Coming to

I walked the high desert ranch roads, dodging

tusked javelina, coming upon families of pronghorn,

watching the seasons let loose greens and yellows--and the cream-colored

blossoms of the Spanish Daggers. And the heavy blue

sky held my body like a limitless lover.

Far West Texas, a kind of heaven, a place

pouring light in through the top of my head,

descending faster than the tequila shaken with sugar that I'd order

at 5, when the bar opened its doors, and soon the doors of my body

busted open at their hinges, and the men knew me

only from the darkest region of their blackouts. I lost out on so many

glorious daybreaks, under sheets and trembling. Then by noon, the ranch

roads calling, and I'd search for God again who persistently pressed.

Finally, I'd fall far enough, wake with a mouthful of light.

Train

Just put me on a train, a train to anywhere,
anywhere but here, by here I mean the sharp peak inside my brain,
a tower of black onyx, too slick to climb,
too wide to travel around. It's a sticking point, it's a lifetime of them,
built up, jamming things up like a spoon in the garbage disposal,
a shiny thing I keep glancing at, seeing only my reflection.

I want out of this hard landscape, this mountain of me,
and the train goes fast and across, from sea to sea.
Once at the Atlantic, I'll jump into its warm waters and finally
swim. There's an island I'll land on and be--
blissfully--lost at last.

My Fill

The gulf coast, summer of 2004, a year before Katrina would wreck it all--
I was wrecking myself, a hurricane of a houseguest, but calling
my storms a party barge ride. Claiming this even as we stumbled out of the bar into morning's
light, even as I nodded off in my eggs and pancakes at the Waffle House next door,
even as I dove into the streets of New Orleans and swam them on rivers of gin.

And the ache in my chest--the big empty,
the lonely hole where my heart should go--
would never overflow, no matter how much drink
I took. I took it in stride. Don't know, then, why I cried and cried.
And this, I claimed, a glorious ride. I nearly did myself in.

As dark settles in

Spring dusk comes later and later;

day slowly empties out of me and I wait--for something or someone--

maybe the monsters fumbling under the bed will finally reveal themselves

when dark settles in. I tie my pajama pants tight as if there are secrets

I refuse to loosen. The sky is all grays now--gray clouds dot

the gray sky. And still, I wait.

The Globe of My Mind

Late afternoon light--I want to bottle it, like fireflies,
like the white glittery snow in the snowglobe
my grandmother kept on her mantel,
souvenir from Niagra Falls and all the spoons with handles
bearing city names I'd never visit. I went
some places, as a little girl, in my imagination,
no real place so glorious as the landscapes in my mind,
the worlds I created before suppertime, standing alone
under the three deodar cedars in the front yard,
small rose-shaped cones fallen from their branches at my feet.
Always, in the stories I told myself, the princes adorned me with roses,
and the light was just so, just like it is right now, forty years later--
and I still want to keep night from ever coming, to live right in the shine,
the gleam of low sun on spring leaves, and never enter the house for dinner,
where the clatter of dishes and the rising voices and a father forking
his food, his singing voice turning to shouts as the last light left the sky.

Grow

He offered, write about dirt so how could I
refuse--that place we grow worms, lifting the bin's
lid and turning the rich stuff, dark and smelling

dank as the monthly blood I used to bleed,
when I was younger, when I thought
I might grow a beautiful thing under my belly skin.

The worms duck for darkness
while the iris bulbs in the garden's
back corner reach their new green fingers

towards the light, and I look at my palms,
their deep lines caked with soil.
I'm planting seeds--flowers and lettuce.

This making of something not a substitute
for the small someone I wanted to--and didn't
carry. I think about her sometimes:

her curly blonde hair messy from rest
as I spoon tiny portions of oatmeal into her
mouth. Instead, I curl the sweet pea tendrils

onto the first rung of their string trellis.

Rainfall

Though not that long a drive—less than three hours, past the windmill farm

and through orchards—the road back to the City has been long,

hard-won. My heart, a tree in my chest, has been growing, branches

seeking new sky. And what they have found, and touched, a sweet surprise.

This first week back, the weather is hard, a relentless storm, and cups

and books, kettles and even cats, contained in boxes. I’m not sure where the pieces

of me are any more. And all the things I gave away: candles and vases,

bedding and soap. And here I sit, in a café in San Francisco, a coat

wrapped around my body, while the man I came here for works,

works outside in the rain, traipsing the varied landscapes this place

offers. And it offers so much: hot tea in a large mug, cooling, a window

showing the green hill that marks my new neighborhood. And it’s falling,

rain. And I’m falling, love. And though this weather, all climate change,

challenges, I want it to keep coming down from the sky, washing us all

wet and new. The view from this vantage—though shrouded in clouds—

the most beautiful I’ve known. On Saturday, we’ll plant bulbs for Spring flowers.