Sunny and Cold

Walking up Court Street this morning
I had just passed a scattering of paper clips,
hundreds of them, silver and glinting,
and I thought of all the papers I could hold together,
old love letters and poems, little scraps
that say not much more than 'bird' or 'peach,'
and then, suddenly, a boy, no older than seven,
flew by me on his scooter; hey, I wanted to yell,
but then I saw where he had been rushing:
the mailbox. The blue mailbox. Our mailbox.
He had a half dozen or so colored envelopes,
and he worked the jaw of the mailbox open
and dropped the letters in, then he opened it again
to make sure, I imagine, that they had fallen.

I love that he opened it again.
I love that he wanted to be sure.

Longing #129

To have spent the day by the ocean
and walked for so long and so far
that I have to wipe the sand off my feet
before crawling into bed.

You?

The Golden Nest

Breaks my heart every time I read it...

Mantra
by Ruth Stone

When I am sad
I sing
remembering the red wing blackbirds clack
When I want no thing
except to turn time back
to what I had
before love made me sad

When I forget to weep
I hear the peeping tree toads
creeping up the bark
Love lies asleep
and dreams that everything
is in its golden nest
and I am caught there too
when I forget

Happy Sunday!!!

From the Callihans.

Hoping your weekend was filled with
candy-stuffed unicorns

and moustache-backings shaped like the loveliest of birds!

Translators Needed

Yesterday, walking down Broadway, I heard two young men who appeared to be NYU students talking. "SHE SNUCK A SNIZZ IN YOUR SNOOZE, HILLDOG!" For the life of me I can't figure out what it could mean. She interrupted your nap? Thoughts?

The Marlboro Moon

In my dreams, I often sneak cigarettes.

Last night I climbed thirty-two flights,
desperate, looking for something.
When I got to the top of the stairs: an attic,
and by the window: a crystal ashtray, a silver lighter and a single Marlboro Light.
Approximate seconds since my last cigarette:
141, 912, 726

Delayed Appreciation & Elizabeth Bishop

My father has a tendency to give me gifts that I don't realize I love. Take the case of the gift he gave me for my thirtieth birthday: a blue pitcher; a not-quite-ordinary blue pitcher that I had no idea how to use. And so...I stuck it in the basement where it grew dustier and dustier until one day having stumbled upon it (after bumping my head on the too-low ceiling), I filled it with hot water to keep at my desk and, well, you know the rest. There are poets like this too. Yeats, of course, but Bishop too, these days I'm feeling Bishop especially. When I was younger I wanted nothing to do with her; now, though, I crave her and can hardly imagine how anyone who knows her work could not crave it. Here, a morsel:

Late Air
by Elizabeth Bishop

From a magician's midnight sleeve
the radio-singers
distribute all their love-songs
over the dew-wet lawns.
And like a fortune-teller's
their marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.

But on the Navy Yard aerial I find
better witnesses
for love on summer nights.
Five remote lights
keep their nests there; Phoenixes
burn quietly, where the dew cannot climb.

The Dangers of Chinese Take-Out

Fanta and the Sauna

Yesterday, Sanj came over. We sat in the sauna at the gym, and she told me of how when she was a little girl in Africa, she was told to fast for five days. The fasting would, they told her, bring a good man for her to marry. She remembers being terribly hungry. On that same trip--the hunger subsiding as hunger does--she and her brother found a case of Fanta underneath the bed. She said she felt like a fishmonger finding a whole sea of orange fish. Beautiful, she said, so full of hope. Later, as we showered, I yelled over the stall, “You should write about that.”

“What?”

“About the fast and the Fanta. You should write about it.”

“I can’t hear you,” she yelled. I told her I’d tell her later, but the afternoon kept unfolding, and then we said goodbye at the subway, and walking home, I remembered: the fish, oh, the fish.

Now I sit tapping away at my computer, wondering if stories can be stolen, wondering if my desire to own that story and tell that story might--suddenly--lead me away from my desk and down the hallway, into the bedroom where, leaning over to pick up a sock to throw in the wash, I’d get a glimpse of something under the bed, and there it would be: a whole case of orange soda just waiting to be guzzled.

Still Life with Paper Bag Tilapia

Inspired by my brother's culinary wizardry with parchment paper,
I have stumbled across my latest delight:

Lay out a brown paper bag (not even a nickel); slice a deli zucchini (89 cents);
pour one teaspoon of evoo (for your healty oil!) and dust liberally with salt and pepper (cost negligible).
On top of that place one rinsed-off, thawed-out piece of frozen Sam's fish (99 cents);
close the bag; microwave for three minutes and fifteen seconds;
douse with lime juice and Frank's red hot sauce, and WaLa!
Yes, folks, for less than the price of a subway ride to Coney Island:
The World's Most Perfect Lunch!
Bon Appetite!

An Ode to Odes

Oh you oft neglected form, you calm before the storm, you with your snowy eyes and your little round mouth, you who has traveled from north to south, oh you winged one, oh you chaired, oh you truth and oh you dare, oh you, oh you, oh little fish blue, how you swim and you swim and you swim fro and to, oh you kitten and oh you dog, oh you big mouthed horny frog, oh ink, oh lead, oh friends that are dead, oh lord, oh my, oh keep moving on, oh my bumble, oh my flea--to render, to rattle, to rivet and roll--oh my verb, oh my droll, oh sissy and jojo and mama and you, oh daddy and linda and davey too, oh boredom, oh thrills, oh rolling down hills , oh body, oh spirit, oh crazy old soul, oh waltzes and bellies and sweet pickled jellies, oh horrible poem, oh laughable procrastinator; I should have known, I was better as a waiter!

***This poem is not intended to be used as instruction on the ode form. It's pure intention was to keep the writer from doing the work she needs to be doing. Files sit unopened and neglected on her computer. She paces; she pees; she swats at the bees. Flash to the scene where she's working at Betty's Fish and Chips in Northern California; her pants are tight; her apron is fashioned to look like a giant french fry. Suddenly, a customer says something we can't hear (WE ONLY SEE HIS GAPING PIE HOLE, FLAPPING). She pours a pitcher (notably not blue) of iced tea over his head. Fade to darkness.***

Those Pesky Pounds

Hoping your post-holiday weight loss plan is working out better than mine...

Marina and Ulay: A Cautionary Tale

After twelve years of satisfying collaboration with her partner, Ulay, Marina Ambrović, the Yugoslavian-born performance artist, decided their final performance would be to say goodbye to each other. Each walked half the length of the Great Wall of China—Ulay began in the Gobi desert and Marina at the Yellow Sea—after 2500 kilometers, they met and parted and never spoke again.

My student, Molly, was floored by this. “Just seems weird,” she said. “Why would they do that?”
“Art?” I said.
“But how could you just walk away from someone you loved for that long?”
“Art?” I said again.
“But who would choose art over love?”

Fatherly Advice

Words of wisdom from Cody's dad at the end of their Sunday night conversation:

"Well, son, I'm going to go make the patty melts. Why don't you go hug on your wife?"

O Roget!

Long Road Home

Very few of my childhood memories take place not on the road. In one or two I am sitting under a tree or curtsying in my brother's magic show, but in nearly all of the rest, I am riding shotgun to some town or the other, and my mom's at the wheel. She had a little game she played. "I'm going to take a nap," she'd say and close (presumably) one eye, the eye I could see from the passenger side. "Tell me if a curve is coming."In the beginning, it terrified me. I'd beg and plea. "Please wake up, mom. Please. We're going to die!" But after a while, it delighted me. I wanted to sing her a little sleep song, a little lullaby for the road. The air scattered the sunlight in a jillion different directions, and it was just us and glass and wheels spinning. We were a long way from home, but we knew if we kept driving and driving, we'd get there; we had each other and a six-pack of Diet Cokes and a golden arches on the horizon. Before we knew it, we'd be home, and only then, after we were almost settled, could we think of leaving again.

Light, Forgotten

"The past dims like a great, tiered chandelier."

Henri Cole, from Middle Earth

Circles in Manhattan

Yesterday, I strapped on terribly uncomfortable shoes and did what seemed endless loops in the middle of Manhattan. Round and round I went until everyone began to look the same. Noses, scarves, teeth and mittens--I've seen this before, I kept thinking.

Don't worry: this is not a metaphor. I went ice skating.

I laughed; I cried; I broke no bones.

But alas! Woman cannot live on tiny loops alone. I'm hitting the road, heading west until I find a place to hang my hat. (I do hope ole Joe T. has got a hat rack...)

Ladies who Lunch

At the restaurant, three booths over, a cockroach crawled across the wall. It seemed in slow motion. We were eating salmon, and I was telling Amy about my desire to own a food processor. For soups, I explained.

I can see that, she said.

To own, I amended, and successfully operate--nothing fancy.

The manager made his way to the cockroach booth. The couple (beautiful) had just received their salads. In one practiced flick of the dishtowel, the bug was gone. The manager apologized. This never happens, he said.

It seems like something you'd write about, Amy said.

The roach?

No. The food processor.

Hmm...

So much for thinking my subjects are: 1) great love and 2) the painful disconnect between all things human, a disconnect which can only (and only momentarily) be bridged by paying terribly close attention to the moment, such close attention that the moment expands so beautifully and exponentially that it begins again.

It just sounds so you, Amy said.

The walls of the restaurant were bare except for paintings. My salmon was gone; I eyed hers hungrily.

Is that a Threat or a Promise?

Uninspired tea bag quote of the day:

"You will eat ambrosial fruit."

Memory 8

That Christmas
(the one when you didn't die)
a crane sat in the hospital parking lot.

With tiny white lights,
someone had fashioned a heart
on each side of its arms.
I remember being very cold.

Heart. Crane.
I kept saying over and over again,
sitting in my car, the heat blaring,
Heart. Crane. Heart.
I rolled it like a Gobstopper over my tongue.
Waiting for it to--(Crane.)--
melt.

No, I said weeks later,
correcting a woman who may
as well have been a stranger.
Not the kind with wings.
Just a crane crane.

The kind that lifts and lowers.
Does its work.
Lifts again.

Memory Is:

(elusive.)

Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year!