Vanessa

I never called,

neither did you.

After four years of 

workshopping weekly, 

and four years absence

I isolate.

I don't bring people into

my heart. 

I never learned how.

Our Minds Got Expanded

The Santa Ana winds were blowing and so was my father. My brother, Bret, and I mounted our bikes and headed for the Santa Ana River and bike trail.

We got on the path at Edinger and headed west with the winds pushing us towards the beach. The night was clear and warm, even for fall. 

We noticed a little parklet off to the side of the bike path and a trail leading down to a bench lighted by an overhead lamp. In the park was the standard gym equipment for a playground circa 1971, a jungle gym, a slide and swings. It was situated next to a condo complex.

As we stared into the cobalt sky, there were two stars above us, one brighter than the other. I wondered to Bret if one was the North Star which would account for its briliance. Was the smaller star a far off planet caught in the North Star's shine? As we wondered, both stars shot due west at a speed not possible by 1971 standards. Or today's, actually. 

There was an abrupt 90° change of direction, with the two "stars" going southward. Then they were gone.

While we may have had the wind pushing us forward, now we had to fight a battle against the wind to get home. It was not a problem.

What we had witnessed was beyond our understanding of the realities of the cosmos, whatever that includes. We were afraid and not of our father at home. We arrived home pretty sharpish and to the safey of our seperate bedrooms with their closed doors. But that's another story.

Planting Snapdragons

 Today is dark, terrors haunt,

especially at night.

Then, dawn, and to my balcony,

where I planted seeds in soil and watered.

Two weeks later, little green shoots.

Two months later I've learned

nearly every seed I place in soil

Will sprout, grow, and flower.

Soil, sun, and seed washed away

60 years of 

searching for hope.

Silver

 I give myself like a coin,

silver for your pocket.

Brilliant when minted,

tarnish has tainted my sheen.

As of late, you tarnish;

calls lost in lies,

messages unanswered,

abrupt schedule changes.

Again, it's time to shine,

polish every crevice.

I will learn some day

why the gift I gave you

was not

silver.

The Professor

 "You're a really good writer,"

my poetry professor said

to me on my last day of college.

I squirmed, flushed the pink if tulips,

thanked him, examining 

the scar on my knee.

He said, "No I mean it, 

you're really good."

My lips seemed sewn together.

I remember his words on days

I am good at nothing else.

And I love that memory.

It's much more than I ever got

out of the empty box

of my father.

Grape Glass

 They sat on a high shelf just out of reach

of my small clumsy hands

eight purple glasses and matching pitcher

shaped like bunched grapes, never used

because mom valued them beyond their worth.

As an adult on a visit to my mother,

she brought out the cherished goblets, 

served iced tea and asked me to 

claim what I wanted of hers

not wanting cherished goods being sold

in some mere garage sale.

I should have read between those line. 

I didn't.

Today, in a vintage store window,

I see one lone grape glass.

I remember my mom's valued set

purple and bubbly, like a bunch of grapes

now forever out of reach

of my big clumsy hands.

A Death In The Family

 They say it was an accident

410 shotgun, at point blank range.

They say closed casket, 

we won't want to see.

Bret, I can't remember your face,

now scattered off the H-85 in Sun City.

Stealing mom's jewelry two years ago

doesn't seem important anymore. 

My Father

The Door slams. He is home.

My mother scurries to

get his dinner on the table,

after eight hours at her own job.

We are quiet, chew without taste or sound

lest we disturb his tenuous weather.

He refills his drink again, Thunderbird or

Ripple. Night after night we guage the

barometer, ready for the blow.

When my father died at 42 of cirrhosis, 

I was glad to be rid of him.

Fourty years later, I still feel his landfall,

now tempered with a realization.

My father, no matter who he was,

always

brought his paycheck home to us

at the end of every week. 

Previously published in 

The Girl Who Stayed One Day

She's going into prostitution

when she's 18 she braags.

Daddy broke her down like a puzzle

and she leans all her pieces 

against Wesley

whenever he stands still.

She writes on his hand,

property of, in felt tip pen,

which he shows me days later.

I avoid her eyes

as we pass each other in the ward.

She wears midnight like a cape.

Her face is a kaleidoscope of shadows.