Covid, 2023

A long poem, sending healing to anyone who is in it!

Covid, 2023

I am late to the party when I get Covid in 2023
and because of such I am not afraid.
It is kindly, allowing me to quarantine
in a southern California best kept secret
Best Western, a mile from the sea against foothills
that are the shapes of elephants backs.

I came here when I was 17,
leaving for college driving a silver Honda Civic with red interior,
from Sacramento, seven hours I marked with the change in trees,
oaks, then eucalyptus, then eucalyptus and palm.
I stayed for 13 years and had two babies,
birthed them before altars of honeysuckle,
walked them to sleep smelling jasmine mixed with salty sea air.
The land really belongs to the people with dark hair
who tend this place, the landscapers and desk girls.
I bow to them as I take my magnetic key.
There is a man on a patio stuccoing the hotel’s white wall.
There is another man pruning the bougainvillea.

The avocado festival has past,
the summer fog as well and it is still warm here.
It is Halloween. I FaceTime my granddaughter
who is interested in "Oma’s covid” she calls it
and likes my gravelly voice.
I don’t want to go home yet (now further further north)
and can’t in good conscience, not wanting to be like the man
behind me on the plane wet coughing who I am sure despite
the airlines claim of Hepa filtration got me sick.
I have a dear friend who is fetching things for me,
cozy socks and duct tape to tape the tub so I may properly submerge.
I ask her for cherry cough drops the second round,
I can’t taste them, but the pale red
will be a welcome difference from lemon’s pale yellow.

I came to the page because of a dream induced by a combination
of Nyquil, melatonin and half a pot gummy.
It was the fifth night and I thankfully gleefully did not spend
all of it blowing my nose as I had the others.
I dreamt it and woke up and said to myself remember
and dreamt it again and said wake up and remember
and dreamt it again and said wake up and remember.

I must tell you what is happening for context
there is this emergence of AI (artificial intelligence?
artist inference? alien insistence? awe inspiration?)
that is transforming little things so far,
churning out stellar resumes and concierge worthy trip itineraries,
there is both fear and excitement at the possibilities
of these as we have all heard of tales of drones killing the wrong
person (and why are people being killed by drones at all?!)
and what if the robots decide we humans are the problem
and take us out, as many a sci fi movie has explored.

No matter in the dream I FEEL the next iteration of AI.
I feel that the keyboard and the touch screen
have yielded to voice and orchestration in mid air,
we all becoming the conductors of our desires
as if we were pointing to butterflies alighting on flowers,
asking for this and that and having it materialize.

And then I feel the evolution beyond
where we think and our needs are recognized
and finally we lose our need for writing and words,
our feelings and thoughts are known with fluid ease,
we merge with our loved ones and like 
martial arts masters dodge anything that does not serve us.
TikTok has given mental health to the masses
and taught us all to not take things personally and to self love.

And finally we are one with everything.
There is no separation, no negativity and no need
and we are like god then, like spirit,
like fractal angel moonbeams
and the days are akin to watching sunsets
looking for green flashes that sometimes are not there and sometimes are.

And then we begin to create, differently than last time
we decide to see how lovely we can make this planet
and we are excited to solve the riddle of enough space for everyone
including the bonobos and the polar bears.
The concrete metal and glass are softened
by plants and flowers, we pluck fruit in the city,
we glide everywhere as if the world is one big rollerskating rink,
our pod-like cars float and emit singing bowl vibrations.
There is no more loneliness or lack,
we will work for a few meaningful hours a day
and then move our bodies and eat delicious food
and have time to make music and read and paint and dance and make love.

The morning after this dream, I am
taking an online class called “seeing with your heart”
about transforming ancestral trauma,
and it is suggested Covid is an upgrade to our cells
(which certainly wasn’t for many who died
although maybe it was there time to go)
and today I imagine this is so and I imagine the internet’s
flurry of videos and opinions about Israel, Palestine, Ukraine and Russia,
the lack of infrastructure in flooded Libya,
opiod addictions, homelessness and climate change
will all be embraced and tended and soon we will have epic ballads
of how we faced and solved these problems.

My bestie and I walk on the beach
(I have given her Covid) so we form a pod,
we are two middle age dolphin ladies
that talk about books and shows and podcasts,
we explore Instagrams of women making fabulous sums of money
while showing cleavage in solid color business suits
(mint green and hot pink and caramel)
to coach one another in love and health and dating and manifestation. 
I watch a show called “Sex Education” where at a finishing high school
the students are in charge and there is yoga hourly and nobody cares
what gender you are or who you kiss or fuck.
There is such freedom depicted in their queer parties,
you want it whip cream sprayed on you even if you are straight.
I watch a show called the Blue Zones in which
a guy who rode a bicycle quite far decided to change not only
how long we live, but how well we live, by visiting centenarians
and discovering their secrets which are fourfold,
1. connection 2. purpose 3. movement 4. lots of veggies.

Self care morphs while I rest
in a hotel with a Spanish tile roof which holds me
until I am well enough to travel.
I accept a fresh box of ultra soft tissues from my friend
who doesn’t think she is glamorous, but she is,
she is Sophie Loren lovely.

The first two days, I used paper towels
then carried a roll of toilet paper,
then used the ultra soft tissue,
blowing my nose around the edges
until the small white square was limp
like a flower petal held in a warm hand.
Until finally today, the fifth day, a day I feel able to write,
I allow myself a tissue per nose blow.
All the while wondering what a poem do,
what can a dream do, what can a television show
or a social media post or a concept
such as blue zones or cellular upgrades do.
I don’t know, but I do know when I am reminded
three times in the night to remember
and write a poem, I do it.

Handwriting Analysis Poem

Handwriting Analysis Poem

I like to go back to my handwriting
and add little scoops at the end of words
to the letters s and l and t,
because when I was young,
ten years old perhaps, 
I read an article in a women’s magazine
about handwriting analysis.
I learned letters having a tail
meant you were generous
and I wanted to be that.

But I do not naturally give flourish, 
my script is first like tent poles, 
firmly planted. 
I remember that writing small 
meant you had good concentration 
and using Big capitals at the beginning
of your name suggested you were confident,
but those seemed less important
and harder to rectify after the fact.

I go back with my pen, 
the way I go over a conversation
and clean it up, 
explain myself in my head,
regret I didn’t listen better, give more praise
and say thank you more.
I remind myself to ask for permission 
next time when I come in hot and dump, 
treating others like Shark Tank judges or therapists, 
assuming everyone is thrilled 
to explore my ideas and problems.

It’s vanity and grandiosity 
thinking after my death someone
will read my journals or notes
and consider my penmanship.
(I am thinking of that word, pen and man and ship.
Indigo moving through water,
the octopus’s eight muscular arms.
I want penwomanship and penpeopleship too).

It’s perfectionism, and something else,
something about people scratching 
with sticks in sand and on clay tablets,
something about ink and quill.
It feels honoring to smooth my m’s, 
making sure they have two humps
and the n’s have one 
and in cursive the m’s have three 
and the n’s have two,
as if I am soothing nervous sheep in a pasture.

It feels important to cross the t’s in the middle
as if they were masts ensuring sail
and to have the dots on the i and j hover closely,
as though they are heads needing bodies. 
It feels vital to have the circles on a, b, d, o, p
be complete, like a parent’s arms
wrapped securely around a baby. 
And to let the c and e and y be the throat, open.
I make sure the v’s are pointed,
as though geese, flying in chevrons, 
depend on them.

Fall Haikus

Fall haikus

Patience practice
peeling a pomegranate
I feel beneath it

Traveling south risk
for warmth might miss hue hoopla
tired of trade-offs

The wasps have died now
I can eat salmon outside
sundress with sweater

They scared me this year
buzzing round young grandbabies 
for love, I went in

The queen hunkers down
mated, mute, is she lonely?
the rest died, fate fall

Autumn, rust reaper
clients against my window
colored coronas 

My depressed clients
are ready, summer wants joy
fall allows fallow

My grieving clients
are ready, couches, pjs
big tissue boxes

My healing clients 
are ready, now not scared of
cycles, crimson, change.  

The sky snaps azure
shouts Lift your gaze! Don’t waste this!
my clouds rimmed with gold.

Practice

Practice

I love that my therapy job 
is referred to as a practice.
The word means Doing and 
Putting into action,
which is how we spend the session
putting things in their proper place,
like parents who should have parented us,
like a culture that should be kinder.

I don’t refer to my clients
as patients
as that word means to Suffer or Bear
although many of my clients 
need to suffer more I believe or differently rather.
They need to suffer out loud and outrageously,
but to do it with someone, finally.
We practice impatience too,
toward that which isn’t serving.

Client means 
to be Called or Lean or Incline
which feels truest as we
sit across from one another
for an hour.
Both of us leaning gently
toward their 
deepest knowing.

Crew

A little lovely moment <3

Crew

I am flying soon to Philadelphia.
Traveling on my flight is the rowing team
from University of Washington,
headed to compete in the Nationals.
As we passengers stand at the gate,
I am surrounded by the athletes
adorned with shades of school pride,
lavender ties and grape colored socks.

Their chests fill navy blazers,
their thighs strain against tan chinos.
They are a head above,
a few wear white cowboy hats,
they have trophy gold rings
thick on their fingers.

I draw near as they assemble.
They are children,
tapping on a shoulder and looking away,
teasing one another about their seats,
playing on their phones.
They are Olympians, straight from the Colosseum,
laurel headed and loin clothed.
They are from Olympus itself, marble incarnate.
Their skin is bronzed from hours on the water,
their cheeks are pink with youth and good humor.

I lean into testosterone,
shake my hair and wet my lips.
I lean in, to their confidence,
like royalty they stride.
Into glassy water and breath
visible on cold mornings,
to sunsets reflected on Seattle skyscrapers,
into the smell of cedar,
lacquer and lake water.
I lean
I yearn,
toward coordination and timing,
bullhorn shouts for speed and balance.
Into sweat and success,
into purpose and yes.

Coma, Comma

I am just emerging from the portal, tunnel, journey that was my mother dying. Peacefully, beautifully, devastatingly on May 2nd. I share this poem which is the beginning of a larger writing I scribed while she was in a coma for two days before she was removed from life support and died. The picture was taken by my daughter, Karina.

Coma, Comma

I play the word game Wordle on my phone
as I wait for a flight to visit my mother
who has had a massive stroke.
Our family shares updates with emojis
of praying hands and pink hearts.
I start the five letter word game
with lives and the answer is delta
and beats which commences in arise
and talks which culminates not in saint as I’d like, but faint,
which is what happened to her.
My brother, the story goes,
rolled her onto a rug and put her in the car
to take her to the emergency room.

My youngest brother’s ashes have not yet been scattered.
Do they need to be?
Can another family member die while one is unhonored?
How do we remain as ghosts, when alive, once dead?
My step father’s ashes were dusted in Lake Tahoe
and my uncle in the hills above Santa Barbara.
So many though I don’t know of -
my grandmothers, and their mothers, and theirs,
my father, his father and his.
I begin to imagine them blending,
becoming sedimentary rock, with petroglyphs carved upon.
I have been thinking about what it means to have a body
and how we still can be with those who have left theirs.

My mother spends her days tending
tender fussy things - roses,
intricate quilt patterns, a swirl of small dogs.
It seems fitting to write eulogies while we are still living.
The deck shuffles with the news of her stroke
and we check our own readiness.
At the Sacramento airport there is a new art piece
made of three ladders of glass,
the rungs are etched feathers lifting skyward.
The piece is titled Wings of Transition.
Is that what is happening? Mom are you leaving?!
I am wearing sweats that are tight,
look a camel toe, I gestured to my husband,
not knowing yet this will be my death doula outfit.
What the living do - worry about outfits,
get comfortable when we can.

There were already ghosts in her house.
My daughter felt them when we visited a month ago.
We asked to sit outside and my mother offered us Pringles,
even though I wasn’t eating carbs,
I took the salty tongue-shaped chip and let it melt against my tongue.
It is all we can do sometimes (most times),
offer sustenance in pretty bowls.
I took great pleasure in the butter mints
(like little pieces of broken chalk) in my grandmother’s candy dishes.
Decades later it was my turn,
her back crocked like the head of her cane
she was too ashamed to use.
I’d bring her crackers and cheese on a plate
where she sat on the couch,
away from the festive preparations of holiday dinners.
I’d share the easy parts of my life
and ask few questions of hers.

The birds were a twitter at my mother's bird feeders,
we spoke of those, the dogs, the weather.
I will write later about her death,
but in this poem she is still living,
I am on my way to her
lamenting already how in some ways
she was already dead to me,
how I didn’t really see her,
perhaps I couldn’t, until now.
There are lots of commas in this coma poem,
(the etymology of comma means to cut off),
and an overuse of qualifiers as well,
really and perhaps and sometimes.
I usually delete them, poetry must be definitive,
but they’ve all insisted on being here.

On Finding a 2021 Moon Calendar in March 2022

It’s a big deal when your baby sister turns 50! Life’s a big deal all around!

On Finding a 2021 Moon Calendar in March 2022
        (and not being able to recall most of the moons)

I remember one moon, my husband and I searched for it
after picking up take out, parked in a parking lot by water
and watched it creep above clouds.
It was cold and I remember
his arms around me as I leaned against him,
thinking this moment is worth it, the rigors of relationship.
And finding the moon rise from my new apartment,
where the disc is a frisbee in a field at a music festival,
while the streetlight, a headliner, hogs center stage.

The moon calendar lived in a pencil case,
clipped into my daytimer.
I think we should always have them,
pencil cases, ideally with colored pencils,
an eraser, a pencil sharpener.
It lived next to a few blank checks
and a card of stamps,
we should always have those too.

The moons fell on the same numbered days in
July and August, September and October
November and December.
Does this happen every year?!
Why is earthliness still such a mystery to me?!
Today is the third full moon in 2022,
I can’t remember the first and second,
they are a forgettable meal, leftovers.

I am on a plane flying to Sacramento
for my sister’s 50th birthday.
As I walk to the bathroom I count eight books being read
and one yellow bandana worn,
they are signs of magic, like singing and starlight.
This poem is ambitious, it wants all the things -
transcendence in the ordinary, commentary on life’s meaning,
tossed with midlife musings.
This poem says fuck you to inferred themes,
wants its purpose to be overt,
explicit, it wants length and breadth,
an ocean beach with a tourist town.

My sister has been one of the celestial bodies I orbit.
Half century moon, spring moon,
the moons of her life are like birds nests
still visible in the early spring trees.
We honor her with salmon mousse,
and artfully placed potato chips
at a newly renovated hotel.
We honor her with brunch
and with teenagers who help make the brunch
and look at their phones
while sitting on the couch close together.

We hike and overlook a canyon and honor her.
My sister is poised, pregnant with something
other than another, Herself.
I imagine a phase beyond the full moon,
fuller, glowing, shimmering.

Last Night

Sometimes a poem wants to be released before it is quite done. This one feels that way. This photo was taken by daughter, in Chambe’ry France :)

Last Night


Last night,
I saw a woman crossing a four lane road
and her grocery bag broke,
scattering the contents.
It was raining and dark,
the street, a cobra, hissing and black.
God damn it she cursed
and I heard
why can’t anything go right?
why am I always struggling?
why am I always alone?

I was walking to get a massage
and wearing an empty backpack,
as afterward, I planned to buy ingredients for soup.
I get massages the way people visit the emergency room,
triaging anxiety, sadness, fatigue.

Waiting for the masseur in the warm red room,
my face splitting a perforated paper towel on the head rest,
I saw that for days I was dimming.
Walking in the cold rain
was a continuation of my erasure,
so much so,
as I passed wooded areas,
the possibility of being drug
into the bushes appealed slightly.

I see now as I write,
that I could have filled the backpack
and walked back with the woman to the nearby store
where we got a plastic bag.
And that my kindness might have been
balm she desperately needed.
And I imagine as well,
that she placed the items in her coat,
carrying on with renewed resilience.

The perfect title for this poem hasn’t arrived yet
and I have written and deleted
several endings,
sorting when I have and have not been
human, humane.
We never know
how we live on in one another. 

Spring Equinox

I have bought Easter Lilies every year for almost three decades. I love how they perfume the evening air. This one became my muse for several days, in the morning, I’d move it around my apartment, trying to find the perfect light and backdrop.

Spring Equinox


Spring has not yet touched me this year
perhaps it has been the sky,
clouds thick as a mattress, with box spring.
The sun not yet illuminating,
petals are marks on a dirty chalkboard,
not a master’s oil paints.

This feels like my life sometimes
dull, obtuse, veiled.
I recently took a substance called Kanna
(in a ceremony supervised on Zoom!)
hoping for a puncture in my cellophane wrapping.
For a few days I was permeable.
To a birch tree I’d walked by for a year,
noticing now paper bark, peeling,
one piece, large as an index card,
hungry for a poem
written by a wood sprite.

And nectar dripping in slow motion,
from the pistil of an Easter Lily.
The clear liquid stayed suspended for days
reminding me of the paperweights
my grandmother collected,
how I always returned
to the dandelion suspended in glass,
wondering whose mouth blew,
what wishes were cast.
The flower’s globe reflected rust colored pollen,
fuchsia streaks,
like the blushing of fair freckled children.

A client said they didn’t know
what to bring to a friend
whose brother had overdosed,
worried flowers who only wither.
The bouquet would need water
and removal of the browning leaves.
It might be nice, I later thought,
to have a simple job.
A second chance to help,
in case they weren’t able.
Enough.

Homework

Thank you stock image!

Homework

Recently I told a client
I have been quite sad for most of my life.
I was trying to normalize sadness.
It was a brief exchange and
I worried later,
had I overstepped,
had I oversimplified,
was it sadness really?

It is a sink inky emotion,
an anemone always sifting,
with slightly stingy surfaces motion,
a ballad with many verses
trying to find the chorus.

I keep a word list and rearrange
them in an order of increasing lift.
This week each are both a noun and a verb -
quarrel, wend, flank and palm, pleat.
They are sad and less sad words.
The actor Dax Shepherd
said he stopped writing screenplays
because being a writer
is like always having homework.
Isn’t being human I want to ask him.

Year of the Pearl

This poem concludes my sixth book of Year of …… collections.
I am beginning the seventh year and excited to see what this year, Year of …….. will be!

Year of the Pearl


I am a therapist,
blah blah blah, I’ve stated it here
there and everywhere...
I am not sure if it was working
or the kind of working I did this year,
but I found myself needing idle,
slack moments,
in my closet staring at pattern
and absorbing color,
at the sink, washing leaves and peel.
I watched cooking shows and embodied
the way a cook sashayed while sprinkling salt,
the way a baker kneaded bread as though
soothing knotted muscles.

On my days off, my mind went.
I’d tuck it under my arm they way
motorcyclists handle their helmets.
Then my will,
I folded it like cloth napkins,
each yearning was added to a growing pile,
elegant, useful someday, needing of a hot iron
and creases, but not today, not yet.

Everyone thinks pearls take time.
They do, but not as much as we suspect.
A grain of sand can be an argument,
a petty grievance,
the whole skeleton shifts
because of a syllable or glance,
a tone or turn.
A natural pearl ripples the way a tree
grows rings, in concentric circles
moving out from the initial irritant.

When I stopped bleeding due to menopause,
my tissues retreated, as after a flood
the river floor is scoured,
clitoris hunkering, down into myself.
I ordered a model of a clitoris
from the crafting website Esty,
it was printed on a 3D printer in Germany.
From a rainbow of colors I choose
a baby pink clitoris.

The size of a large butterfly,
it arrived in a balsa box.
I held the model in my palm
it embodied the palm’s etched lines.
The tiny pearl we usually consider the clit,
sits at the top like a coat hook,
supported by bulbs and legs.
A figure reminiscent of the cartoon Spongebob,
my twat toy could be bestie
to the starfish character Patrick,
the character brave enough
to wear thigh high boots.

My orgasms too, went underground, underside,
they are now slow lava undulating.
Gone are Mount Vesuvius’s eruptions,
but islands are still made,
the new rock more glassine than splintered,
my life too has more glide,
there is time to evacuate.

I declare myself Mother of Pearl,
less focused on irritations.
I channel nautilus nectar, and abalone absoluteness.
My human companions become Man of Malachite,
Child of Citrine, Diamond Dreamer.
I wear a pearl bracelet to work,
when unsure how to help,
gently feel the round smoothness.

Ode to the Seagulls

This time of year, I always feel, “we made it” as the days are lengthening slightly and shoots are peeking. There is a small collection pond near my apartment and the red winged black birds that nest around it are bright with song again in the morning :)
Another stock photo! What a treasure trove!

Ode to the Seagulls

Ode to the seagulls
who are perched
on two street lamps
on my way to work
over the busy freeway,
the prettiest part
between Black Lake Boulevard
and Cooper Point Road.

Sometimes there is one bird alone
and I wonder if it recently visited the others,
then required aloneness,
if feathered ones are introverts and extroverts,
party planners and party poopers.

Some days the lampposts
are packed like bar stools at happy hour
and I don’t have time to count,
speeding under
to work slightly late
to work on time
to work slightly early.

They can’t know the hope they give me,
for nature,
for the continuance of well being,
and the gratitude for cars and the freeway
and even the nearby bridge over the freeway
where I imagine swallows have nests,
where people have on occasion jumped off.
Or maybe they do know,
in the same way the hawk senses the mouse,
in the way starlings mumurate,
moving together,
a rising collective.

I Come to You

I offer a pre Valentine’s poem, full of romantic and soul yearning! The card is from The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck by Kim Krans :)

I Come to You


I come to you
with annoyance.

I come to you
in waiting
fearful
empty.

I come to You.
Especially.

I come to you angry
and already apologetic
for my anger.

I come to wake you up.
I come to you
weary of waking
You and I.

I come to you
with three lemons
and green onions
wanting to make soup.

I come hopeful
with a new jacket
I hope you will like.

I come to you
wanting to wear
fishnet stockings someday
in a fancy restaurant.

I come to you wanting
your fingers
gently lingering
on my lightly
netted thigh.

On Finding a Ricola Cough Drop in My Pocket

This might be the first stock photo I’ve used. I need my daughter who is in the south of France to hook me up! Blessings for everyone with coughs right now!

On Finding a Ricola Cough Drop in My Coat Pocket


The cough drop is mixed berry.
Found on this early day in February,
while the tree buds are still backstage,
memorizing their lines.
Such a perk to have sweetness
when my energy (really my soul) is flagging,
nary a cough in sight.
A menthol would have sufficed,
a honey lemon most welcome,
yet,
blue and rasp and straw!
in fruits Rouges
et Baies des Bois,
so many words to say mixed berry!

The Ricola website features
a picture of the Alps (I imagine)
with (what looks like) wheat gently blowing,
against a backdrop of snowy mountains 
and a chalet (so sturdy).
There is an Alphorn! I have never heard of one!
There is no mention of phlegm or sore throats,
the grain is bobbing at the perfect tempo,
the golden sunlight is illuminating perfectly.

Today, I did not take my allotted five minutes
between clients, and now on a short walk
around the office park near my work,
my shoulders are yoked
(to keep with the Heidi analogy).
Yet now, with horehound, hyssop and mallow,
linden and elder under my tongue,
I am a squirrel in March,
mouthing a forgotten nut,
synapses are signaled of my survival.

The berry drop, slight locket of redemption,
shouldn’t have surprised me.
But I am often stumped when offered succor.
My granddaughter has wooden blocks.
Some sides have letters in primary colors,
some have illustrations of primary objects,
a dog, a bone, a raincloud, an umbrella.
I want to feel sorry for myself,
for us all, that along with our ABC’s,
we aren’t taught synchronicity,
benevolence, faith.

Or were we and I forgot?
Or did I remember but was with others
who forgot?
My granddaughter, who practices
first words like momma and baby and no,
has parents who haven’t forgotten.
She coos a little when she holds her plastic doll,
pulls it close to her little chest.

You May

This poem is about sex, and about life, but mostly about sex (just in case you aren’t up for a sexy poem presently). One of my main offerings as a therapist is to grant permission. For it all, here a meditation on allowing.

This photo was taken at The Graduate Hotel in Columbia, South Carolina. The hotel walls are ice cream sherbet colored with art gathered from thrift stores. I like to imagine the creatures in the portraits felt they may.

You May

You may
Use lube
Use your hand
You may Come
Or Not come
You may
Say let’s cuddle
Or touch me here
You may.

You may be soft
Or hard
You may be tight
Or loose
You may lose
You may want more
You may want it
Brighter
Darker
Softer
Harder
Faster
Slower
Different
You may be difficult
You may ask
And ask again.

You may feel nothing
You may feel everything
You may thrash
Or be very still
You may change your mind
You may want
Closeness
Cherishness
You may be
Deliciousness.

You may
Use a pillow
Use a vibrator
Use a fantasy
You may be a shell
Curled in
You may be a morning dove
Softly cooing
You may mourn
You may moan
You may pulse or rock
With moaning
And mourning.

You may change
And roll away
You may stay
You may make mistakes
And make some more
You may make messes
You may be stressed
You may be less
You may be more
Be More
You may.

You may
Play
You may not
Know
How
You may remember
You may learn
You may feast and lay fallow
You may allow
You may be deep
You may or may not swallow
You may rest
Close and open
Open throated
You may.

You may be timid
And tired
You may howl and half howl
You may squirm
You may cool
and freeze
You may ignite
You may whine
You may warm
You may harm
You may be harmed.

You may be sorry
You may worry
You may give
Forgive
And be forgiven
You may love
And be loved.
You may
You may live.

When My Acupuncturist Wants to Look at My Tongue

My daughter is in Europe and took this picture. It is by Lorenzo Bartolini and titled, “Reclining Venus, after Titian”. I am not sure what the black dots are, seemed appropriate for this poem and her ennui is how I feel sometimes!

When My Acupuncturist Wants
to Look at My Tongue


I always fear
there is something wrong with me,
as if last week’s potato chips and chocolate
have mutated my taste buds, 
little signposts, disclosing my unworthiness.
When my acupuncturist
holds my wrists to check my pulses
I am similarly aflutter,
surely he’ll note
my pitter patter, my inner clatter,
that my chakras aren’t spinning,
my blood isn’t zinging.

There are similar shames
as the dental hygienist probes beneath my gums,
she may reveal moral as well as mere decay.
Pap smears disclose soul dis-charge,
the blood pressure cuff, quantifies I am off. 
Before being weighed,
I remove my shoes quickly,
the scale is a high dive board,
the sliding weight, a train caboose
nudging itself down the track,
always more than I expected.
When heartbroken, 
pain centers in the brain are activated. 
I wonder what damage I cause, 
measuring myself,
both captive and captor.

My acupuncturist’s hair is thick,
his nail beds are perfectly oval.
He pokes me with thin needles,
springy as sponges,
while recommending herbs that look like
scales from an old dragon.
He always ends the session,
asking if I have any questions.
A million, all variations of
am I redeemable, 
healable, 
do you like me?
(the question I have been asking everyone,
my whole life).

But I answer,
No, I am good, thank you.

Birthday Poems

I have a decade long tradition of writing a birthday poem. I didn’t publish last years, so here are two at once!

53 Year Old Birthday Poem

It was a year of staccato,
I stopped bleeding
I ceased sleeping
I halted writing
I broke up with sugar and beer,
we had feverish reunions.

I sat a lot
in a chair listening to clients,
in my bed googling -
my search words were
coronavirus, protests, election,
my reactions were fear, wtf, fear,
hope, wtf, hope,
over and wtf and over.

I wore a mask, I stayed mostly home.
I ordered books on antiracism
from black owned book stores
and diversified my podcast sources.
I promised my college daughter
I would donate money,
which I have not yet,
except for giving to my son’s neighbor,
a Haitian family whose restaurant burnt down.
I noticed there was a new minivan
in the driveway. It was black and shiny
and had a bedazzled “Queen” bumper sticker.
I was jealous given my old car,
I celebrated given the leaky roof
their landlord won’t fix.
I sat on a lush lawn with my son
and listened to local heroes
share histories of oppression.
It was hot and I ate a popsicle,
wondering if that was disrespectful.

I have a young woman I foster and mother,
I am not her foster mother, to be clear,
only time will tell
what we have been to one another
from the age of 12 to now, eighteen.
I do know she is calmer (mostly)
because she and I were sometimes an Us.
She is Black.
I have tried to not use her.
In the language of anti-racism,
to not virtue signal, but I think I am here
and I have in other places.
Her adoptive parents (white)
didn’t want to let her drive,
they deemed her too risky.
Most teenagers are
too
and
risky.
I put her on my car insurance
and bought her a car.
I helped her fill out a job application,
she got a job,
a college application, she got an acceptance.

My word for 53? Co-creation.
Co-creation looks like texting teenagers
from the drive thru, curly or straight fries?
I sit with them at the kitchen counter
eating sardines from little cans for the Omega 3s.
I steal curly and straight fries
for the omega pleasure.

I am starting to wear my silk blouses,
thrifted, they cost me little,
except my care for them.
They whisper from the closet,
encouraging elegance.
They are stacked like tissue paper on a hangar.
I have five of them -
one with ruffles, one with pleats,
one that suggests nipples
if worn without a bra,
shiny silk, textured silk, diaphanous silk.
I am wearing them under hoodies
I am going braless (thank you COVID).
I am moisturizing from stem to stern,
using oil from many climes,
CBD oil, Argan oil, coconut,
from my crow’s feet to ass crack to clitoral hood,
I am co-creating with lubrication.

I am 53 and a half now as I write this.
My best friend just turned 54,
she is six months older than I.
She bought a house with mustard colored paint
and brick red trim, so much trim.
As I helped, cutting in and brushing white paint,
I imagined my uterus,
with cells no longer filling and releasing scarlet,
it is now like the underside of a mushroom,
gills resplendent with spring water.
I imagined the previous owners
of my friend’s house
choosing paint chips while high on psilocybin,
back to the curly and straight fries, with ketchup.

Most women have roughly 500 periods,
it feels like it should be millions of days,
how we orient around it,
how we orbit the pre and post.
My marooning menses behaved
the way some roommates do
before you kick them out,
leaving the sink full of dirty dishes.
Its parting gift was a self-love
I wish for every woman.
I am finally softening, and finding
my soft flesh is so fine.

54 year old Birthday Poem

I have of late been tending
the physicality of my life,
after years of spirit and mind,
after acquiring some letters after my name
(that feel more about privilege
than any worthiness).
Still I celebrate getting paid to do
what I have always done,
(listen, tinker, encourage)
now officially with M.A. and L.H.M.C.
I am a CLAM, HAM.
I am MACA, a rooty herb used to reduce stress.
I really need a T
to be MATCH, CATCH, LATCH.

Back to the body,
I purchased a fancy blow dryer,
paid to have my toenails painted,
took a sexy selfie photo shoot
(hotel chair, blue velour hoodie,
unzipped to sternum).
All this body buffing
after two years of not bleeding,
assuming, summing that I am too old.
I am too young, and am returning.
I am reassessing pleasure,
this cycle not in relation
(not always anyway) to menses, a man.
I create a coral and pink bedroom,
I buy a painting with gold flecks and
another with waves on sand.

I had to choose a grandma name.
Baby darlings, you may call me Oma.
My 20 year old son rolled his eyes,
my 23 year old daughter joined him,
they don’t like sharing? me shapeshifting?
they are not done being mothered?
Oma is a distillation of mOMmA,
she is embedded within,
as were eggs when my daughter was born,
our DNA reaching back to still slimy ponds.

Oma gets to choose so many things.
When to hold the baby, when to pass the baby.
Sweetest liberty.
Sovereign. Ity.
A bitty bit.
Grandmothering is like breathing, so familiar,
and it is fantastically new,
all the wonder with less wearyworry.
Oma, a german name for grandmother.
Ommmmm, the universal sound from which all springs,
the symbol of oneness.

I was once a 20 year old
studying Hinduism in college.
My professor had long hair, brown like oak leaves.
One day she wore a dress
the color of spun butter,
the bottom of her skirt was tucked
into her panty hose, revealing her butt.
I leapt out of my lecture seat to warn her.
After five years of numbing biology and chemistry labs,
I came alive.
She illuminated not only her ass, but a pantheon,
offering permission to be blue skinned,
to keep praising and beseeching elephant spirits.
Aaaaaaaa.

My symbol for 54 is a horseshoe,
for sturdiness, cycles, luck, indeedy!
My grandmothers began circling my dreams,
in them still
women of fashion,
women of the half-eaten plate,
women who didn’t ask for enough,
as most don’t.
You can always go back,
and this Oma wears comfortable shoes,
warm gloves and perspective.

I like when the farrier
nails the horseshoe into the hoof,
how the horses don’t usually flinch.
I like picking out the hoof,
leaning into the horse until it gives you its leg,
scraping mud, shit, straw, grass, small stones.
I even like the anaerobic stench,
feel so helpful.

Ode to the Woman Standing on the Corner

After having moved and settled, I am finding my way back to poetry!
May this find you with birdsong nearby :)

Ode to the woman standing on the corner 


holding her children’s hands,
a young boy and a younger girl,
all, looking at the sky,
which made me stop my car
and look up
and see
hundreds (thousands?!) of dark crows
among, against, with,
twilight.
What a beautiful word, beginning with
twi or two, of both worlds, day and night.

The birds flew against this in-betweenness,
defined by custard colored clouds
at a casting call,
pretending to be jellyfish.
There was also a spine, loose-
a spine with plump air discs
and feathers punctuated the scene,
brushing gold.

I loved the mother’s open neck and the thrust of her chin,
as if she could lift her little family
and join the bird journey,
to a raucous cozy roost in the distance. 

I’ve lived at this apartment five months now,
moved away sentries of cedars.
I’ve bemoaned the loss of nature,
here, with cars roaring into the complex,
a starched collar of parking lot,
instead of the grass skirt
that once surrounded me. 

But today,
my car pulled over against the 
battalion of mailboxes,
turned back to the corner,
I wonder what else this mother sees
that I have missed,
and could this magnificence unfurl every evening?

Moving

Rainbows have always let me know everything is going to be ok. I moved this year and the rainbows were extra supportive!

Moving

As I dismantle my house,
my life,
my house,
moving after 17 years,
I begin to spill things.
A full tumbler of tea when with a client.
I miss the toilet when I pee, flooding a stall floor.

I have spent a lifetime accumulating.
Books, clothes, kitchen things, linens.
Each represents a hoped for future 
and now I ask
do I hold onto the ruffled velvet jacket,
perfect when seeing a Shakespearean play, 
even though I’m not much for Shakespeare?
Or the clogs that represent the earthy girl I was,
but threaten a twisted ankle?
An eyelet tablecloth for imagined tea parties I have yet to conjure?
Rather than boxing such items, I”ll release them
adding to my keepsake kerchief, the soft smell of cedar, 
the resident owl that found a mate
hooting during the last days as we loaded boxes.
They mingle with relics from other places I love and left - 
the Pacific ocean, oak trees, jasmine, both star 
and white jasmine with its pink petticoats of petal and stem,
lightning bisecting black, deep thunder.

I visit my eldest son and his new family across the country.
I sleep in their twin guest bed and live out of a suitcase.
I feel age sixty, seventy, eighty, age six, seven, eight, 
paring down to pajamas and a book before bed. 
I watch videos made by a 60 something fashion model 
who lives in a tiny studio by the sea, 
surrounded by pashmina scarves and moon shells. 
I watch videos of people in Japan sleeping in pods 
slightly larger than MRI machines.

I found a small wood box of ashes as I was packing up the house.
My mother in law’s, Eva’s.
Her daughter bought Eva a big house in Virginia to spare
her New York apartment’s three flights of stairs.
Eva quickly declined without the wafting of a neighbor’s pasta sauce,
the pilgrimage to the laundry and mailroom, saying hellos as she went.
We only visited once, briefly animating 
the two guest rooms, living and family room.
Eva never walked to the gazebo overlooking the picturesque pond.

This is the first poem written on my phone.
I didn’t hate it.
With thumbs instead of finger or pen, 
each letter is a seed poked in soil.
I move from the east to west side of town,
passing homeless encampments.
I wonder at the trash,
what is all that shit accumulated and strewn?
while I guiltily take load after load to the thrift store and dump. 
The spilled tea hit the wall, seeped under a book, the tissue box. 
My client was in crisis and I brought my attention back to her, 
told her to keep going, my cells attuned to both tears
and the water saturating paper, carpet, paint.

As I release dear/near decades,
meaning is distilled to photographs, 
journals and offerings made by hand.
Children’s drawings, a pine carving of a sun. 
There was a ceramics phase, for both my kids and I. 
My pieces were fine, thin vessels with fancy glazes,
specified moss, hyacinth, fern mist, iceberg. 
They are all long broken.
My children’s are heavy, little crude saucers and dishes,
when dropped, they dent the floor.
One is big enough for only an olive,
for ten years now, others have housed sugar, 
salt and bars of soap.
I turn them over and smile at the names, 
carved without curves, into the rough bottoms.
As I pack, I don’t cushion with tissue,
but let the creations knock around,
like a bag of geodes
or stones I might someday polish.

Missing and Having Poems

Most of us are missing a lot this year, precious perspective. This dog is Oso who moved with my son and daughter-in-law to Buffalo, New York last October. This photo captures his eager soulful spirit and our last day together for many months.

Last Sip

God I hate coming to it,
the last bite of pie,
in its melted moat of 
ice cream, sweetest slurp.

And beer,
devastation guzzle,
last potato chip,
crunch cinch.

And people.

How I’ve preferred 
heat and sweet
malt and salt
because 

the last kiss
last hug at the airport,
recently,
my son and daughter-in-law
moving across country,
hurts too much.
Don’t allow it.

Dig

I am excavating
what is lost and kept.
Like tonight,
as garlic browned for garlic bread,
waiting for guests who are quite late.

What is the confluence
of impermanence and eternity?
The brown bear sighted through pine boughs,
when one sustains green gaze,
the entire ocean commemorated in peaks of meringue.
Certain music offers it, a base note
a second later than expected.
Garlic ushers a slideshow of dinners,
wine glasses, falling in love,
Van Morrison singing Into the Mystic,
later, years of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving,
the tongue seeking wisps of the sweet herb.

This life, the only given is time, the amount unknown.
Tonight, I have been given extra, unexpected.
Time to find matches,
light candles, tidy the fridge,
time to lay out a cracker plate.
A small salad assembles itself without effort
while I enjoy a few extra moments with my son
who will be heading back to college in two weeks.

It is all here at once,
the anticipating, the having, the missing,
the arriving, the eventual leaving.
I brush the dirt from this love,
rinse until it runs clear.