elastic snaps

2-8-01

the threat of one’s underwear
being pulled from the waist, up one’s back
didn’t really take affect
until fingertips went fishing for elastic

and by that point, it was too late

ghazal 1

11-30-00

along the cracked sidewalk a crumpled leaf skitters dragging
crisp corners hopping over cracks brownish yellow somersaults

with a straw broom the barber brushes blonde split ends and damp
brunette curls away from chairs and into the corner by the dustpan

children fling their yellow ball across the asphalt playground
bouncing and rolling. swordfights with fallen tree limbs

on the bus fifteen year-old boys yank ponytails and study the blonde girls’
eyebrows scientifically questioning whether or not it is true about their curls

he rakes grass and leaves into windscattered piles in his yard for the last
time before the snow falls in windcurls to his sidewalk and driveway

a hunched old woman lugs her groceries three blocks against
the wind and leaves, dragonfly pin pinning flittering scarf in place

she squints against the sun while plucking golden dragonflies from spider
webs in the weather warped corners of the dock, board ends arching up

sonnet from hannastown

11-1-00

i can still smell him on my finger tips
and clothes (i once forgot my sweater in
his truck and so it soaked up that mildew
mold smell, as he called it. his wind-
shield leaked and dripped on his left mink-oiled boot
and floor mat, stained brown by loose grains
of Copenhagen fine cut 1822 silver top
that grew ringed and splotchy from the drippings of rain.
i always thought that sweet smell came from the pop
can spittoon and red pine tree dangling coconut car air
freshener, sweet and thick like cream—but not coconuts or trees,
and from the doublemint gum left to soften in the sun on the dash to share
after fogging autumn windows with our breaths and our bodies);
i can still taste his chew on my dry lips.

pigtails

10-26-00

when i was a young girl
i would hide behind my mother’s legs
small fingers gripping fistfuls of the seam
of her stonewashed jeans, a denim shield
against Mrs. Geary’s neighborly smiles.
i would grind the toes of my pink Velcro sneakers
into the gravel driveway, my face into the back of mom’s thigh
until i was brave enough
to come out.

that neighbor, Mrs. Geary, (the neighbor
who thought it was a fine idea
for her perfectly pigtailed granddaughter and me to play
together, and who wouldn’t believe that
her granddaughter pinched me and stole
my favorite doll’s dress: fiery red and slinky with sparkles)
had candied yam burnt orange hair and high
rouged cheeks that reminded me of Lady Elaine
Fairchild—that awful puppet always scolded
for not being a “neighborly neighbor” in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Mrs. Geary would squint her eyes (big eyes and square glasses
thick and wide, tinted pink—my brother and i wanted to burn
bugs with those glasses, ever since dad taught us how
with a magnifying glass. ants were hard
to catch, not like lightening bugs with iridescent backsides meant
for jewelry that glows on fingers and earlobes at night) down
at me, head cocked in quandary, inquisitively—
referring to me in the third-person
while looking right at me,
as if my existence didn’t count
yet—and grill my mother as to why my solitary sagging
ponytail was positioned so loose and low on my head
so crooked and close to my neck—because she did it herself, she…
my mother—soothing my gnarled hair down
with her fingertips—was interrupted
by Mrs. Geary whose glare
had been traveling
from me to the heap of construction dirt
in my yard, to my sweating
father in his cowboy boots
and cut-off jeans, digging out a dead shrub stomping and cursing
the ants that tumbled and scattered from the shrub’s dead roots
on his day off, and back
to my low ponytail,

“can’t she get it any higher?”

i know my cheeks flushed pink as my shoes and my father’s burning
back, in shame and anger and deflated
pride, while pretending to be that invisible third-person, grinding
and kicking up clouds of gravel dust.
one was enough. i didn’t have to have two
perfect pigtails—two shiny golden springs
tied with pink ribbons, like those
adorning the stuttering Cindy Brady’s adulated head, pink bows
like those beset on Mrs. Geary’s granddaughter’s gleaming head
who sneered from behind a curtained window across the street, holding
the slinky dress captive.

chaps

10-25-00

what inspired
my father to buy black
leather chaps with glistening
toothy silver zippers, black
grinning, short-tongued alligators
grinning up his legs

black leather chaps, no
fringe or other decor
just zippers and snaps—
silver teeth and eyes

(why should any self-
respecting man of 54 not
have black leather chaps?)

sonnet from bed

10-16-00

this bed is much too large despite pillows.
although at Walden “solitude…imbibes
delight” whose chill seems right for those Thoreaus,
but i am cold; and so alone i lie
missing those dawns guided by Donne’s “’Tis true,
’tis day, what though it be? Oh, wilt thou there-
fore rise from me?” i’d curse the light; but you’d
begin with sleep puffed eyes and matted hair
to stretch the sleep out of your morning arms
and legs, and wrap them round me in an arc—
through dawn we laughed, we lulled, we kissed, we rolled…
but here i am alone without your charms,
so profundity creeps out when all is dark:
despite blankets, this bed is much too cold.

greensbelt

9-18-00

<people driving cars, fast cars,
sporty new plastic cars—toy cars,
backseat buzzing bass up, treble down cars,
camouflaged pick-up truck with gun-rack tailed by an SUV—racing—
with a red pine tree air freshener dangling
from the rearview and trail of spittle down the side cars,
rusty peeling puttied tanks with felt lining pulling away from the ceiling cars
with a six pack of longneck children bobbing in the back cars
and blue smoke chugging out and around the coat hanger muffler-quick-fix cars
and a faded black and yellow Steelers superbowl champions 1979 bumper sticker cars—
this is Rt 30—the Lincoln Highway
this is the commerce, this is the main drag,
this is the life line, this is greensburg pennsylvania,

four lanes of
orange barrel studded steel rod reinforced fines are double in construction zone you will be late to work today hope you packed your lunch your engine will overheat in the stopped traffic sit and be pickled in exhaust drive ten feet and stop penndot workers lean on shovels merge right 500 feet dinner will be cold by the time you get home tonight wasn’t this just repaved last season concrete

bypass connecting plaza to plaza,
(L shapes to Us)
more and more each year popping,
popped, threaded, and strung along the stretch,
like still-steaming overblown kernels on a popcorn string at christmas
exciting—perfect and airy, crisp and new, 50% larger!
bigger and better
bigger and bigger and bigger and

better than the downtown shops
every name ending in ’s for the past 201 years
proudly bedecked in hand-cut stone, smooth green copper hand-
rails, withered blue awnings flapping for attention
like faded beauty queens, behind the once dignified
wrought-iron lampposts—scalloped and stately, standing
now like miniature toy soldiers, in position, stately
and useless beneath the high-powered stainless steel florescent generation.

inside there are hand-painted sale signs taped on the glass
while pink hand-written carbon paper receipts like stick-on tattoos
lie abandoned and bonded, pressed pulpy patches faded
from rain and soles of shoes, glued
to the cracked concrete sidewalk outside
where one must learn to parallel park
quickly efficiently neatly
for 50 cents an hour, by the hour
on the hour
a perfect way to empty one’s pockets,
to do away with unnecessary
change

-ing lanes, minivans with wooden sides passing
on the right, squeezing in, squeezing sour
sulfur smell out of mufflers, blue billows
of burning oil, burning gas, moving fast
in a hurry to church
or perhaps the bar

mimi

9-5-00

the assault starts at end of the drive
way the uncut overgrown boxwood bushes press their pungent
heavy aroma of unwashed armpit body odor
into the olfactory system, without permission
this old ivy grown house has let its yard go
thick and earthy into ragweed and dandelion cyclones
when the air is right
this old woman whose breath curls out onion with each syllable
and pores release garlic aromatically with each gesture
smells like freshly chopped celery
and boxwood bushes

sickhomeness

4-23-00

i was born and raised
in the idyllic hush of a small town
where morning came
with dew dusted fields of sweet corn
and lazy hazy hills—sleeping
like giant green and golden bears,
whispering promises never to tell
how often i approached the morning
groggy and grinning from the night before,
without having seen sleep
or my bed.

paper boys, farmers, and factory workers would rise
whole hours before the sun
like clockwork
sizzling breakfasts of eggs, bacon, and buttered toast were made
scraped off of dishes and
wiped off of mouths

and i have yet to learn how to poach an egg
like mom used to
or to pack a brown paper bag, just so.

i have fought against the cityness of these past few years
i fought the idea, then the reality,
and now the stagnant stench.
every morning i have refused
more completely my soiled surroundings
rejecting them, comparing them to the ideal
of my shining home.

just a year or so more
i tell myself on a regular basis
just a year or so more
of scrimping, of skimping,
of grime
of clothes smelling like a cheap hotel, or a filthy dog when it rains,
of trying to block out the wingéd wah, the strangled-cat screech
of the all-hour guitar across the hall,
of descending 3 flights of piss-sticky stairs,
carefully stepping around the puddles—
slowly drying, leaving a ring on the peeling painted concrete—
and soggy drowned cigarette butts
and broken bottles
and footprinted pizza plates and crusts
to reach the bottom
feeling helplessly hopelessly inertly nauseated—
nose filled with the pungent
but syrupy thick scent of 3-day-old vomit
just a year or so more—
until this job pans out
until the loan goes through
until i am discovered and make it big—

this is my residence
this is not my home.

i think back to childhood mornings
in my wooden home
a droopy tudor, with sleepy windows
and yawning bowed roof, and a bird’s nest
of straw and sticks and goose down, woven
into a corner, under the eves

the magic of those mornings—
crawling out from underneath flannel sheets
knowing there would be breakfast
knowing there could be breakfast
waiting for me on the table—
how perfectly it reflected my dreams
how perfectly my dreams now reflect it

i don’t want to be forever stepping outside
to the billowing belches of a downshifting diesel
or the eye-watering aroma
of burning toast, coffee, and curry
from the Indian restaurant two blocks down.

i think of my manuscripts
and how “we regret to inform you”
scoffs in black and white,
threatening to keep me living here,

here. away from the sweet corn and green bears,
away from the big breakfasts and bird nests…
here.
just a year or so more

doing math

4-19-00

i met a guy one afternoon
who’s tall and doesn’t kiss
quite like i do

but when he smiles, i melt into cliches—
and i think it’s because the little
folds of his eyelids are like those
of my father
and i find them to be
rather endearing

or maybe it’s just the way his laugh shakes up my soul,
and he’s so smart
and so proud to show me off
or at least my blonde hair
because his is reddish brown
and usually standing straight up

because he likes it that way,
and it’s funny to watch him flex
in front of his wall-length mirror—
communicating with himself for hours
like a cockatoo—

because i do it too,
but i don’t do math
not like he does
i’ve never really been one for arithmetic
because i’m always getting the numbers all mixed up
maybe someday i’ll let him do my math
and i could do his laundry