Edge, Face

yesterday’s grime cannot be cleaned
as i spray the blue liquid,
wipe it away with squeaky wipers.
i watch as the face of my car
lets drip down its edges
slow, almost still tears

sun streams through windblown clouds,
not pink today, a soft yellow,
and my car shakes
as the tears slide down our faces,
my sad songs so loud
i cannot hear the outside howling

i almost lose control,
riding along the edge of the lane,
but i pull her back
(i pull myself back)
turn the wipers one more time,
grime only along the edges now

we settle into our spot
(same as every day)
and she grumbles to sleep
as i step inside
to everything i must face,
only to see more tears
slide down the edges
of another’s face.

i ask myself,
walking along
the lonely, crowded corridors,
when will the edges be clear,
when will our faces bear smiles?
but as i edge along
the middle school jubilance,
i can’t quite face the answer

Empty

the flour bags
(all three)
are nearly empty.
self rising filters up
in a ghostly cloud
and bits of cocoa
sprinkle across the edge of my palm,
as yet unsweetened

i will wait thirty-six minutes
and cut out my middle
(it is all i have left).
i have no energy
to label out names
nor to carry them to classrooms,
so why do i stand staring
at the mostly empty cabinet,
the almost-gone butter,
and the four fewer eggs?

i will not wash the bowl,
but wastefully fill it with water
to sit overnight in the sink
where mid-morning my husband’s gentle hands
will take a sponge
in circular motions
that i picture now with tears in my eyes
as the crusted-on mix
disintegrates against his skin.

this is the taste of joy
i offer to them,
baked with the hollowness hovering
deep inside the truth
i will not share,
a portion of myself
that they can swallow without remorse.

Haiku Thursday

with one bloody spot
my day cannot be washed out
can i clean myself?

horrendously loud
self-absorbed sub and monkeys
music doesn’t work

a quiet home now
soon to be destroyed by noise
is there an escape?

cold eyes and closed heart
make for a very long day
i wish it would end.

songs that sing to soul
all i have to hold on to
i drive in circles.

Professionalism

she steps in on the conversation
that she would as easily hold in the hallway,
in the gym during an assembly,
in her office about other people
(handled as unprofessionally as possible)
but we are the ones being inappropriate?

are they listening through these walls?
what will they hear?
that we’re getting trampled on every day
by parents and students who’d rather blame us
than take responsibility?

is this even a poem
or a complaint about the truth of
why i’m so angry right now?

if they’re listening,
i’m quite sure their last concern
is some whiny-assed kid
who can’t handle getting the
reality of his life handed to him,
backed by parents who won’t admit
they have a teenager, not a toddler,
who needs to pulls his lips
off his mama’s nipple
and move the fuck into adulthood.

but that’s just it.
they’re not listening.
nor is she,
though she can cut short this talk,
throw in a quick critique,
and act like her mouth is the
perfect picture of professionalism

Midday

i carried three coffees
into work.
it was midday.
i had to walk around front,
give the guard a sheepish grin
(did he know i didn’t sign out,
that i just drove sixty miles
to drop off a test? did it matter?)
snow came down in flustered flurries,
sticky and wet on grimy windshield,
not enough to slow me down or make me smile

i was rushed and i was right
as i stood waiting
for incompetency to finish
erasing errant bubbles on
directions she didn’t listen to

i placed the drinks on desks,
was handed back tearful smiles
that carried my squeaky heels
down the hallway
to the next moment of time
that would not be mine,
that would never be mine,
and it didn’t matter–
i’d made one small part of the day
a bit more bearable.

Desperation

what i love
is that we have all been
in this desperate moment
(that one where we stood
across from the one
we have loved,
the one who doesn’t love us back)

i can hear the pain
move through his desperate voice,
his lyrics as pungent
as the images he puts forth,
the backbeat and opening chords
reverberating all those lost moments
of a life we all want to grab
and hold close,
a life that is so frail
it could end at any moment

we have all had those moments–
running into the street,
tears inside and out,
desperation the essence
of all that we are,
all that we feel we’ll ever be,
when the beauty of the world
is darkened by loss.

this,
this sharing of moments,
desperate or joyful,
is what i love
about sharing a stranger’s art

Coldness Tinged with Darkness

as we sit outside
in coldness tinged with darkness
she tells me what the backside of my brain
already knew

why i have to hear these words from her
from her
is enough to start the flow
and i wonder how i will
ever step back inside

he is gone into the night
and i want to see
the amazing person
she tells me i fell in love with
but i am bursting inside
with the aftertaste
of the words we spat at each other

i will drive in circles
searching for him
but only to throw anger
back into his face

he lies wrapped
in his usual coma of disengagement
we sit on the edge of the bed
it is almost laughable
all of us together like this
like this
fully clothed
tears and anger
to replace
laughter and love

there is nothing left to say
he says
there is nothing left to say
and i step back into
the coldness tinged with darkness
where i will search
for the words he’ll never share with me

Nothing Short of Art

we sit in central citified sun
sipping smoothies and lattes,
munching on freshly baked croissants
and chatting with strangers
on a day so warm it can’t be
the third week of January
(a beauty we all share
as we peel off our winter coats)

they skip alongside on an impromptu adventure,
moving along the zero street,
playing pig and picking out dates
on ovular stamps in concrete.

we enter the train store
and examine the pure wonder
of details so tiny, humans
standing knee-deep in plexiglass water,
monkeys climbing up a fallen-apart billboard,
and fast-moving trains. one declares,
it is nothing short of art

later i pedal into the wind
around the dam and up the hill
until i see the circular beauty of the lake,
and its curvacious path
interweaves me with a hundred pairs of legs,
all taking advantage
of this day like no other

before i am home
i am home,
and can almost forget
the tears whose all night sting
kept my eyes bleeding till morning,
the two dark, cold miles of separation,
and the hollowness of our words
that find their way
into the poems he wishes i wouldn’t write.

Queen of Misinterpretation

moving from flower to flower
is how she passes each hour
pollen spread, an aberration
queen of misinterpretation

flowers will wilt in summer sun
when the seeds are no longer fun
pollinating without reason
her juices cut loose by season

the drones adhere to every word
even when it is quite absurd
soon they will taste the spreading seed
see how quickly it can mislead

for now the truth lies in the stem
the part of the bud not for them
when petals fall it will emerge
and queen’s distaste will be submerged

The Partial Self

i put away the bottle
to find the roots to my words
she tells me it was always more than sex
i find myself eliminating details of my life
and isn’t it all just a poem anyway?

i will see them all tonight
and be the partial self
that i can only share without a sip
(implanted smile
and normal amount of bitchiness)
but never enough joy
to consume the room–
it will be hidden behind
the down-and-out lyrics,
the thoughts i’ll keep trapped
and the worry that i can never be
enough of myself to be someone