Welcome back to the tightness in the chest, the almost-frantic voice demanding, Hurry, from between clenched teeth. Hurry means wrong again, means miscalculations in the intricate morning mix, ingredients that must be layered in particular order, precisely measured, a cake that never rises, a dance the whole household knows and nobody greets with joy. Hurry means measured wrong again, one shower too long, or shampoo in somebody’s eye, lunch boxes left on yesterday’s bus or we’re out of bread. Again. No one can find a pen for the permission slips that appeared in the night and so they pile up, years of field trips, from zoos to Shakespeare festivals, signed in crayon or eyeliner or not at all. But there are shoes on every single foot and each delivered to its proper place to spend the day. By the time you reach the office, someone should be there to greet you with a medal, a fanfare, at the very least a gold star and a mug of coffee, crowds applauding all you’ve achieved before 8 a.m., followed by space inside a quiet room with a soft chair where time stops sprinting towards the finish line. This room is yours for as long as you need to breathe, to settle your racing heart, a room where absolutely nobody ever says You’re Late.
Again.
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
Late, Again
Memorial Day
I never survived anything like war
Not even a single, ruthless battle.
Instead, this whole cold holiday
Spent sick in bed, those battle-earned
Hours squandered on sleep.
This year, the day’s miracle is sunlight
Filigree of tree shadows through lace curtains,
Peace in the streets,
My lap full of oranges and poems.
Grateful, grateful to be here and free
In a place where gratitude is personal,
This tiny town,
Where the War Memorial is etched
With names they remember
With names they know by heart.
Field Guide To Poems: Location and Storage
Hidden as strawberries,
mysterious as the moon
shadowed by thin wisps
of clouds. Floating
through your head, abundant
as the spring sky full of dandelion seeds.
Sudden as the gleam
of wild eyes on a midnight road.
So many times.
Missives sent long distance
on fire, streaking tales of light
landed here in drifts and
overflowing drawers and
musty attic trunks accumulating
year by year, these ordinary wonders,
these letters addressed
to your invisible singing self.
Advice From My Redbud Tree
Flower first
before you dress
in green and
practical leaves.
Why wait
when this very day
can be spent
covered in pink blossoms
and fat bees,
every single one of them
drunk and busy,
lopsided with joy
just to be near you
at the height of
your beauty?
Flower first.
Flower now.
Extravagance is Everything.
Benediction For My Town
Tonight my town
sleep nestled in your hills
blanketed by stars.
Dream of the sweetness
that walks through
your streets —
all I love about
this small town:
Friendly dogs, flowering yards,
neighbors who wave
and call out to each other, sidewalk visits.
For background music, the high school
band practices as they march and
Listen–cheers from the ball field where
tonight is t-ball and small,
small children eating hot dogs
and learning the rules of the game
while crowds cheer them on
and then take them out for ice cream.
Gatsby World
I’d forgotten how it is here–
In this Gatsby world of excess,
all champagne and fur coats,
drenched in Opulent smiles
to match these enormous estates.
Perfection, except
no matter how white,
smiles never reach those eyes.
Joe is still there, in his grounds-
keeper’s shed, the best place
to hide. He is much the same,
with his paycheck and normal
warm eyes. His smile remains
small but true
as he tips his hat
and leaves each night
to return to the real world.
Rule Breaker
Last night the dream was children and books
making it much like the rest of the day.
Except for one little girl
in a white cotton dress, printed with pink roses,
who cried and cried
because she broke the rules.
She sobbed into my damp shoulder
as I knelt beside her trying
to bend myself to her height.
I kept my voice calm,
patting her back, murmuring nonsense
while the fury in me built.
Me, Queen of Following Rules,
wished them to be tangible
so I could do them harm
wished I could push them
down the steep wooden stairs
for making her so sad.
Screwdriver
Found on last night’s walk,
trampled into the loose gravel
between road and field,
this screwdriver
with its battered blue handle
and its hard-earned philosophy
concerning the world’s obsession
with tightness, and battening down
anything that rattles.
Oh, the stories it could tell
if it would
of things it has bound together.
But it’s only interested in tales
of the work it loves best–
in fact, what brought it out traveling
on the road this very night—
Searching for something to loosen.
Cold Snap
turns us brittle.
This is not the crispness
of the first bite
into an autumn apple
warmed all summer
on its tree.
No, this is the sharpness
of long waiting for warmth
cut off just as
we dug out all our sandals
from the backs of closets
painted our toenails pink
to welcome the sun.
These toes only dream of
warm wool socks today
so brittle
they may snap.
Birds, buds, branches
Join us
and shiver
in the absence of
Spring
which opened us all
like flowers
then fled.
Weather Report For the Middle of May
Tennis players sip mugs of hot tea
between points while spectators huddle in
parkas and mittens on the sidelines
complaining about the weather when we
should be writing psalms of gratitude
In praise of these lives so sweet
where this unseasonable cold
so tangible and unimportant
is the biggest worry we can conjure.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 