Category Archives: Uncategorized

January and everyone I know
who regrets
all they ever ate and drank–
which includes everyone I know–
is on a cleanse diet. Like the one person
who never gets the flu, I though I was immune
since each magazine’s Earnest Diet
begins with a No-Coffee rule,
the whim of a madman.
But all those photos next to the recipes
finally captured me too—
dark purple radicchio, orange squash, lemon yellow,
bright green leaves I can’t pronounce the names of–
It’s marketing genius on their part,
all these fruits and vegetables,
to look the way they do
when our eyes are starved
hungry for red, craving green,
yearning to be filled
in this winter world cleansed of color.

I want to stay there,
at the Hotel Mandalay
Which I read about in the newspaper.
I don’t remember where in the world it is,
The Hotel Mandalay–
but I read that if a guest catches flu while traveling,
the staff at the Hotel Mandalay brings a tray
with a bowl of chicken soup,
a glass of ginger ale
and a get well card.
And now that I’ve written its name
so many times, I’ve changed my mind—
I want a job there. I want a reason
to say, every time I’m asked
where I work, “Oh,” I cay say,
“I work at the Hotel Mandalay”
which is not even close
to the worst reason I’ve
kept a job. When the interviewer
asks me why I’m applying
I’ll tell him or her that I must
have this job and not just because of
the kindness of the chicken soup
or even way the word rolls off the tongue
luxurious as chocolate
It’s how it flows onto paper like
writing the word luxurious.

When ordinary life sails away,
becomes a ship in the distance, then gone,
you can finally hear the sounds of the dock.
It creaks in the ebb and flow of waves,
the bump of mighty fish hidden
among the seaweed and the pilings.
Wind and salt have worn away the paint,
left you standing on bare and splintered wood.

You still have choices.

You can fall in love with the dock,
with studying the slivers of paint left behind
with waiting to see what happens next.

You can gather your breath and dive into the sea,
swimming hard, chasing the life that’s already left.

Or turn toward shore—
leave the ship, the dock,
walk into the town.
Buy a basket of bread and oranges
and keep walking till you
reach a new story.

On the road to the doctor,
radio silence for your nerves,
The Cranberries blasting in my head,
singing about life’s habit of changing every day,
we passed a battered junkyard
with a sandwich board out front.

                      Buy
                    Kittens
                   Used Cars
                For Sale Here

is what the sign said.
I considered the possibilities
in waiting rooms for the rest
of the day. Thank you,
thoughtful proprietor
for your kind restraint
in the use of punctuation,
for letting me wonder
what it all means.

At the funeral home
in a Rust Belt downtown
we out-of-towners poured in
with the dark and the rain
greeted with hugs
and tears and questions
about our journeys, our hotels,
if we lost our way.
The others, all with GPS,
discussed the tricky turns
near the hotel where navigation
systems failed and sent you
too far, way down past the train station—
then recollected themselves
and asked about the family, said a prayer,
admired the flowers, agreed it was a blessing—
before plotting routes
to the restaurant. And this could easily
have turned into a poem about
how we distract ourselves
from thinking about death or
how we dread being the ones left behind,
or how we all hurry through our lives,
navigating madly towards the same
final destination. But no—I just
want to say how, for a moment,
in the middle of our sad and tired night,
I felt a tiny cozy joy to be
making my way as
a walking anachronism
with my paper maps
well-used and badly folded
stuffed inside my glove compartment.

Espresso and black leather
Slow jazz and Springsteen
Sky is one enormous cloud
Steady grey, occasional rain.
Divorce weather.

This morning it’s gone again,
Leaving while I slept
Swept off by dreams.
It comes in waves,
Like dirty laundry and car repairs
Which makes me wonder
About the nature of the negative—
Is it always moving this way?
Building momentum out of sight,
Cresting, crashing, washing itself away again
Leaving me walking the shore
Breathless and relieved,
Amazed at the shells and odd-legged creatures
It left behind—
Horseshoe crabs and calmness
Such sweet and strange-shelled gifts.

is the name of the test
on paper and in flames.
Before you,
I never thought about
how people have to learn
to run towards burning buildings,
to put on gear and walk in fire.

This is not a metaphor.
There are classes, days
and hours in rooms at
the local college, the fire hall,
at fires set
just to put them out,
all these tests on paper
and in flames.

Everything can catch fire,
even those tests on paper
can end in flames I pray you pass
with flying colors.
So study hard.
Study very hard.

He said he grew up in Disneyland
and I spent the rest of the day
picturing it: Breakfast with Goofy,
walking to school with Minnie
(who only talked about boys and clothes)
Fireworks every night,
the neighborhood full of tourists
while you played hide and seek in
Cinderella’s castle.

Now, I want to find him and ask:
If you rub against it every day
common as cornflakes and pencils
does magic lose its shine?

And also, since we all need magic,
did you create it from the ordinary world?
Did Walmart and a blank night sky,
lit only by stars,
become magical?
Did it turn you into a boy
entranced by ordinary life?
Amazed by the world most of us
sleep through?

Windowless, of course,
Though it is unclear whether
This is a precaution to
Prevent our escape
Or a screen so the children
Can’t spy on us
While we eat and weep and wait.

Most days, it reminds me of
Backstage at the theater—
Performers pacing or practicing
Their lines,
Waiting for their cue
The bell that says,
Enter stage left.