lament.
find a firebrand and follow,
maybe fondle them. steep
a cup of tea and blow on it
’til your jowls turn sour
I was the only one of my friends without a cassette player, except for Lily, whose father was the head of the Party’s neighborhood branch. Even if they had the money, he would have never allowed it, fearing that music from the West would poison her mind with capitalist ideas.
Brilliant, she thought, studying her own face. Following
the lines like little eroded paths down a hill of dirt.
At the bottom of anything is the top of something.
Before bed she pulls the blinds down in specific order,
then she taps each wall three times with her right pointer finger.
Grief invades
the thin columns of days. A phone
rings. Tree bark flakes
away. I become
salt on tongue, raw
That August I chewed a pill
and slept. A green dragonfly lit
my daughter’s hand on fire. Her new
school planted tens of thousands
Because all the birds do not fall
frozen from the trees,
and the squirrels do wake in time, most of them,
from their torpor, to the memory of nuts
under the snow lying inert for the whole bitter season;
Listen, my dog likes to stare
into mirrors. She’s not narcissistic—
she believes her reflection’s a captive
companion confined behind glass,
a trouble-free and safe friend
Calm app, chiropractic, codeine, Coke (the drink, not the drug, although Freud took cocaine for his), coffee, Compazine suppository (anti-emetic), counseling, craniosacral therapy, dairy-free, darkness, denial, driving myself to the ER with a barf bag, earplugs, energy healing, exercise, Fioricet (butalbital, acetaminophen, and caffeine), Flonase, ginger ale, gluten-free diet, hot bath with ice pack at back of neck, hot shower
Thursday nights are always a little tense, but especially now, less than a week before Christmas. We are on edge; the clots of snow in the road, the family time, none of it helps. We meet in a classroom in the community center at 8pm. The rest of the building is dark, yawning shadows cast over our faces. It smells like paint and gym ball plastic.
Through the tender bone
you only see a gaping hole,
point out just how hollow
this pelvis is—so full of sky,
the moon phasing,
Rx:
men’s daily multivitamin/one per day in the morning
Zoloft/100 mg per day in the morning, watch for signs of hypomania
Atenolol/50 mg per day, perhaps at night, for blood pressure
monthly massage membership: $60/one hour session, once a month
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