These words won't lay flat.
They're slanted and sloped and
filled with out of kilter.

Fiddle Fan wiggled out a wide one
and he smiled, a one and a two and
a three four, and he wiggled out.

The doctor, rubber glovey and oozie
picked upside down and wacked him one
on the behind, just to hear him yell.

Fiddle Fan, not knowing what was going
on about him, seeded out for a couple
couple months, having a good time and stuff.

They named him, Billy, Louie, Willy, Joey
something or other so Fiddle Fan forgot
his name, name don't matter nothing nowhere.

Now then, duration doubled, tripled, homerunned
him in size, till time jacked him up to
six feet, and eighteen summers past.

Ole uncle called him up to serve in
latest war somewhere or other for somethin
or other now, real jazzy uniform, too.

Fiddle Fan fall in love here there anywhere,
have hell of a time till someone slap
some metal in him just to hear him yell.

Now, duration homerunned, tripled, doubled,
singled, zeroed him and they dropped him down
six feet, real jazzy funeral too.

Tuesdays are Bingo days. Red, Blue, and Yellow chips
scatter beneath the wheels of clumsy wheelchairs like
tiny lily pads, untouched.

And on Thursday, the sharp scent of pink polish
is filling the room where the young hands are filing the old nails,
And painting some youth and color back.

Bette's my favorite, she glows telling me about her blood transfusion,
and, Oh, she's feeling so much better, and,
Oh, she knew I'd be glad to hear.

Louise wanders through the same two halls, and she tells me
She's too young for grandchildren, and she asks who those kids are
In the picture on her dresser?

Edith mutters and stares and frowns. She says it's been hard for her,
And she'd just rather sit. Then she mutters and stares
And frowns alone.

I briskly walk out of the self-opening doors, into the cold February air,
Cars are moving loudly, quickly, on the highway nearby, and
The day is still light, it's still afternoon.

There is little chance of you living today,
and if so, barely an existence—your faint
breaths pulled through tube-swelled nostrils.
Round arms withered, big hair fallen out,
scolding creases all smooth by now. And those
things I made fun of: the smoking and the weight...
I was only ten, too old for my brother's sitter,
and yes, happy when you did quit, happier
when it was because of something I said.
Years later, while I ate dinner, opened a window,
or walked dully along, you must have died.
But last night, out of my sleep, smoke
curled your nostrils, thick fingers strangled
a cigarette, demanding this poem, this apology.

As if love was a thing that could be created,
constructed from cookies and pipe cleaners,
or earned like a prize with green stamp points.
As if when our timed bodies join as wet fire,
it is a choice; we are following a recipe
or a connect-the-dots picture,
as if when we kiss, and I feel my heart
pass out from my lips and
dip down to take a bite of yours, as if
we were creating this love
instead of finding it now, together,
at the same window, me looking out,
you looking over at the land that has always been,
in this now, our time to travel it
together, noting the path,
enjoying the view,
dreading the sunset and first star's night.

From a vision experienced while reading Tillie Olsen's Silences.

We sit in a circle, critiquing a piece
of prose by violently poking
our fingers into the air, hurting the writing,
hurting the hedgehog or whatever, drawing it
differently, noting that the horizontal
in the crossword must be entered at a certain hour,

violently opposing our continued infiltration,
interpreting the process of meditation.
In our circle we are indispensable,
inseparable from our cats

is what we are sometimes.
Before a forced separation for dinner,
there's preparation for lunch,

and we have some latitude about what we'll eat.
Vigorous, violent oppositional methods:
Won't do that again, will we?

After mealtime, the ring ringing of the bell sounded
the hour in one of the places it wasn't contested.

I have taken, been given, or made,
all things woman.
Some happened by chance and
some were planned.
I am daughter, granddaughter,
sister, cousin, niece, aunt,
wife, mother, and now, grandmother.
I have taught, befriended, loved
and forgave.
At times reversing these things,
to have them come back even greater.
All things woman...is there more?

I am
skies of white smoke.

Come closer.

My prayers
have piled
a stack
of timber
&
twigs.

Breathe into
the tiny spark.

Closer.
Rouse the light.

Come closer,
God.

Ohhhh!
Shield your eyes.
Everyone!
My life
is about
to ignite.

He wants me to watch him. I slow down; he
prances, nods his large white head, calibrates
flawless buttocks, expert legs. Through drizzle,
drifting leaves—a virtuoso performance.
I pull over, turn to the player,
shapely in the floating mist—a cloud
ringing his wild neck. Feel the stallion's
heat. He jibs, bridles into the brume.

Friend, I dreamed I walked a nowhere street.
You emerged from a wall, hands on knees, gray
stone—indifferent as sculpture. Your blank eyes
swayed me; I shrank to fit. Words hung in thick
array, then arced; the facade of your face crazed.
I drive on; arrive again and again.

I really want to know when the whole thing cracked apart,
and more than that I want to know if the myth is true:
that no matter what I do
I will become you.

I swam inside you for almost a year
and you cupped me with one,
then both hands, and you rocked me asleep
and probably you hated me
sometimes for the way I made you so large
and the world a little smaller
and harder to navigate. Sometimes I think about
you when you were this young still,
and your smiles in pictures weren't shot through
with strain and what you see as hopeless wrinkling.
I try to imagine you jumping over fences
and taking long drives in cars, exhaling smoke,
trying like me to act cool
after you'd escaped high school and thought you were free.
You used to have long hair (I saw it in pictures),
and you were thin and probably felt really light sometimes.
(The question I'm trying to ask is
if you ever thought you might not want me there at all.)
When you were nineteen and skipping school
did you imagine one day you'd be sitting in your house
reading books other people recommended,
soaking your hands in paraffin wax?
Did you ever think you'd change the locks
and only give your daughters the key?

But before I can begin this excavation
I should ask if you've been here before:
nineteen, living under the guise of being on your own,
feeling like you can probably do anything
if you want it enough, and trying to dive
back into the empty space left when you broke into the world
screaming, raising hell like always,
trying to figure out what it means that you eventually repeat
all her same mistakes. I want to know if I will end up
fifty like you, scaring off men with my laugh, not caring,
painting my nails bright red and putting my feet up on my desk,

wild after all, alive despite the damage.