Shots fired.

“Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Public Spectacle.” G. Washington

Forget the firing range. It’s the woods for us.
Dusty roads shrunk down from arteries to
capillaries; fallen trees adorned with empties
that pop, crumple, and fall when we shoot right through
them, back in the days when tin cans were dense
and solid, heavy enough to take some abuse.
We’ve decorated what used to be a fence
with old cans, my shoulder sporting a huge bruise.
I came here to learn what you can get away with;
how close to cradle the rifle, how much it bucks;
that the holes from a thirty-ought-six just fit
my small fingers; that there are consequences, luck,
and alternatives. You don’t have to sit and wait
for the explosion. Pull the trigger. The boom abates.

Targeted.

“When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always show Pity to the Suffering Offender.” G. Washington

Not a little pregnant, but a lot, I mean really
huge, like someone glued a shelf to my belly

and then crammed in as much as it could hold
until I rocked unsteadily, big and bold.

There’s a reason why we protect pregnant women,
and it isn’t just because a new life is beginning,

with all that cuteness about to arrive, no, and not
just because they might lose the baby if hurt or shocked.

Factor those in, sure, but part of it has to be
that most moms can’t do it themselves. At least, not me,

I was pretty sure, as I clutched the fanny pack
that no longer fit around my hips and back

and slung it over one shoulder, on the same side
as the rib I’d cracked four months ago (with the pride

of being tough and macho, carrying paving stones),
the same side as the eye with the stye, and frail bones,

the sprained wrist. Not that the other side was better
with both feet swollen, too large for my cute leather

flats, so crammed into sneakers, and the wrist mirrored
with a sprained ankle I dragged behind me, awkward and tired,

lurching along, belly-first — hop-drag, hop-drag, hop-drag.
I was startled when a breeze went by, lifting my bag,

and trying to slide it past my crooked elbow.
It didn’t work, thank the Lord. I didn’t know

what we would do without that last twenty I’d hid
when my husband lost his job, just in case needed,

and the need was now. Then, when the breeze turned out
to be a wiry guy on a bike that slid past me, the lout

dismounting, and turning back, well, I don’t know
what happened. I guess I lost it, that cocky crow

strutting towards me, confident and easy in his stride,
my brain locked on, “You think I’m a target? You think I’D

MAKE A GOOD TARGET? Just because I’m pregnant and sick
and injured and tired?” The strangest words came past my lips:

“You want to fight for it?” He laughed, and said, “Sure,
I’ll fight you for it.” So, I kept hop-drag walking, fear

and anger blazing together, thinking, “a) this is
the stupidest thing I have ever done in this

life,” and “b) The only part of my body that works
is the one arm, so I get one strike. One, you jerk,

to take you down.” I held one image in my mind,
the heel of my hand smashing his face in and blind,

calculating the angle, force; feeling how I’d
push off my leg, throw weight behind the arm, and guide

it all right through his head. I stared at his eyes,
hoping this was quick. I stared, and stared at his eyes.

Then he stopped looking at mine. He glanced around,
noticed people gathering to watch the bout,

and evidently decided to revise his plan,
slowed down, turned around, went back to bike, and ran

(or the bike equivalent), peddling down the street,
turning once, to see if the crazy big-bellied bitch

was still after him. I was okay with that,
the shrinking ripples of his purple satin jacket.

Denials.

“Show not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.” G. Washington

At least a month of midnights between truths,
each a coal-black nugget of angry fear
fingered as a dark rosary stretched thin
between two hands stumbling from prayer to prayer
as reluctantly as we embrace pain,

or death, or the responsibility
for something we never did and never
ever wanted to do, but were blamed for
nonetheless. Who was the perpetrator?
Who was the instigator? The victim?

The rescuer? The righteous ally? Who?
Who was the first encounter in the chain
of random meetings over the decades
triggering memories, paralysis,
grief, guilt, and maybe one day some healing?

Who was the first to say I understand
and mean it, but without understanding?
One step past denial is something else
entirely, inability to speak
hinting at a story yet to be told.

Roll the sounds of letters over your tongue
and fracture them between your teeth even
when unready to make words out of them.
There is time for your truth and mine to meet
somewhere in the middle of empty hours.

/Ethics. Blocked.

“Reproach none for the Infirmities of Nature, nor Delight to Put them that have in mind thereof.” G. Washington

Drizzled with fatigue,
like icing on a cupcake,
am I now a joke?

I rise lopsided,
wobbling at the blurred edges
of collapse. I’m doomed —

part soufflé, part mousse,
part crushed candy canes, bubbling
like champagne gone flat.

It’s alright to laugh,
as long as I laugh along,
I guess, but I try

and try, and then when
when I finally laugh, I bloom
tears, gushing rainbows.

Ah, us. There’s a sea
of troubles, a splintered storm
sears us with shivers.

What if all things good
that we do come from that sea?
All aches transmuted,

all hurts become whole
(emotional alchemy).
Waves lap like dogs’ tongues

on our open wounds.
What if pain froze and shattered?
What if it melted,

drawing new love lines
down pulsing veins in our throat,
and drowned us all?

We swim, float, swim more.
Let’s be kind just one more day.
Take my hand and float.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

“The Gestures of the Body must be Suited to the discourse you are upon.” G. Washington

I rise, I ask, I hope there are enough here
who understand careening over a cliff,
out-of-control; the world turned upside down for
refugees, mothers and children, friends, neighbors,
real people. We all breathed a sigh of relief,

slow-walking, halted, and questioning his act,
these dangerous times. I wish we could give
the real world dreamers, justice, help, that right to
race, coming here, have a skill and success,
to like whom you love. Praise commonsense, propose

the handful of secrets now public. Give me
an awesome thing, in the right hands, steady;
in wrong hands, defenseless. Lives misunderstood.
The time is here. Let’s be clear, close, certain,
faithful, fair. We are all responsible to

immigrants, to every LGBTQ person,
to women. I ask, where are the thirty to serve,
to stand up for justice? I urge them to read,
to review a very moving letter, to start
with the most important. Determine whether

the commitment to life and death, shaping
and reshaping, rights and duty is allowed.
There is more — much more. We worked on problems,
also rights, rights for doing it. I know both
thought it inconceivable. I will stand;

I will cast about strong, longstanding, and equal.
Compel leaders to free the awesome, to chill
the free, to serve, to happen to be many,
to march, to struggle, to participate.
Exercise the depth of commitment. Unite.

Stride. Be alive, vital. I don’t think I quite
understand. I am reading, I am simply
reading what it would mean. I would be glad
to repeat it in my own words. Can I ask
a question? I want to understand. I am

allowed, I am asking what this means. The fear
was real, as bones and heads bore witness. Who forced
a march on children? Who? Of all who have suffered
over the past century, who tried to
legalize just one more criminal? Who

had been key? The only sin was being
too grave, selective, critical, “correct.”
Consider questions of who suffered so much.
My husband called it denial, denial
of other problems. If we are going to dream,

we must spirit the unique into respect,
integrity, confident with different
views. I do believe sensitivity. I believe
progress. We have made every dream ring true.
Who will fight hours to keep our families safe?

---

An erasure poem derived from the words of Senator Elizabeth Warren on February 7, 2017,

Click to access CREC-2017-02-06-bk2.pdf

Challenged.

“Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.” G. Washington

First we argue, and then next pretend
we always knew the truth. Butter is
good for you. Who knows? Maybe chicken

skin, too. Or is all you really need
the broth from boiling them? Sure, let’s just
go with that. Galaxies can’t breathe, grow

like lungs that expand and shrink again,
like brains, like empires, like the earth, like
dying stars growing large as they grow

cold. If your hands are cold, you might be
anemic. Or diabetic. Or
tired. Who knows what your hands could tell you?

Palm reading makes perfect sense. Of course,
minds reveal themselves in the body,
and the body changes to reflect

the mind. It’s not like astrology,
you know. How is that supposed to work?
You need to know the mechanism

of action. Like drugs. We know how drugs
work. Well, most of them. Well, we thought so.
At least, we have evidence they work.

That proves something, right? Listen to your
body. It makes up its own laws. You
better figure them out. There is no

such thing as common sense. The waters
are rising. You might have a bit of
a fever. If Vulcan existed

it would have been hot. Sizzling. Pluto
was a planet. A planetoid. Is.
Or not. It’s a fact. Depends on how

you define planet. Words change with time.
Remember when gay meant happy? Then
it didn’t. And now it might again.

Keep asking questions. That’s what makes change.
And watch the answers. Watch what you say.
What did you say? I said, “If.” Oh. If.

/Stumbles Uninvited.

“Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave: come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them unless desired or give your opinion of them unasked also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.” G. Washington

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.
We try so hard to be detailed,
accurate. I was doing it
all. Yes, I was doing my best.
I was doing the best I could.
You did the best you could. We both
made mistakes. We all made mistakes.
It was no one’s fault. It wasn’t
either of us. It was just a
mistake. A glitch. An oversight.
An error. A revelation.
A miscalculation. A flaw.
How did I miss that? Yes, you’re right,

I’m not very good at that. It’s
an eye-opener. It’s open
access. I guess. Maybe I was
too open, or maybe too closed.
I don’t know. I didn’t want to.
I didn’t have access. I was
taking notes. I kept good records.
It was a typo. The other
set of data. It was the wrong
sample. The reviewer didn’t
like what they saw. There’s a conflict
of interest. At least a conflict,
anyway. There was some bias.

There was an insertion of bias.
It was inadvertent. It was
the selection. It was biased.
It was the color of her clothes.
Pink. It was the look on her face.
Her face was pink. It was the look
on your face. Foreboding. It was
a misreading. Body language.
It was the coding we used. Black.
Blue. It wasn’t a secret code.
I didn’t understand. Black and
blue. I am confounded. I am
confused. Just blue. I am afraid

I am out of time. I’m trying
to fix it. I’m trying to fix
everything. I said I’m sorry.
Didn’t you hear me? I’m sorry.
I take it back. I swear, I take
it all, all back, all of it. I
didn’t mean it. What? Whatever
you want. I’ll do it over. I’ll
do it again. I won’t ever
do it again. Do whatever
you want. Honest. I didn’t do
whatever it was. I didn’t.
I’m not that kind. I won’t. I’m not.

In Light of Resistance, Universe of Verse, and Poets for Science …

In light of “Poems of Resistance,” “Universe of Verse” (which has a LIVESTREAM tomorrow evening!), and Poets for Science (#PoetsForScience), I figure it’s time to come clean on the underlying strategy of the poem sequence I’m developing through (most of) my #NaPoWriMo poems, specifically the “Civility” sequence. For this poem series, I am writing the poems in sequence, using as titles the theme of the day from the “What the F*** Just Happened Today” working through the first 100 (maybe 110) days of the current administration, matched with the appropriately numbered quotation as epigrams from the “Rules of Civility” as scribed by President George Washington as a child. I have a spreadsheet to keep all the pieces nicely lined up. There have been a few days (considering my injury and recovery) where I have been too much in pain or fatigue to manage it, and a couple of poems for NaPoWriMo are not part of the Civility series, but by and large, this is what I’m trying to do. It’s tricky, and there are layers to where I’m drawing inspiration for the poems that I’m not quite ready to share yet, because it is still very early in this project. I mean, really, talking about 100-110 poems here, and I just wrote #17 yesterday. So, I may not be able to pull this off, BUT, it’s an idea, and I’m trying.

---

Originally posted on my Facebook stream. Lightly edited.
The image used is a “paper quilt” I made as a gift some years ago from the 110th of the Rules of Civility. Obviously, these are something special to me.

Denied.

“Be no Flatterer, neither Play with any that delights not to be Play’d Withal.” G. Washington

The water refuses to breathe
for the fish. The air refuses

to slow the light, and the light won’t
mute, gentle, or bend in rainbows.

The garden crawls away from earth,
into wire arcs and plastic tubes.

Ice doesn’t know how to rot, so
it simply melts and fades away.

The chill that slept cozy beneath
erodes, becomes restless, tossing,

and turning, crying out in dreams
of relentless heat and sorrow.

Soil long blanketed becomes raw,
shivers with heat and burns with cold,

prickling root deep and static shocked
as if air’s nerves moan no, please no.

Suspended.

“Do not Puff up the Cheeks, Loll not out the tongue, rub the Hands, or beard, thrust out the lips, or bite them or keep the Lips too open or too Close.” G. Washington

It is the wind that puffs and blows,
parachutes cascading from clouds

sliced open by wings. Here we come,
faces carved closed like wood, lips tight,

floating downward into a dream
sandwiched with nightmares. We’re spiced up

with the supersaturated
breath of the anxious — rich with salt,

dripping with honey, carrying
impurities, imperfections.

False hopes lift us up like a bridge
and settle us down so gently

we don’t even realize there are needles
sharply pricking beneath our feet.

As long as we don’t move, floating
barely above reality,

we can call ourselves a dreamer,
protected in shivering sleep.