let go 
and move towards the door
without you raising your head 

it wasn’t until i thought about the quilt
your mama draped over me 
when my shift started
that i understood

the quilt my grandma ellie made for me 
when i was only one
has Noah’s ark on a blue background
all the animals looking out their windows
with an owl at the top 
watching the waves curling against the orange hull

you were surrounded in your crib
by a rainbow giraffe
blue bear the green dog
a small mouse holding a green blanket
a washington u ladies basketball bear 
with converse high tops
an elephant with a light in its back
projecting stars and planets on the ceiling
and minnie mouse and sock monkey 
nestled into the corner

you had brought them all aboard last night
each and every one confirmed
the same as every night
up from the couch
up the stairs to your room
and into their proper places among your blankets

and now you standing at the bow of your bed
your hands gripping the top railing tightly
like a ship’s captain on the rough and squirming seas
awake on the helm all night 
eyes locked onto the horizon
keeping the ship at right angles
to the wind 
and to the waves

the world behind the stroller this morning

was the smell of humid earth

shocked into action

by a rare high desert rain last night

was the sound of bits of songs

you murmured like a mantra

interrupted by the words

for the animals along the way

was the sight of your hand reaching out

from under the shaded canopy

every time we walked next a juniper bush

or patch of feather reed grasses to let them wave and flutter through your fingers

big munny, little munny

on our early morning stroller walk today

we see the first fawn of the year

a tiny spotty puppy-sized mule deer

grazing in the gambel oaks with its mama

the waning gibbous moon setting behind us

through a grove of cypress

the sun rising ahead of us

filtering through fluttering aspen in the creek

by what will be your elementary school

we hear a woodpecker

pecking out its morse code mating call

staccato on the stucco side of a house

all the way down the street we see rabbits

and using your word for them

we call them out together

big munny

little munny

big munnies stock still by the russian sage

little munnies hopping around in the grasses

big munny by the juniper bushes

little munny running across the street

big munny ducking underneath the cedar fence

little munny hiding in the drainage pipe

as we turn the corner

to head back up the trail

the sun at our backs

casts my shadow long above the stroller

and i bend over you to look at you

to see your quiet watchful face

big munny

little munny