Monday, April 15, 2013
NaPoWriMo
April is the month for National Poetry Writing Month, and I think I'm going to participate? So I'll try to post on here every day, but don't expect the literary Mona Lisa.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
I remember the mornings. I remember the sun would come up over the silvery-green leaves of tropic trees it's shy rays would dart through dew drops to dance through open windows onto the crimson comforter. Before I opened my eyes, I heard the gurgle of the coffee maker in the kitchen and smelled the mingling scents of fresh brew and stale cigarettes. Trying not to pull the covers off my sister, I crawled out of the guest bed and stumbled into the kitchen with the awkward silence that only a child can achieve and peered out onto the back veranda.
There she sat at the round glass table, drinking the first of many cups of premium roast. The cherry of a half-burnt Pall Mall glowed in the dim morning light, and her bare shoulders shook just the slightest bit as she closed the little yellow envelopes spread in front of her. I crouched on the cool tile behind the peace lily at the corner of the sliding glass doors and watch as long, tan fingers brushed over a cherub-framed photo of that girl I remember only in snapshots of Disneyland and a crumbling duplex.
Her shoulder swelled and fell again in a deep, silent sigh, and those fingers pulled the speckled, wrinkled skin under her bright eyes. Then she stood up, gathered up her little missives, padded out in her bare feet to our refrigerator-box playhouse, and slipped her cheery notes into our tiny mailbox. I watched her walk back to the table, crushed the end of her cigarette, and picked up the photo.
I scrambled back the guest room in a panic to avoid being discovered as the witness this private scene. Trying, to slow my heartbeat, I'd close my eyes and listen to her replace the photo on her dresser down the hall and walk back to the kitchen to start breakfast. I waited as long as I could, lying quietly and listening to the gentle clank of skillets and squeal of oven doors. When I felt I'd waited long enough I'd blunder sleepily into the kitchen to be greeted with a wide, artificially whitened smile and a warning to be quiet, lest I wake my siblings. Then she handed me a glass of milk or orange juice and turned back to the stove, and I sat cross-legged on the tile, watching her until someone else woke up and ended our quiet ritual.
It's been three years since I last saw her, and many more since those summer morning on the cool tile floor. I can barely drag myself out of bed in time to writhe into a clean shirt before I'm off to work or school or somewhere else. My roast's less than premium, and anything less than American Spirits are beneath me. Hot breakfasts are nonexistent at best and nauseating at worse. I've seldom the time to think of anything but what homework is due the next day or whether I've showered within a half-decent span of time, and the only ritual I've got these days is remembering to brush the yellowed teeth in the mirror.
But there are moments. Sometimes, in the hazy hours between night and morning, when sleep should come but won't, I think of those times. I think of the fine coffee and the stale Pall Malls. I think of tan fingers and little yellow envelopes in a refrigerator box. Not that I'd ever admit, but when I see a peace lily, I think of bare feet and cool tile floors. When I'm all alone and there's no one to know, I think of bright eyes and naked shoulders and girls I can't remember.
When I'm lost and scared, when I'm confused, when I can't remember who I am or where I've come from, I remember the mornings.
There she sat at the round glass table, drinking the first of many cups of premium roast. The cherry of a half-burnt Pall Mall glowed in the dim morning light, and her bare shoulders shook just the slightest bit as she closed the little yellow envelopes spread in front of her. I crouched on the cool tile behind the peace lily at the corner of the sliding glass doors and watch as long, tan fingers brushed over a cherub-framed photo of that girl I remember only in snapshots of Disneyland and a crumbling duplex.
Her shoulder swelled and fell again in a deep, silent sigh, and those fingers pulled the speckled, wrinkled skin under her bright eyes. Then she stood up, gathered up her little missives, padded out in her bare feet to our refrigerator-box playhouse, and slipped her cheery notes into our tiny mailbox. I watched her walk back to the table, crushed the end of her cigarette, and picked up the photo.
I scrambled back the guest room in a panic to avoid being discovered as the witness this private scene. Trying, to slow my heartbeat, I'd close my eyes and listen to her replace the photo on her dresser down the hall and walk back to the kitchen to start breakfast. I waited as long as I could, lying quietly and listening to the gentle clank of skillets and squeal of oven doors. When I felt I'd waited long enough I'd blunder sleepily into the kitchen to be greeted with a wide, artificially whitened smile and a warning to be quiet, lest I wake my siblings. Then she handed me a glass of milk or orange juice and turned back to the stove, and I sat cross-legged on the tile, watching her until someone else woke up and ended our quiet ritual.
It's been three years since I last saw her, and many more since those summer morning on the cool tile floor. I can barely drag myself out of bed in time to writhe into a clean shirt before I'm off to work or school or somewhere else. My roast's less than premium, and anything less than American Spirits are beneath me. Hot breakfasts are nonexistent at best and nauseating at worse. I've seldom the time to think of anything but what homework is due the next day or whether I've showered within a half-decent span of time, and the only ritual I've got these days is remembering to brush the yellowed teeth in the mirror.
But there are moments. Sometimes, in the hazy hours between night and morning, when sleep should come but won't, I think of those times. I think of the fine coffee and the stale Pall Malls. I think of tan fingers and little yellow envelopes in a refrigerator box. Not that I'd ever admit, but when I see a peace lily, I think of bare feet and cool tile floors. When I'm all alone and there's no one to know, I think of bright eyes and naked shoulders and girls I can't remember.
When I'm lost and scared, when I'm confused, when I can't remember who I am or where I've come from, I remember the mornings.
Night
Starry Dark
Night
calls me
brightly sweetly
“Come,
dance
away into
The Night,”
stealing my
hand mind
to Worlds
apart from Sanity,
taking choking
my Breath away,
calling me to
Come
And
Dance Die.
Withering
Walking,
She comes down the aisle,
Second pew, far left.
Her gait is shuffling, halting--
Older than her fifty years.
Singing,
She holds her head high,
Nodding to the music,
Choir days long forgotten,
Standing now a trial too great.
Sitting,
Her scarf-hidden ribs
Heave from the effort.
Salt-and-pepper wig shadows
Eyes full of haggard longing.
Worrying,
Her daughter wraps those
Hundred pounds in arms
Larger than that faint, frail form
And gently pulls her closer.
Helpless,
I watch.
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