100 Days of Mourning

Post Script 100 Days 2010

2010-09-02T09:33:00.001-07:00

Ok: I evidently don't actually understand blogger, because when I went to create a new blog, to continue writing now that 100Days2010 is complete, it changed this one's profile too. So in the interest of preserving history, please note that the PROFILE for my work in 100 Days used to read "As a housewife with very little contact with the real world, let alone the artistic one, I am thrilled to be included in this years activities. Last year I used my camera to work visually in response to Stephen Ersinghaus's stories, this year as I struggle with my mother's dementia and compassionate caretaking, it will be what it will be."

My continued work can be found at Songs Heard In the Supermarket

Day 100 A Beginning

2010-08-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

It can't be this easy can it? You hand me a book

entitled "Joan's Memories". It is from one

of the many many charities you give to, you

the most generous woman I have ever known,

the one who, just the other day put a real silk

ribbon on a wee can of cranberry sauce

for me to bring to Fishy, because you remembered

he liked it with his turkey. It is a photo album.

It is blank. We laugh about this, that a book

with such a title holds nothing, but then

we nod because I get the picture now,

I can tell you the story behind every page.

You've done it again, given me something

I can never really thank you for.

Tonight, I feast on words instead

of snack crackers, have found something more

flavor-enhancing than MSG,

the taste of my own voice.

In response to 1100100 by John Timmons

Day 99 Postcard from the Sideshow

2010-08-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

One day I heard the ringmaster say to focus

on what is there, but what is there?

If I knew what was there I wouldn't

have to look, I could just close my eyes

and jump no matter where the net.

If I knew how to focus, had a viewfinder

with which to snap things sharp

and center, I could run my own

damn circus but no, it is not that simple.

I have pools of eyes like a fly,

dodecahedron after dodecahedron

of lenses filled and spinning in the air

like plates, on which could be anything,

my next meal for instance,

if I could just determine which one holds

the real meat, perhaps the lions would

stop pacing at last. It is all a three card

monty game and I can never tell for sure

which card to point to, the Queen

could be anywhere doing things

I'm not convinced I really want to see.

Schroedinger juggled ways to keep

his cat alive forever --really? don't

look? that's all you've got? --No, I search

for the oracle, the one who finds light

through crystal as if she can read

the temperature of the universe and tell me

how to treat such fevered pain. Please

don't stare at me like that. I am not a freak.

I only swallow swords that need to be put

out before they hurt someone. It is not my fault

there are so many. No. I don't need a ticket.

I am part of the crew, so if I wander this alley

long enough I will figure out what to do.

In response to dialogue by John Timmons

Day 98 Well, I Could Have Danced All Night, but

2010-08-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Spring.

Such busy budding and such fragrant promise. A girl, a twirl,

a chance. Sequences of sequins. Frills lining up like thrills

asking to dance. The perfume of possibilities is surely heady

as the layers are applied in getting ready.

How fair a lady standing on the stair, a gentle

flower waiting to be plucked.

I must confess I never did this right.

I must admit I can't recall a night

where what I wore held more in store

than the moment I could finally let

the pretty leaves slip softly

to the floor. I know to some

this makes me sound a whore.

Decry the depravity but to me the law

of gravity is bliss; the moment of release

not to be missed.

What use to me is satin, silk or lace?

To dress me up will only weigh me down.

Approach me in the costume of your choice,

no sheath can cover up what draws me in.

What I seek is under all our skin, so

dress me up, but let the Fall begin.

In response to the dress by John Timmons

Day 97 What Nature Abhors

2010-08-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

It is not only nature that hates a vacuum, space

spits emptiness back harshly across our faces

begs to be let to stay up late on a sleep over

to make up ghost stories that will never stop

haunting its perimeters. It will always swear

something was just there, is about to arrive

and fill you like a stocking on Christmas.

This is why parents try to teach their kids

to carry flashlights, they can't know what

is waiting just out of sight and might

need help to make it out. This is why circles

are always filled with pie, what good is the groundwork

of dough if there is to be no content?

This is why we need practice with doors, so we know

whether they are about to flower open

or have just slammed shut.

The whole of nature is only as vast as your last

nerve and it so hates to be alone it will echo

endlessly until you pick up the rhythm, put in

your own two cents. You might have to squint

but company is coming.

In response to perspective #5 by John Timmons

Day 96 Is Someone There

2010-08-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

I think I am being followed, watched, weighed

through the window as if I am to be consumed

later on some unnamed date. It is not my

imagination. What are the chances that

for three mornings in a row a meal worm

would lay across the yellow formica beach

next to my sink waving at me with giant

manatee expectation like that? I know

the piles of unopened mail have shifted

like sand dunes in the wind across the dining

room table, it was not me that moved them.

Why do I hear the porch door click shut

every time I come back inside after a smoke

and when I go to look why does it smell of corn silk?

Who is looking so hard at me I can taste

my own bouillon cube? Oh I know some

people wish on stars but I wish on dust bunnies

and know them to be of very little mercy.

No, in fact, I know there is no one there at all.

I make up omens in my oven cleaning, see visions

in what is left in the dryer filter, look

for depth between deli slices, how can I not?

I don't remember marrying this house but it stands

over me, waiting for more because what I give

is never enough.

In response to i don't think its stalking by John Timmons

Day 95 The Night The Moon Wouldn't Close its Eyes

2010-08-24T08:26:00.001-07:00

The night the moon wouldn't close its eyes, I

sat rapt in bed singing whatever four year olds sing

to themselves in a time of magic or distress.

Downstairs I could hear you and Dad

fighting. Your voices sharp with the flavor

of vodka, but I didn't know that then.

I just knew I had never seen anything so sweet

and scary as her face staring straight into my

whole self. How did she know? When would she stop?

What did I do to bring attention to the fact that I wasn't

sleeping? I don't remember. But somehow you knew

and stormed in ordering me to be somnambulant

and when I wouldn't or couldn't or didn't you broke

out the hairbrush and spanked me raw beneath

the windowsill from where she watched.

Even then, I knew it was not me you were mad at.

Even then, I understood you were jealous you were not

also stretched out and struck dumb by the way she looked

full and naked and powerful with no

need to blink. I eventually cried myself to sleep so

I never did see if she closed her eyes after all.

In response to wounds of remembering by John Timmons

Day 94 Don't Tell My Brother

2010-08-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

Tell your little brother, Billy, he is right. It is

the world that is moving so fast past the car

and not the other way around and

the only thing strange is that more

do not see this. This is why the end

of our driveways is the most terrifying place

we all have to face, it could go anywhere

and we are never in the driver's seat, always

just along for the ride. Not only that,

but that nausea we all feel from roller

coasters? They don't move either, in fact,

it is the only time we are alive that the Earth stops

moving at all and we can hear what gravity is

really saying day after day to our bodies,

which why only a certain kind of person

goes out of their way to stand on line for it.

Don't tell my big brother, Billy, he was right. Boys

always do lie when they say they'll stop. Fortunately,

I believed him and picked my children well

in advance. No, not that. The call he made

crying about the woman in the grocery store.

He could see her frozen, that she had lost her place

and the store tried to slow down and let her back

on like a kindly merry go round, but it was too late.

He knew it, but I will be damned if I tell him.

I know from experience prophets must roll down

their own lonely hills. He saw it in advance, but

it is his sisters that must steer you through the dizzying

aisles of your shopping list in your favorite store

you don't remember where things are anymore.

He must have forgotten, boys will say anything

but girls, girls keep secrets almost as long as a grudge.

In response to when billy's in the car by John Timmons

Day 93 Promises

2010-08-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I shall keep the curtains drawn today, not

in an attempt to hide anything, just to bundle us

up in the soft grey cotton of the day, use mad

ninja skills to swaddle you up, render you safe

and untouchable, close but contained.

Sometimes space folds like restaurant napkins

inviting the traveler to sit down right here

at the table, sup on what you can not yet see

but know is there. Know I am here, have never

left, can never leave, wouldn't dream of not

staying to clean my plate, pass the butter

as needed. Reset your place for the next meal.

Vows are not always spoken out loud. They can be

made grazing elbows on a bus, whispered into

the ear of a technology not yet invented but leading

straight to the umbilicus that binds us so close

so strong no scissor can shear us asunder. I will

feel your presence as present with the same dedication

I feel your absence as presence, any minute now

you will forever come back to your chair.

In response to presence by John Timmons

Day 92 Mother of All, Mother of None

2010-08-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

There are days we stare at one another

in absolute horror, seeing in each other

what we most fear. You see the manic

splash with which I tread water, catch

the catch in the back of my throat right

in your solar plexus, as if you have failed

rather than are failing, flailing farther

and farther from me in the days unpredictable

currents. I see in you that heaven is, after

all is said and done, quite empty, thank you, no

matter how many prayers and repetitions

one performs. It only holds what you have left.

We bob around the buoy

of our love, unsure of which stroke will

bridge this unforgiving liquid of time.

Both grabbing for anything we can share

that can keep us afloat. You were her mother,

and his mother and my mother and his. I was his

mother and her mother and I am still his,

I do not wish to be yours, but you brought

love into the world for me and I would like

to return the favor, send you out with your fill.

Of course toddlers don't care they are being

taken care of, grown women do. It starts

as a gentle flush, then turns to an angry rush

Who the Hell Do You Think You Are, I know

you are dying to yell at me sometimes. I know

you are dying, sometimes I want to yell too.

When you can no longer nurture, you must

turn your head and learn how to take sustenance

all over again. When you are done birthing

children, you must give life to the ghosts

who remain. And so we have shifted

across the entire spectrum of motherhood:

mothered, mothering, motherless, motherly, mothered

by proxy, unmothered, demothering, motherfucker

how true gifts can hurt.

In response to reasons for moving by John Timmons

Day 91 Having It All

2010-08-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

He makes the coffee while I count

my pills. I am a little late to

sanity this morning, I have to gather

supplies for a garden pasta salad.

We are going to a cookout tonight

with friends. Friends are fun and fun

waits for no one, so we prepare.

It's a good news, bad news thing

but not at all either or. Turns out

if you opt for comfort and settle in

to the crux of his worn cotton tshirt-

even the one you can't get the stains

out of, what IS that anyway?-just tuck

your chin to his rib cage for the gentle

rocking of his breath, that will not be all.

Years will go by and you will think there is nothing

better than the rise and fall, rise and fall. A rest.

The best. Sustainability. You can not always run

It is enough to crawl. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.

It sort of says it all. A chest in motion. Oceans, elevators,

kingdoms, people, trees, temperatures, money, the path

to sanity, rise and fall. Rise and fall. If you lose your place

it is no disgrace, just return to the breath. Rise and fall.

The days will rise. The nights will fall. Trust in this rhythm

and you'll notice it hasn't been singing you to sleep at all, oh,

it has been unwrapping your laces, loosening your tights,

taking you places, showing you sights, filling in spaces,

winning these races, are these my new faces oh, God, O

I do so like this rise and fall. Rise and fall. All the time.

It just keeps coming. Not bad at all.

In response to excerpt by John Timmons

Day 90 Found Object (Talking)

2010-08-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Resonant thread, sand can make glass

or a castle not meant to last, resident head

wake up, climb out of your self made bed

see that art exists out of the reach of pass

ing time, it is instantaneous, whether anyone

is there to catch it, whether the requisite ah

after firework meets atmosphere follows or not,

after that it can last forever falling in the skies

like contrails like, good chem trails nurturing

our hearts or eyes or disappear like worries from

your mind as you fall off to sleep each night.

Pick up the pencil, the notebook, press hard

to open the secret door, hear the signals echoing

through the solar system like a call for help. It is not

alien to want to know what is happening. We can

see in dusty corners that there is a history of these

attempts at becoming intelligent life, don't be

distracted by passing disaster, or worse - all the

spectacular success, those lucky people who wrote

outside the margins of what they knew right into

the center of the page. Reach for it, capture

the curve, draw your own conclusions. Hurry.

What you see is what you get and can be used

against you if they don't exist, once

the things that might be written

on your pages can no longer be deciphered.

In response to found object (silent) by John Timmons

Day 89 Let It Slide

2010-08-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

I know exactly what that is. My father

had a whole cabinet full of those postcards

he sent himself, filed, catalogued, proof

of his happy family, damn it and reviewed

ruthlessly before all doubters every few months.

He pointed. He shot. He developed. He held

them up like cue cards at family gatherings.

They freeze time so you can visit it,

even if you have stolen them

to hold up and study in the light of the

cold hard years that followed. Those colors

don't run, but neither do they illuminate,

they just wander the halls of the past

like artifacts of a culture people can only

guess at. Did little girls who matched shoes

and purse always put one foot forward

to show it off like my sister does, Easter

after Easter? Yes, that was the year they

finally let me put down the blue velvet.

Is there some tribal significance

that there are very few frames

that reveal the face of the Queen? I've searched

and shuffled these snapshots so many times

looking for clues to where I come from, how I got here,

but they remain just splinters making shapes

a kaleidoscope, not a telescope. Perhaps

if I had eaten them, Flintstones Kodachrome

vitamins to inoculate me from what

they don't show at all: what I saw.

In response to do you know what this is? by John Timmons

Day 88 Sitting at the End of Summer

2010-08-17T08:09:00.001-07:00

I am surrounded by hungry butterflies, no

I am not mixing my metaphors they are

insatiable. Fluttering from stem to stem

taking what they want with single minded

purpose. Ants with wings, I think

I've heard people call them, ah but such

mesmerizing wings batting at the sun

like a coquette far from home. I prefer

to think of us all as bees without

visible honey, to the naked eye no one

can be quite sure which is our flower - from

where vital ingredients are extracted, which

is our comb within which the magic happens,

is stored. To those out side, staring

at the bush it looks like we are just going

through the motions, but I defy you to deny

you don't have an elixir of your own

you are dying to share.

In response to actually, it's interesting by John Timmons

Day 87 It's All The Rage

2010-08-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

What's my poison? What's my pleasure?

Shall I take instruction or be left

to my own devices to gather my own

rosebuds or moss as I choose? I like to imagine

I am a free agent but I am always under

some sort of influence, n'est-ce pas?

It's artifice, a trick to believe

anything else. Which wolf shall I feed

implies a choice I haven't made, the fat

one tells the tale without a word.

This morning I reminded myself I don't

have to dress like I feel, so I donned

a bright smock of flowered complexities.

Thank God I do not have to feel like

I dressed. If only anger were like the Island

Beach Ferry passes my older brother

called to try and make me feel guilty about today,

and expired after four years in someone's wallet.

Invitations left to wither on the vine

are not a good basis from which to make wine.

If you want to know the truth it'll only sting

the wound, but here goes, I hated that fucking

ferry as a child, and I still hate it today. There

wasn't a voyage I made on it that I didn't instantly

regret the whole long sail across that filthy rich

water. It always felt like I was being held captive,

had surrendered control of my whole day, and

the ride back with sand up my ass wasn't much fun either, so

what can I say? For some reason, I am not all

that eager to pass on the experience to my son.

As Fishy and I say, when we try to walk

ourselves back from something we've stepped in

"I sense some real rage there," or "You say potato

and I say shit," Because it reminds us to laugh, and

because there are only so many ways to say

I'm sorry, or you loved that film, but to me

it is just a video I would like to record over.

In response to perspective #4 by John Timmons

Day 86 Pudding

2010-08-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Such an English idea isn't it, to try and reduce

something to it's essence and then make it congeal

and expand in little crystal servers no one can deny?

Aye: here's the rub, here's the nub, here's the proof

take a bite. You won't even need to chew, just mull

it around with your tongue like an idea you might

almost agree with, you don't need to commit, just

swallow, follow where it takes you: evidence

of man's need to decipher riddles and retell

stories with an open mouth.

Loosing you is altering my landscape. They sold the local

grocery store and while it is true, I still miss

their old butcher since he moved on a few years ago

I was unprepared to find myself blinking back

tears in the produce section at the thought that

the pizza guy would not be around the corner

when I got there. He was. Change is a pudding

no one can make palatable, so we hugged each

other as if on our deathbeds, so happy Addams

still lives, to see a familiar face still in the pantry.

Teachers, friends and fellow travelers are all

around us, usually within reach if we stretch

hard enough, under our feet if we don't, the trip

is always at hand and will always, always land

us in the thick of it, no matter the verdict.

In response to evidence by John Timmons

Day 85 What I Have Never Said To Him

2010-08-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

What I have never said to him

is that I love him most

for all the things he's never said to me.

I enjoy his intellect, his tall tree

of knowledge shades our lawn,

invites variety and surprise;

I love his humor, I can sometimes catch

his punchlines from behind his eyes

before his lips have time to open;

I savor his strength, he always

carries more than his share and still lets me lean

against him when I tire;

I can't imagine not sharing a bed with him, pulling

back the quilt and climbing into the soft sheets of night side

by side is the best part of my day, always, but

it is what he never says, what he never seems to struggle

with that I value most of all: how he lives companionably

with that terrible secret we share.

I don't know why it is such a sin to be so human, but

it is. It is, and he never says a word.

In response to conversations by John Timmons

Day 84 Telling

2010-08-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, Father; it has been

33 years since my last confession, this

may take a while. Just give me a

sign you are listening & I will

recount my thoughts. Be prepared

to fill this tiny room with laughter, children

say the darnedest things. My sins always

came in waves, tell me it was the moon

and not the absence of your love

that made it so and you will take

possession of all the answers you seek.

In response to tell me by John Timmons

Day 83 Mexican Sleigh-bell Trilogy

2010-08-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

I. Dance

Oh good, there are steps to this, that means

I can learn them, will discover which foot to place

where as I watch you step off the dance floor,

know which way to bend and twirl as I also see

my little girl lift herself up over the crowd,

successfully stamp her feet for her own attentions.

Somehow I have lost count, can't always feel the beat

that is supposed to guide me through the moves

with repetition, make up for my lack of grace. Yes,

I will take your hand, yes, I will turn over my life

and let go, but don't expect me not to come down hard.

II. Depose

Oh no, law suits come next? At least you brought

Kleenex. Thank you.

III. Discharge

Ah, this is my favorite part, but it is so scary to think about:

there is an end. Whether you have let go or still cling

it won't mean a damn thing. This is why we so fervently

practiced Ring around the Rosie as children, pop goes the weasel

we all fall down. See, we have made it fun for this last time, when

the apocalypse will come and we will all be left behind,

can just lay back on the summer grass feel the underside

of our necks become entwined with the march

of the seasons insects. Ole. Ole.

In response to mexican sleigh-bell trilogy by John Timmons

Day 82 Deep Dish

2010-08-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ok it is not all deep thought around here, sometimes

it is just deep need, a mindless shovel of fluff, stuffed

in, bite after bite with or with out laugh track.

Straddling midnight you might find me chock full

of toxins, wondering why I feel compelled to keep re-

traumatizing myself and embodying the notion

that we all prefer the devil we know to the green

green grass of the other side. I used to wonder

for real, why my kids all loved to play "Does this

hurt?" repeatedly with me when they hit a certain age,

wonder no more. Wonder no more: there is no thing

I will not poke, ponder or peel. I used to love to pick

my bug bite scabs, peek at the pink tenderness underneath

maybe even see if it would still bleed, yield more scabs,

reveal any more injury that I might have missed. I need

to stop incriminating myself with bad habits, take the fifth,

remember the status bar is NOT my friend, nobody

needs to know all of this, stop stirring the pot, put down

that spoon, the family has been fed enough.

In response to pie again? by John Timmons

Day 81 Language Arts

2010-08-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

I wish I spoke a foreign language fluently, could

double my craft closet with a guttural click

of my tongue, weigh the consonants and root words

as I cleared my throat before committing to the sound

that captures what needs saying.

Though it is true I do a lot of translation as it is;

have to pick up my thoughts one by one and study

them as hieroglyphs, some of the implied meanings

are so frightening they only flicker across my features

long enough to quiet the children.

Still others are too sweet and need to be sorted,

stored with those of similar hue to be savored later

when most needed. They aren't even sure how space

and time are connected, how can I decipher how to

dole out words like medicine, how can I control

this mad desire I have to never speak again? Mimes

have never been funny in our house, but code

for the unspeakable. Maybe that is why I hunger

for even more words to consider uttering

Silence is another word for speechless.

In response to cultural divide by John Timmons

Day 80 Anecdotal Evidence

2010-08-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

I know what is happening to me, it is writ large

in Sharpie across the empty spaces on your calendar.

Any day now I will morph once again. This time

from that smiling crone with my face, whose avatar

will not give up its exaggeration of my curves,

its underlining of my lines no matter how I glare

at it in the mirror, to becoming invisible to all

of mankind unless I am driving too slowly in front

of them personally -- the fate of all the ancient ones.

Some parts of life, some days, are just like that, make

better stories in the retelling once you alone have

escaped to tell an audience, like a blind date you

wouldn't be caught dead going through again, but love

to tell the story of over and over again, waiting for laughs

in the places you know they will fall. A happy repetition,

tweaked for emphasis, maybe you add his godawful

pointy shoes, or the way all conversation stopped

to see what you would do when he snapped his fingers

after saying, "Sue: beer!" or the time it all came flooding

back when the guy who looked like Dad pulled me close

and said "Oh Baby," and I had to use every skill you taught

me, Ma, to fall apart like a lady and excuse myself forever

from his presence, without hurting his feelings too much.

Oh, who am I kidding? Without vomiting into his oh

so hopeful lap...

Some days with you I cling to what you taught me

as I watch the carefully spun shells of wit, wisdom

and kvetching that disappear completely in the ocean

of your mind, as if they had never been there at all.

Why do I find this so hard? I can deliver them all

over again, anew, add some panache, pull back on my

punches, you are the perfect captive audience, but

for some reason that blank look in your eyes really

throws off my timing, and in comedy, timing is

everything, so, oh, my arms get tired holding them out

to you each day over and over again. I thought muscles

got stronger with use, why do I find my arms so shaky

time and again as I drive home, having kissed your

cheek chastely, like a boy I never want to see again,

but who I want to feel like I had the time of my life with.

In response to blind date by John Timmons

Day 79 Balloon of Mass Destruction

2010-08-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

You, sir, are a master and a servant

to the world. What debts all creatures still

owe you for your quick reflexes! If you

hadn't grabbed my string at the exact

moment you did, when you took

me in your arms and I felt the door HOME

swing wide open, when we continued to embrace

and I knew it to close happily at the same time.

What damage might I have let loose rising

aimlessly beneath the vanishing canopy.

Surely I would have tried to do my part but

how soon would I have pierced the thermosphere,

how many satellites would I have taken out

as I careened up and out reaching escape velocity.

Somehow your quiet grasp has kept me tethered

without holding the slack too tight or implying

a need to heel -- just let me heal as I wrote

circles in the stratosphere, practicing figure

eights should I want to take flight or jump.

A ship without an anchor can never find harbor.

We harbor. We port. We starboard and come

about. A balloon without company will

just keep going, might dent a ring of Saturn

and ruin the symphony the space needle

will someday be able to play for us. Yes,

my love, those of us still here to catch

the next sunrise, owe you very much indeed.

In response to the rising balloon by John Timmons

Day 78 Bright White

2010-08-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Middle-age is a land of it's own like Middle-earth:

it is only understood once you fully take on the trilogy;

what you were, what you are, what is yet to come.

The mystery is at last revealed to be not at all

mysterious, just strange - an acquired taste for sure -

as a child weren't you confused as to why they told us

white was all colors & black was none? I mean,

hadn't they ever painted? Stirred everything on the palette

together into a deep shade of ick that in no way looked white?

Now, I get it: looking at your hair is like entering a white

room with a white couch where it all took place, the color

of every second of your life is now visible to me in this new world.

I used to feel winter bereft, but now see it's harshness comes

in its stark and relentless testament to regrowth; the presence

of everything just under the surface, lying fallow but full.

Now it is summer that seems sad, the base note of decay

is undeniable in the perfume of the ripeness that surrounds

our days. Yesterday you put out a white bowl of black olives;

like tiny black holes they threatened to absorb all light, energy

and color from my heart, but I swallowed hard and looked up

at the spectrum still shining in your hair.

In response to white couch in a white room by John Timmons

Day 77 Overtime

2010-08-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

The artists wield the mystery of light

undercover, under the guise of chiaroscuro--

say that ten times fast and maybe you will see

what they see; the dance of time on flesh and molecule.

Over time, my smile lines have deepened,

my forehead speaks of anxiety controlled

by brow raised in readiness, no girl scout

I, merely a constant preparedness for fight

or flight, but when the sun hits one side

or the moon covers another, I can seem

to be as smooth and steady as surf toward sand,

standing up, riding the wave toward shore. I know

this is a trip I must make alone, but I have

made room for friends, family to join me at the table,

to keep me company in the wax and wane of shadow,

in the the swell of change carrying all forward, hovering,

an oysterman who can find our number

with the bottom of his feet. If you are not ready

don't worry, he'll hang. The union has his back

and he is getting time and a half as he waits.

In response to over time by John Timmons

Day 76 Nexus

2010-08-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

I can understand why Noah thought

the rainbow meant something important:

the end of God's wrath, a reconsideration of

destruction, a reconciliation between powers

allowing all children to let go of their held breath

and fear of the next blow of unknown.

My first father-in-law, who stills tells a story

about the time we went to the movies together

and I wore a skirt for a dress, (Pop, it wasn't

just me -- it was the 80's!) speaks of when the doctors said

they weren't sure I would make it, until he drove home

crying and saw a rainbow and knew I would be all right.

But what about now? It is not just a personal omen

anymore. One man's double rainbow is the whole world's

auto-tuned epiphany, if only we knew from what and to what.

It does feel like it is filling the entire spectrum, promising

an endless vein of ore from the oracle if only we could crack

the code. Good luck with that. I will settle for the quick

thrill of the sky reaching to hold my hand like a boy

on an awkward first date. I have no idea where this is leading

but what mumbled words I can decipher touch me in places

I didn't know I had, offers me a sign to move closer still.

In response to the sign by John Timmons

Day 75 Good Parenting

2010-08-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

When the horse is in the pasture, here's hoping

one of the kids you raised can see it, will notice

it needs to be exercised and brushed down and well

fed to wander along the few paths left to it.

This is the best we can ask for, a sign we did

a few things right, when instead of finding answers

to foolish questions even if they are wondering "What

did the artist mean" or "What does God want" or

"What's it all about, Alfie" they just make sure

the saddle fits right, loosen the bit a bit, and

gently decide if the horse needs a blanket

as they walk behind it making sure it finds the barn

for another night. That's right. That's right.

In response to what about the horse? by John Timmons

Day 74 Other People's Relationships

2010-08-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I still hold fast to the old

fashioned notion of live and let live, as quaint

and outlandish as our vote them off the island

country finds that these days. First, do

no harm, but whatever gets you through the night

is all right by me -- still, I have to admit, there

is an exception to every rule and the way you

stare at my big brother B like he is a banjo

that could or would or should answer you

is downright, well, weird and a bit off putting.

You both make it seem so normal, just a picnic

in the front yard but what you seek from him

is unnatural and really doesn't sound good at all

and what he is hoping for in return? Honestly,

there is no key this composition can be played in

that doesn't make me want to beat the band.

In response to the englishman who stared at banjos by John Timmons

Day 73 The Sky Is Irrelevant

2010-08-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

The sky of my childhood is irrelevant, it was always

about the water: the way the lake hummed as if being played

by the wind, even on calm days, and there were not many.

The way the lake felt: always welcoming, never harsh,

surrounding without smothering, lifting without ever

letting go. I am a paddle in a canoe and I can dip

and turn and steer and even float away and no one

will ever scream or cry or burn me with anger.

The sky is full of emotion, the sky brings weather

and consequence but water only mirrors back as if

sticking out it's tongue in the face of all comers.

In the water it is always summer. Color is transparent.

Weight is buoyant and not wearing anything but waves

feels really, really good.

In response to coventry sky by John Timmons

Day 72 The Seventh Sense

2010-08-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

If the sixth sense is the ability to see, know how

everything is (who's safe) and is connected, (we all

are) and expands (there is no end, there never was)

touching other things, (hello) moving them, (come with me!)

(let's) inspiring them (wow) inviting them (please, it's fun)

to join the dance and play (turn yourself around)

with the music, then surely you see there must be

a seventh as well. There is a spot to the right

of the middle of my bottom lip that feels

all of the disconnects of the universe, unplugged

dangling, falling like a tear off a shaky chin, each

missed plane, angry word, abandoned

project lies tangled in my numb ganglia,

lonely wires waiting to be reattached, hooked

up to something once more. It's just un

natural to be so detached like that, like a cat

who doesn't even try to catch the moth,

like a really massive meteor praying

for gravity so it can travel toward instead

of just tracing its own velocity.

In response to great moment's in cinema #30 by John Timmons

Day 71 Truth or Dare

2010-08-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

It doesn't take much. A simple misstep and I disappear

into a puddled wound created sometime in the past. No, really, I

can be walking around free in the cool breeze of now and how,

ruling my roost, a sweet brown cow, maybe shaking my hips

and moving my lips to the lyrics like the Pips, one stumble is all,

how quickly I fall, clench, I am drenched, find myself still entrenched

behind the Iron Curtain in the powerless country of childhood,

swinging on a cobweb I thought I had wiped away, swimming in a cold

war I thought long over. This kind of slide is too quick and too sick

it is some kind of trick and if I just stand up and call out these back

ground playground bullies of my past, they usually go home

to their Mamas like the cry babies they are. What, shut up, I

just got sand in my eye.

In response to portal by John Timmons

Day 70 Faulty Equipment

2010-08-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

Rods and cones, I still can not tell you apart,

still think of you as novelty pretzels that don't quite

work for me, even though you are made with the same ingredients

as the original recipe, evidently salt on dough

in a different shape changes, determines- sense destiny.

And so the world remains grainy and fuzzy.

Colors do not exist as whole entities but as

Seurat portrayed them, pixellating emissions

with one hue winning the race, but all colors

in the running. During which life did I create

the karma forfeiting my eyes to see clearly?

Perhaps there is a God, after all, and the reason

we all become farsighted as we grow older is so

we can't see what is in front of us, don't sweat the

details of what is coming, focus instead on the

long view of things.

In response to scotopic and photopic by John Timmons

Day 69 I Was Naked Then

2010-07-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I impatiently pushed my way out of your 1959

womb, when you always insisted I take a bath

after someone died, each moment I arched

into the conception of every one of my

children: I was naked then.

As I watched the vietnamese child try to run

faster than napalm, saw a monk burst

into flames, stood open mouthed as the helicopter

carrying war criminals arched across the Potomac

away from hope of justice: I was naked then.

As I wait for hope to actually do more than change

partners and dance, I find it quite chilly and often

reach for more clothes to layer on to keep my skin

from being stung by artifice yet again. There is a sucker

born every minute, and I am he. Does that answer your

question?

In response to does that answer your question by John Timmons

Day 68 The Way They Walk

2010-07-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

I have needed glasses for as long as

I can remember - even the memory

that involves someone changing my diaper

remains fuzzy around the edges - but that

may be chalked up to time, distance, an

immaturity of eyes. You and Dad had a lot

of crystal ashtrays, but I remember I used to take

the biggest one from the living room and put it

over my face and wander the hall from the foyer

to the den and thru the living room and around

again. I loved the way the cut glass made my

legs seem to bend up, the challenge of walking

straight when the light was curved. After I got

glasses, what a trip it was every couple of years

to get new lenses that revealed the world

as a thomases english muffin: nooks, crannies

made up of crisp edges and hidden depths.

Of course, I was too vain to wear them in

junior high and those years have a somewhat

ancient patina, memories made of broken mosaic

tiles whose colors don't quite match, but I

know I learned to tell all of my friends from afar

by the way they walked, their mannerisms

echoed down the halls between classes, loud

identifiers obvious from my locker door and

the boys I liked on the bus! I would try to tell

if they were looking at me by smell I think.

I was so blind, I didn't even realize it was I

putting out a scent, but such is youth

before they learn to read the braille of their

own bodies. I don't miss being young

and clumsy, but I do miss the way everything

had definition when I put my glasses back on.

Now, of course, there are so many calculations

and requirements in my trifocal spectacles, it is

almost as if I am back to trying to see through

that cut crystal ashtray. Good thing I practiced -

you have to guess where to put your foot

when your knee bends up.

In response to myopic by John Timmons

Day 67 If I Were the Food

2010-07-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

If we are indeed what we eat I must be made of the insecticide

they spray on coffee plants, the MSG enhancing the "white cheddar"

in Cheez-its and the holes inside all the doughnuts I have had.

If I am what I consume with my eyes and ears as well, thrown in,

then I must be "two separate but equally important groups:

the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys

who prosecute them", literature, books that could in no way be

considered literature, funny things my kids say and long

lines of impatient people at Stop and Shop --oh yeah, and nicotine!

Still, if the world ate me, I don't think that is what they would

taste. If I were the food, the world would love the great balance

of softness and crunchiness that I am made of, there might

be a fight over who gets what, but be patient! Each bite

contains: the cool sensation of bare feet splashing in a summer

lake, the hot pulse of standing close to the person you love

for the first time, a childish tendency to swear when trying to fix

my hair, a giddy freedom breathing in midnight air, a callous

disregard for skincare, a nervous fear of angry people,

a gentle desire to help when possible, the joy of the day to day

braille the blind love of children brings and one of those

belly laughs of delight that happen because everything is just

so and you can't explain it, but you know, just know it is just

how it is supposed to be...and hopefully, fiber. Because I hear

that is good for you.

In response to you are the food by John Timmons

Day 66 Back and Forth

2010-07-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

It was ironing day for you yesterday, I sat in the corner

of your bedroom as you carefully caressed the cotton

sheets right to left right to left, shift fabric and again

moving slowly, purposefully, right to left, hypnotically

pushing away wrinkles from the linen even as

your expression set the ones on your face deeper.

It occurred to me we are mirror images: you

iron right to left and if I did iron, which I have somehow

managed to avoid actually doing more than once or twice

over the last fifty years, I would do so left to right. But

I have never ever seen you with long hair, not in real life

or in pictures! It was never far below your ears, only once

did I see it long enough to almost touch your shoulders

in that black and white glam shot from just after college,

so it would have to be a strange mirror, where your hair

stays the same length but changes color as you age

ironing through the years, while I would be on my side

hair growing wildly up and down and back again

as I stand mutely in front of the steaming iron wondering

what I have that is worth pressing so thoughtfully.

In response to right to left by John Timmons

Day 65 Director's Cut (Remastered)

2010-07-27T11:46:00.001-07:00

We all have things we wish had been left

on the cutting room floor. Special effects

planned, paid for, executed with panache

and then destroyed as not what we were

looking for. Some things just need to be

rethought, refilmed, reframed or excised

entirely. It's nobody's fault! It's just not

the picture we were looking for, words

have failed before many times as they

fail again here to capture just what

the artist was going for, maybe we need

to recast entirely. Yes, that's it. Your

services are no longer required, we have

chosen a new direction and have left your

prior scenes on the cutting room floor.

Director's make the big money, but an editors

small decisions make a really big difference.

In response to what if life was like making movies by John Timmons

Day 64 Decant

2010-07-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Oh don't lie to me, my love. I know these kinds

of things can be arranged, you just need

to give it some thought. This spigot has

been running unattended far too long. Pretend

I am a bottle of wine you have saved

for just such a night, peel back a bit

of my top label, gently loosen the cork

keeping me from swallowing your hot

summer night whole. I have seen

the hours you have spent fingering the strings

of that instrument to make it sing, surely

you can check out my frets and find a chord

worthy of strumming or humming along

with. Lean in closer, let your nose discover

if I have breathed sufficiently

to be served.

In response to dispel by John Timmons

Day 63 Shifting Populace

2010-07-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

The US census bureau is counting on us all

be able to follow directions and fill out our info

fill in the squares they laid out for our consideration

in order to fairly represent us in Washington. If they don't

hear from you where they expected to find you, they go there

to double check and double dare you not to answer if

they have turned out to be right. They mainly stick

to the facts on the short form, just a giant statistical

snapshot, nothing to see here, move along. If I

was allowed to take my own census of this country I would ask:

How many people live at this address? How many of them vote?

How many vehicles does this residence operate regularly?

How many tvs are used daily at this address? On average,

how many lights are on at this house between the hours of 8 and 10pm?

In the past year how many of you have: you may check more than one -

Gone to bed hungry?

Gotten sick?

Been kissed?

Been yelled at?

Cried yourself to sleep?

Woke up laughing?

Stubbed your toe?

Seen a dental professional?

Gone to a movie, play, concert, art gallery, museum, performance?

Made fun of the side effects associated with pharmaceutical advertisement?

Looked something up on the google or youtube? Do you have

a facebook page? If yes, may the NSA post on your wall?

Did you know that Congress is made up of 63% of millionaires

although only 9% of the general population qualifies for that

status? Have you ever heard the expression 'Live

and let Live'? Please describe what you believe

it to mean. You may use up to 50 words [case sensitive]

to explain your answer. Please show all work.

In response to the whole world is moving by John Timmons

Day 62 Time Is Like Dried Cranberry

2010-07-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Some nights one can feel the universe big-banging forward, outward

I came, I saw, I splayed and turned back on myself, like the crab nebula, ursa

don't lose that number it's the only one you'll come running back, yes

and like the ink let loose to confuse octopus prey you will hypnotize

the ocean. I don't want to follow this tide, let it ride, burn inside.

I want talk about this new notion that gravity is a mere

side effect of string theory, just some kind of new crazy bread

to go with the spaghetti dinner of modern life. What

goes up still comes down, right? Maybe it is all connected

by molecular yoyo, they still don't know! Look up, look down,

look all around and see the things that could be found.

Go ahead: try not to stare at the crone hair on the moon's face.

I still can't believe we let those bastards blow up

part of the lunar landscape -- what on Earth is being done

in the name of science these days, there were no collapsible

ice borers that would fit onto the shuttle? That could be shot

like an unwise arrow from Cupids bow into her heart from a rocket

orbiting, we had to go all duck hunting with Cheney on her face?

There isn't enough time to make amends for such a blast.

I shall look for a trail to follow to forgiveness, oh here it is

a container of dried cranberries, it's like the taste is compressed

they can fit thru wormholes and be re-plumped with enough water

and time, but there is no time like the present they say. This present

so full and so bereft always. Always. It is hard to tell if real

reparations are possible if we could just go back, I think all

the lessons would be lost if we did so we should just track the splinters.

Pray like children for peace on the moon.

In response to leaf by John Timmons

Day 61 Phantom

2010-07-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

The woman across the table from me appeared

without warning. An instant, a flash, a flicker, a rough

magic I wasn't sure it was real -- I hadn't see her

in what seems like so long, really

just a couple of years and what is the passage

of time between friends let alone blood:

a mere pause of live tv, right? There she was

in your kitchen taking command, puttering, muttering

getting things done. We picked

up right where we left off making each other

belly laugh even as we hobbled out

to the mailbox, your outrage took a new

tone - you wanted to know if I had a plan if you

had some kind of fit on the way -- a brave

and wily tack to scare me into letting you be, but

you were kidding, like the old days, you were in on

the joke and I almost made you pee your pants giggling

when I said yes, I'll call for medical assistance unless

you're already dead in which case fuck the mail, I'll just

drag you back inside since it's you that needs the exercise.

When we'd circled back inside just as suddenly she was

gone, replaced by her daft echo once more. I hugged you

hard goodbye, a little clingy, like pain holding

fast to a phantom limb.

In response to appearances by John Timmons

Day 60 To Serve Man

2010-07-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

There are parts of giving birth that people would

just as soon not hear about, the way you turn

from waiting at the station with a bored but endless

rug burn to becoming the tunnel the subway insists

on hurtling through, the broken dam, the hollow

ooze of the empty egg shell no one even looks at once

they meet the yolk. I seriously only hold one grudge

against my husband and it is the way he huddled

with that bitch doctor who rolled her eyes at me

for taking too long, as they discussed how to cut

the cord, leaving me discarded on the tabletop.

I guess you don't need to tell the vine

how delicious the tomato is.

If only the cutting stopped there. It doesn't.

The hardest part about raising a child is shifting

from that which protects it from all extremes

and frustrations to that which causes them.

The shoelace left untied, the bottom imperfectly

wiped, the homework uncorrected, you have to cut

yourself off from that concentrate on buying

the shoes, the toilet paper, the pencils. What

they may or may not do with them can be modeled

encouraged, screamed at and crowed over but if you

don't keep trimming tentacles you won't like

what you have created.

And

Day 60 How the World Changed

It wasn't just the shift of weight from within

to everywhere else, eight and a half pounds is only

a lot when talking butter or ammunition. Still

the impact of his arrival has altered all possible

futures, colored the edges of our past permanently.

There is no longer a frog on this earth I do not love, nor

a button I trust. I do not believe I would have survived

the change of how the beautiful blue light of september mornings

made me feel without his insistent constitution,

had ever noticed how many of things around me were sets:

alphabets, numbers, states, notes, planets, movements. How often, if I

just looked harder at someone, I would be able to shout

We match!

In response to birthday by John Timmons

Day 59 Returning

2010-07-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

The music of my arrival is usually limited

to a quick push of the doorbell before I let

myself in, sometimes, like today, with your youngest

(last?) grandson and food. No matter. You greet

us with a mix of gracious surprise and weary

expectation. We are just another of countless

demands, checks, balances and weather fronts

that move you through your days unsolicited,

but deal with as forced to. Somehow your night

dress and slippers give you both regal bearing

and a slightly beaten down stature all at once.

I am unable to resist pointing out my gift

of lunch would have been better received if you hadn't

just finished your breakfast so late, as if eating a bagel

at one pm is some kind of sin against nature. No,

I just don't like to keep coming back

to the plain fact that simple things like sharing

lunch with Fishy have to be prearranged. You have moved

into a time zone all your own, beyond my watch's

capabilities to adjust for.

In response to entrance by John Timmons

Day 58 At the Threshold

2010-07-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

I remember it as if it was yesterday how he

looked at me no matter where I was looking how

I saw him following my every move how it made

everything else more surprising, more alive,

bigger, but cared for, like a well balanced aquarium.

How is it that I hadn't noticed the way the bush

responds to the breath of sparrows as if connected by a wave?

Didn't understand the connection between appetite and falling

stars? That taking the garbage is a love poem? That keeping

an extra quilt at the foot of the bed helps on the nights

when birds sing only of money and disappointment, but

finding a match to a solitary sock is a deep reconciliation

poets can not begin to describe and worth the search.

There are no pictures of us then, or the way he lifted

the veil from my eyes that no one else had seen, but

the doors keep appearing and so we go through.

In response to they were so young by John Timmons

Day 57 Fear Is An Engineer

2010-07-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Survival necessitates we are all born with one.

He starts, like all good engineers, from the bottom

up, checking for vulnerabilities, finding our weak

spots, ostensively to protect us, reinforce

any shaky foundations, but you know scientists:

they don't take your word for anything, they have to

test all hypotheses; shake the low branches, see

what falls out. Once they find a crack they have to

figure out just how dangerous it could be, so

he is going to test your ass to see what kind of force

might be required to break you -- in order to prevent it

from happening, you see. So, like if you are afraid of spiders

he just might have to see how many things crawling all over

and into you during the night you can take. If you hate

the dark because of the infinite number of terrible things

that could be standing somewhere close in it, get ear plugs

because he will make sure you can hear what is coming.

I hope you are not afraid of falling because there doesn't

seem to be any limit to the heights he can build to,

and he'll experiment to see if you get just as dizzy

at the thought of being trapped in a car or plane as you fall.

Maybe you can't imagine your life without your mother,

so he lets her stay but makes you guess which part is missing

every time you show up to see her. If you are afraid your life

has no meaning, he just might arrange for your days to stack up

clean and empty like dishes drying in a drainer, so be careful

about what scares you. You are going to have to face

his specifications to the letter.

In response to bridge by John Timmons

Day 56 Guardians and Other Strangers

2010-07-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

Most of my angels have been men, I am not

being sexist, there is karma after all and a need

to balance the devils who have also been so.

There was the former homicide detective

who stepped out of the crowd and asked me

if my friends really liked me as he paid

for a taxi to take me to Avenue C and make

sure I got into the building. The curly headed

musician named Jordan who played the alto sax

for me and the sunset that day in Jackson Square.

I think even Eliot might qualify, for gently washing

my hair in the shower after telling me no, not

in this lifetime could he love me. So I wonder

have I missed her all these years? Walked right by

when she crosses in front of me, her halo

echoing upward into the sunlight of the city street?

Did I not notice the confidence of her gait, the way

what she carried bore no weight as she tried to show,

tried to let me know, just which way I need to go.

In response to point the way by John Timmons

Day 55 Isn't It Called the Signature

2010-07-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

Like all good conductors, God starts

with a really good beat in his head,

ceaseless really, you might say he invented

restless leg syndrome but, that would be making

light of a very serious subject. Truth is

he'd go mad if he didn't hum along, tap

his foot, grip his baton just so: steady

but loose like a drummer. How else

could he bear the rise and fall of all

those chests, the staggering chorus

of exhalations, the syncope of those told

of the losses echoing. It's a good thing

he hears all the rest too: each bud

snapping open on branches like engagement

ring boxes, spiders spilling from egg sacs

like orgasms, zucchini singing opera on the vine.

Infants swallowing suckled milk is a whole

orchestral section by itself but those high

notes only heighten the base, the basic

rhythm and resonance of what

voices must now rest on cue. Maybe

that's why he made Beethoven deaf,

to spare him from hearing the pain

of real music, maybe that's why we

all cry when we hear something beautiful.

In response to someone by John timmons

Day 54 Consider the Lilies

2010-07-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Vatican II was such a gas, remember? We went

from kneeling through endless phrases of a dead

language with our heads down covered in chaste laced

solemnity every Sunday to strumming guitars

and pasting brightly colored torn tissue paper

into joy joy joy collages for Jesus. The priests

smiled and used their first names, sometimes

nuns wore street clothes and stopped hitting

children's knuckles for forgetting the words

to Hail Mary. God, it was a glorious time,

except for the people who missed all the other stuff.

They found themselves in a terrain bereft

of familiar markers. If only all such transformations

were that easy or could look that way: I was a child and children

are pure one dimensional creatures -- I don't mean

with no empathy, just that whatever they see is all

they see, they might move beyond thinking mother

disappears when her face leaves for the nap rather

quickly but their commitment to deciphering

what they consider real trumps everything

amen and stays that way forever. Purple

is the color of mourning and joy, so say we all.

If I could live anywhere it would be San Francisco

but I won't move there because I don't have enough

money and I am way too afraid of earthquakes

and way too fragile to want to find out that

sea lions are really pains in the ass or their shit

smells or something equally disillusioning.

Color me yellow like dead chicken skin

and fear. No, that will remain a mystical place. I won't sully

it with actuality so if I were to live anywhere

I would live in a tree near a lake and I would

toil not, neither would I spin. I know just what

I'd wear and I'd miss a lot of things like stretching

out on a warm soft bed and toilet paper but I

would have a bowl and I guess God would

put sustenance in it, and may be charge my

ipod if I left it out every once in a while.

Blue is the color of eternity and water

but only from far away, up close you can

see the bottom. Every day I would float for hours like a lily

pad, a launching pad, let the trickles fall

where they may, each night I would hold fast to the solid

trunk of my best friend, bury my face in his bark

and smell the rings of wisdom growing inside,

maybe invent a dead language and sing it hatless.

Green is the color of the alphabet and the omega.

So I hate myself when I do not love myself surely

I am not the only one. Isn't art for people who fall in and out

of love or life several times a day? Red is the color of my true

loves scars. It has been raining all day, but I am so thirsty.

In response to perusals by John Timmons

Day 53 Fairy Tale

2010-07-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I wore a red cape well

it was actually a blue velvet jumper and I knew

just where I was supposed to go, I was supposed

to curtsy and bow for guests making sure they

could see the rows of lace across my tights don't

look so troubled it was not like I was

thrown to the wolves, it was a cocktail party,

I had been there before and I wanted to present

what had been put in my basket, but next thing

I knew I was laying in my bed an old woman,

a grandmother if you can believe it and some

wild animal ate me up without so much as a please

or thank you damn it and if you think it is any

fun to be confined inside a predator you must

work on Wall Street, it is not pleasant at all

breathing in all that hunger. If only a hunter

or champion would show up with a knife

and get me out of here. Oh who am I kidding

I wasn't sleeping anyway and freedom is for

young frightened dreamers. Habit is the terrain

the old get lost in, where are my cigarettes,

there's not much room in here and I only

have a half a pack left, I better try

and make them last. Did I lock the door?

Day 53 After the Bleeding Stops

The cats won't come in off the porch

they want to hunt moths and study the legs

that ding, flutter, and poke through

the screen that holds back the forest.

Some nights sleep is an escalator I just

can't time my first step onto right. I don't

want to be wandering the empty mall

of my thoughts but there is no way up and out.

Yesterday I buried one of my

selves, imagined wrapping that

part of me with tight leather stitches

that would make a girl scout weep and

melted candles in a further twisted

vigil over the whole ball

of wax, rolled it in a carpet that still

smelled of dog, wound

and wound it with a heavy chain

and swallowed the key.

That chick is gone without a trace.

Where she was the quilt lays too hot

and heavy. If I was younger I would

make coffee and stay up all night on purpose,

try again tomorrow, but the place

she no longer is, is hollow, empty.

I think I will just close my eyes

so I can't see the space.

In response to wandering by John Timmons

Day 52 Honor

2010-07-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

I almost can't write this poem, I am full

to the brim with self pity and nostalgia;

it's standing room only in my chest.

It's not that I haven't felt honor for,

certainly I have felt honored, but

it is a lonely, solitary pair of legs

that stand, only my hands that clap.

The idea of community honoring

someone or something greater than

words seems as quaint as a black and white

film. The statement stands thru the ages,

but it stands alone, in the darkened room

of a past too precious and universal for the custom

made in the digital age.

In response to great moments in cinema #50 by John Timmons

Day 51 Somewhere in Switzerland

2010-07-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Men and women are huddled over consoles

speaking in a language I don't understand, no

not french, numbers.

If only my teachers had explained math

is the language of God, fractal this into

your studies! I could be turning

the dial on matter, on what matters,

calculating just how cold essence of

snowflake needs to be to change

collide slide into something else to

the anti something that makes up most

of the known universe. It is funny

that something as simple as a kaleidoscope

opens this window, creates the possibly

of microscopic miracles, spinning

forward seamlessly evolving

into something. Then something more.

Not to mention the proximity

to the cradle of all creation: chocolate.

I would speak like God and eat like

God. And learn to ski.

In response to something by John Timmons

Day 50 Whole

2010-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the cavity is in my teeth,

often my shirts, I tend to wear them

until they fall apart, I wish soft

cotton things would last forever,

but they don't, they fray and dangle,

maybe even surrender to the mouths of moths.

Sometimes the hole is in the wall

and you wish you could use it to spy

for the good guys, if you could only figure

out just who they were....

Sometimes the hole is elongated

unnaturally but predictably by a toddler

in your arms who just has to pull the shiny

dangling from your ears. But of course

it is the piehole, the asshole and the hole

that is never filled we are discussing now:

the three kings that wander the desert

waiting for the star in the East to show

them the way, just what they are waiting for

how to be whole. I don't care how many presents

they are preparing, I say: this is it -- not just

what you think you are eating, excreting or treating

but still all there is. Things and non things,

donuts and holes, having and longing; that

is all. The lace work of existence: intricacy

over emptiness. Hole, hole, whole.

In response to hole by John Timmons

Day 49 Steal This Poem

2010-07-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am dating myself with this title,

by writing these words on a keyboard

I hold in my lap instead of my hands,

lining up this invitation like a dressed horse

and carriage waiting at the curb you

may or may not take once in a blue moon,

but look around! My dream has come true:

everyone IS a poet! Open your eyes:

you will see them documenting metaphors

frame by frame, phrase by phrase, click,

hunt, peck, sending their submissions

instantaneously into the ever widening

milky way galaxy spiraling out of control

on some editors desk. Tune in, turn on

and drop in, honey child. We all share

this simile like dinner in the Middle East,

use your hands, dig in, don't worry

there'll be time to wipe your chin.

This diner is open 24/7 and it's not a cliche

to find sugar packets on every table

it's a given. Take it.

In response to in passing by John Timmons

Day 48 New Landscapes

2010-07-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

The cats will not like that I have lowered the shades,

but there is too much light, I want to strip

the bed today, before a shower no less so

there are large mounds of laundry to be mulched

into place in the basket, a fresh quilt to unearth

from the hall closet, the process of clearing

the palette of the mattress. This is how

I heal, how I deal, I shuffle my stuff

around into new configurations.

Nothing really changes, but the way I

look at it always does. Observation

doesn't only change the observed.

I will set this bed like a patch of grass on a hill

for a summer picnic at midnight. Our skin

will find the clean cotton as refreshing as beer

as our eyes adjust to the darkness to show

us what we always know: we are still home.

In response to the act of changing location by John Timmons

Day 47 Abundance

2010-07-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

I know a couple whose love

stands stark and tender,

a lone tree on the prairie of

their vast young lives.

You don't even have to talk to them.

You can just see the crop of wishes

held in the open arms of their

hungry, needy branches.

You can feel their hopes trembling

as they appear, smell the pine

of their fears about what the ground

won't hold, the sky might yield.

Don't worry so, I want to tell them.

Love equals pi, a constant that goes on and on

no matter how many questions the numbers have.

In response to wish tree by John Timmons

Day 46 Overexposed

2010-07-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

I carried my heart down to the outer limits

of the united states. It was not as heavy

as my laptop, but several times I felt it

wanting to cry. It never needed charging

but there were instances I felt it knocking

around the walls of my ribs as if checking

for weak spots from which to escape.

Do not cry, I told it and took it swimming.

Do not run, I pleaded, and offered it black

coffee, which it enjoyed for the first time.

One evening, not thinking clearly, I put it

on a stick and carried it overhead

in a parade, but the night air took its toll

and the next day my heart would not

speak to me at all and I had to wander

the streets pretending it was still inside me.

I had to sit on the couch for hours alone

practicing contentment unsure if it would

return, as if posing for a picture no one

showed up to take. I must have fallen

asleep at some point and when I woke up

it was back, swimming in circles where it

belonged. That's enough of that, I told it.

I am back to checking the filter every day,

cleaning the gravel as needed and gently

offering it nutritious flakes I keep in a jar

in the kitchen. I swear I can hear it

smiling.

In response to posing by John Timmons

Day 45 Joining The Chorus

2010-07-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

It doesn't have to be in a wooden pew, wreaking

of penance on a wobbly kneepad. Maybe its in an airport

listening to a comfortable San Francisco man terrified to follow

his wife home to Brazil on a flight delayed until 11 pm while

she eats a salad and pats his leg, as the Brazilian Tae

Qwon Do team sits near by on the floor in a corner texting.

Maybe it is watching a woman walking her dog

over sand dunes whose grains don't begin to cover

her grief. It could be a phone call, one of those quick

ones where nothing much is said but there is a pause

filled with all the things they want to say. Spend some time

with someone more scared, more scarred than you.

You can hear the river echolocating around their pain

their rocks reaching up from the river bed, changing

the way the water must go. You can tell your splashes

are not the loudest. You can start to hear birds.

Watch the branches for your cue, it is almost time

for you to start to sing.

In response to flow by John Timmons

Day 44 Salute to the Order of Things

2010-07-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

I am a hypocrite. I resist traditions

as if they are a bit being forced between

my teeth, a harness that will direct me

somewhere I have no desire to go.

Why should I wear red white & blue just

because you want a beer? I think holidays

are for people who miss their childhood.

It is like the whole country

is the kid I babysat for the first time:

nobody told me that if I ran around

making him laugh that hard playing monster

I would have to do it every single time

I returned. I would of picked checkers

or reading in accents, or meditation or something

requiring less exertion. Don't feel obliged

to set off any fireworks today on my account.

That being said, I do enjoy customs.

Sweet little postcards of ritual vignettes

performed for no good reason. I'll take

a japanese tea ceremony on a rainy Thursday

or bake money into a cake for whatever

day the british do that once in a while,

I like time off, just don't tell me what to do

with it. I have my own priorities.

First comes the care taking of persons and hearts

although to be quite honest, when it comes to myself

that often involves cigarettes, coffee and croissants

which don't technically qualify as care. Next comes

cooking, but art trumps cleaning, sex, drugs or rock

and roll. Shopping is impossible to avoid with

a family so we call it hunting and gathering and get

it done. Play comes before homework or tv.

Showers are mandatory but can be taken

every other day if you have pledged to clean it all.

I try to read more than I eat. And pace whenever possible,

not in impatience, more like in a tennis game,

trying to stay ready for the next thing to come

across the net. I've taught my kids to sleep well

even though I am not so good at it, but I find

if I choose to laugh more than cry

I come out ahead.

It is the 4th and I am not ungrateful to those

who liberated the colonies, but I am happier

to bring you your Key West sundries, check

your thermostat and find it on cool, tell you

stories about the trip that made you laugh.

I missed you and you are still here.

Things like that should not be taken for granted.

In response to fourth of july by John Timmons

Day 43 Six Degrees of Denial

2010-07-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

A boy plays on a patio, his mother above

him blowing bubbles, countless useless orbs

float about in the space between them,

sun kissed rainbow spinning liquid

filled with breaths of simple joy.

It is just an instant, just another in take

of breath and it catches her, she understands

she has done this with all of her children, she is

doing this with all of her children, letting loose

decades of these delicate creations with absolute

abandon with no expectations they can last.

And yet here they all are in shiny mirroring layers

swirling through out the morning, her being, the echo

of the child's delight. Tears are falling between

the bubbles, she has to catch her breath overcome

with the crystalline gift of this fact.

Somewhere across the world a father

is captured and hooded. The soldiers take

pity on his toddler son and let the crying child

cling to him as they huddle on the ground

before he will be rounded up and taken away.

Mercy is as fragile as circles of soap.

Differences harder to find than a lost contact lens.

Wars are not winnable. Loss keeps loosing.

Gifts keep giving. I know that you know

that we all know this is true. There is nothing

more useless than blowing bubbles. May more

of our days hold such uselessness.

In response to concentrate by John Timmons

Day 42 Finding A Way

2010-07-03T13:12:00.001-07:00

When you are lost in a forest

there are many options to finding

a way out, a lot of variables to consider

before choosing. For instance, if it's a nice afternoon

and the forest is right next to a mall you could just go

get some coffee and think about it awhile.

If it is night and no one has heard

your calls of distress, find a place to hunker

down, try to rest, try again in the morning.

If it is morning, look down randomly

at your skin, determine where you are

on your arm and carefully trace a way to go

forward, memorizing your intention

to be kind as you try and get there.

Repeat as necessary.

In response to path by John Timmons

Day 41 Drowning

2010-07-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

This morning I noticed the most perfect

miniature frog in the pool. Honestly,

he couldn't have been half an inch

from snout to the tip of his splayed

out toes. I leaned in to admire him,

then to rescue him, then to mourn.

He was gone. His movements were

just ghosts from the pool jetties.

It just seems wrong doesn't it?

For a frog to drown in water?

Especially down here where they don't use

chemicals in their pools, just salt.

But he was a fresh water frog who fell into

an ocean of trouble. Probably hopped right

for it, sure he was heading straight into his

element. People should take a lesson

from this, always stick a toe in first.

In response to water by John Timmons

Day 40 Questions on a Honeymoon

2010-06-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

Waking up in Key West each day is like

awakening in a warm crook of someone's arm,

a gentle intimacy until you realize you made a commitment,

you married this place again today and you have to

grow into this newlywed status each morning.

A quick hurried brush of teeth, a smoothing of hair

as you adjust your sticky t shirt to meet him

with a shy smile. It is enough at first. Awkward

silences and half made plans go well with

the mellow breezes and gulps of coffee and juice.

Just past noon, you notice his demands

to be present to him are ceaseless and there

is less shadow to escape his glare until by three you'd like

nothing more than to hear the kitchen crockery

bounce off his sunny face and splinter on to the tile.

What could you possibly ever have seen in his face

to want to turn toward him. You refuse to

spend another second in his presence, retreat

behind a closed door, swearing him off forever.

There is nothing about his sticky neediness

you could ever want. You slip into sleep

so full of the sounds of air conditioner it

is as if he never existed and you are glad of it.

Waking you can't help but wonder if the bastard

is even still down there, and sneak down to

the lanai. Everything has changed once again.

He is sitting before you as if none of it ever happened,

arms wide, short sleeves wafting as if beckoning

you back to your spot beside him. You allow

yourself to sit and the light shifts

somewhere over his shoulder as he looks

full into your eyes. That is it. No one else

can look at you that hard and still caress

every part of your skin, gently lift the hairs

on the back of your neck. You take his hand

and head out into the evening, knowing

there is more sweat and exposure to come but

willing to risk another night.

In response to the smile by John Timmons

Day 39 If Life Were Manageable

2010-06-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

It is easy to see what I would do if I lived here

like my cousin. I would start each morning

with my net and begin combing the water,

detangling it's droplets from what might have dropped in

over night. It is not as easy as it sounds. You have to

really reach and bend and twist to maneuver dead bugs

and palm tree berries back up toward such light and heat,

no one would wonder that they might prefer the cool depths.

I would bend and twist and strain to reach every particle,

every wave like the sun, kiss the sparkling aqua bright

once more, maybe leave a couple of those pink flowers

floating on purpose in the corner as if adorning

this liquid goddess, this conquerable sea, this ocean

under my command. No one would wonder

what I do with my days. I clean water! Offer

it up to the new day's hot skin.

In response to and no one would wonder by John Timmons

Day 38 What Is In a Name

2010-06-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

Here in Key West ice melts

faster than you can drink your drink,

no matter your thirst. The Keys

are just what you'd think they'd be like:

tropical, bright, but worn around the edges,

weathered and there are boards and fences

everywhere, as if each homeowner

wants an island to themselves.

I can see Hemingway here, hell, I can be

Hemingway here, for a couple of days, save

for the lack of beard, brevity, penis and scrotum.

Each part of the day has its own kind

of breeze that arrives on my skin full

of tales of where it could have been.

I was just out having a smoke watching

palms wave to each other by the pool, looking

for the lizards they told me were out here.

I think they are taking a siesta. I think

I saw two last night but thought

they were grasshoppers, they were skinny

and it was dark so I didn't see their tails.

What ever wikipedia wants to call my genitalia

I can tell you now, Mon Pubis, Cleft of Venus,

it is covered with sweat and I didn't

bring enough underwear.

The air never stops, it is relentless.

It makes with you what it will, no matter

what your Mother named you, what you

call yourself.

In response to cleft of venus by John Timmons

Day 37 Casualties

2010-06-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

It is the casual damage we do to each other

that cuts the deepest, leaves scars

that take on a life of their own.

Sometimes, it can be a helpful discovery

like the time I yelled so harshly at Fishy

over my own bad day, he burst into brutal tears.

They nicked my throat forever as they fell from his red face

into the canyon of my shame that lay open between us.

It made me more careful, it brought us a new vocabulary.

He tells me when he is having a too tender day,

I tell him when I need a minute or two alone

to sort the junk mail of my mind, decide

which bill is really due before we can play.

But most of the time, no, there is no explanation

no good excuse except selfishness which accounts

for the sudden look of distress that paints your face

a ghostly shade of panic, wondering what you missed.

Regret tastes like cigar ash rolled in dust on the cellar floor,

and comes with the same fervent nausea.

I need to be careful with my cutting tongue,

with my endless appetites for wit

and whatever, it always leads to

one drop too many

on the counter

for my family to find.

In response to drops by John Timmons

Day 36 Coming to Our Senses

2010-06-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have really good hearing at night, all

of the days noise recedes like a tide,

peoples voices are replaced by what went

unnoticed in the sunlight, things unheard

ramp up for me as if my ears have turned

to a different channel, as if they are just

waking up when I am trying to sleep.

The settling of the house, the shifting

of bodies in slumber, the unsettling

of the unidentified, the shrill shill of shit

on late night tv, into this space

comes the quiet knowledge I should

always be listening to, should always be offering:

It's all right. Always. I'm here. I love you.

The rest is just noise.

In response to i can hear you by John Timmons

Day 35 The Art of Making Connections

2010-06-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

Logic doesn't work on pathology

my husband the professor points out.

He is a brain farmer, he studies

all required weather patterns, knows

which seeds plant what and can annotate

every rhyme and reason

all the way back to Plato.

God how wonderful it must be to not

only think so clearly, but to yield

such a harvest in others.

I don't plant, I fish.

I tease you about making it all the way

to 80 still devoted to magical thinking.

I admire the way you wear your desires,

shiny silver whispers of faith,

around the neck of your days, no matter

if it makes you seem overdressed.

Your dreamy elegance stays shiny

even as the serving dish of your memory

dims and cracks. Sometimes

I find myself reaching for that sumptuous

supper of make-believe too.

I don't plan, I just wish.

I am trying to make something

with the ingredients of our remaining

time, but I don't yet know what it is

because poets can no more read themselves

than cuts can taste blood.

I can never decide if I am a fatalistic optimist

or an optimistic fatalist. It doesn't matter.

Day after day I lumber to your front door,

day after day I return home and lay phrases

on the white page like sea turtle eggs

hoping one will make it off shore

make it out farther than I myself can,

becomes something, anything, this world might need.

In response to dualities by John Timmons

Day 34 It's All In the Wrist Action

2010-06-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

Today your hands produced a festival of birds

as you flipped me off over ten times. It seemed

as if every response I offered called for your middle finger,

as if my tongue was a magnet. It was always followed

with an "I hate it when you're right." or " I love

you with all my heart, but"...your finger finished

your sentences for you. Evidently, we are in a western

and you are quick to draw, but too late for my deadly

aims, your curses empty reflexes, a rattle

with very little bite. Or maybe you

are trying to master the origami of old age

and need extra practice to nail this fold.

My favorite gesture by far

was when you threatened to put sugar

on your blueberry bagel. I could not help

laughing. "That will show me!" We were both

laughing then, both of us disarmed

by powerlessness.

In response to your hands by John Timmons

Day 33 Things No One Wants To See

2010-06-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

A Pope who was once a Nazi.

(Though to be fair - Does he look

like a guy who was stuffed into lockers

even before he wore red shoes or what?)

That the Dalai Lama's smile and giggles

are somehow connected to vodka.

(I don't believe it Your Holiness.

It is a metaphor for the night my college

poetry teacher took us to the Village

and I recognized the shaky wrist

of his watch as identical to my fathers.)

A President who was a Constitutional scholar

whose breaches are as vast as an

endless leak of oil beneath the ocean.

(No excuses. No excuses.)

The dimples on my middle-aged ass.

(They were so adorable on my teenaged

cheeks. What happened?)

The five hundred and forty two emotions

that sprawl across my face like empty beer

bottles from a party I am trying to hide

dead soldiers momentarily disarmed,

when you ask for the fourth time

if Deesh had a good Father's Day.

The confetti of my answers lies

unnoticed on the floor. It shocks me every time.

This is why I do not play poker. Turn off

the light. Please. I need to crawl away.

In response to crawl space by John Timmons

Day 32 Equilibrium

2010-06-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Watch your footing, life on Earth

is written in a braille our fingers are too

small to comprehend and there are tides

that take us places even the moon

cannot account for. You have to remember:

The world is not flat, not still, not smooth.

It swings like a tightrope, constant undulations

with every step that we can't see, but have to compensate

for, can feel if we lie face down on the floor. Some

argue it is the motion of our own breath moving

beneath us, but those of us who've stumbled,

fallen and lain stunned do not do so in injury

but in awe, listening to the pulse in the pulsar,

wondering who to call.

In response to out of reach by John Timmons

Day 31 Unsolvable Equations

2010-06-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

You have added joy to my life.

I try to subtract from your sorrow.

You swallow your multiple pills.

I divide my time between your house

and mine, devise a ratio I figure

will do the job, but some times I

am a fraction or two off. For the third

day in a row I have arrived past noon

to find your heat on, set to 80 no less

though it is almost 90 outside.

For the third day in a row I demonstrate

that turning off the thermostat and opening

the door will achieve the same result,

but my proof is not welcome.

Numbers are concrete, but arbitrary

like the continental divide.

Numbers are a language we had to invent

to convey what was, what is, what could be.

When Kendra was little she made up

the concept all on her own, everything

was the same, but everything counted:

vuh, vuh, vuh, she would say when she wanted

three cookies. Vuh, vuh, she would answer

when I asked how many dogs we had.

Nobody is judging but everything counts.

It is the last day of school and the summer

solstice. Fishy is splashing with a multitude

of other kids in Stratton Brook Park.

Obama won the Nobel Peace prize and got

the Roberts court to rule that those who advocate

for peace can be prosecuted as terrorists.

I don't think that Santa is alone

in making his lists, checking them twice -

everything counts. One two three four

the wheel of karma keeping score.

I turned off your heat.

I am hot. You are cold.

There is no cure for either.

In response to everything counts by John Timmons

Day 30 Broken Connections

2010-06-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a dentists chair

when I finally cried about Dad being dead.

Our family was always divided

into two categories: those of us

with his enormous teeth (me

and my older brother) and those

spared the yank and yaw of trying

to make them fit. He'd been

in his package underground

as Fishy had called it for over a year

when Dr. C was pulling out

a fractured molar, I didn't even need

novacaine, the nerves had long since

stopped carrying any messages of pain.

There was a loud crack, his pliers slipped I guess

the tooth broke open and suddenly

tears wet my face in the chair as if

upturned to smell falling rain over the prairie.

The dentist kept apologizing, saying it

shouldn't hurt, but the cotton muffled my

ability to answer, it doesn't. I wasn't crying

because when the police used to call me at work

to come drive him home from the bar across the street, he

was always amazed I could see the roads. I wasn't

crying because of that day even after he stopped

drinking, he sat in my living room and asked

for a bowl in case he had to throw up as he

looked at my new journal, covered with

chinese embroidery, "My God, that is beautiful!"

he had exclaimed, "If I had a book like this

I couldn't even write in it." I wasn't crying

because the last time we spoke, he'd called me

from the hospital to beg me to come take him

home before my brother sent him to the nursing

home where they weren't going to let him smoke,

there was a moment absolute silence when he realized

I really wasn't coming, silence filled with a nurses

voice asking if he wanted some ice cream. "Ice cream?"

he said, I could tell his face had already turned away

from the phone and he hung up on me.

No, it was the damn teeth that he gave me,

making me weep. So huge, but so fragile.

In response to father's day by John Timmons

Day 29 Dangerous Fictions

2010-06-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

I bristle when Frenchmen pronounce

what is true. I was like that in college,

you should have seen the professors face

when I asked which essay proved Montaigne

wasn't just a pompous blowhard...? I regret

not being a better student, not pushing myself

to understand more philosophy, physics,

the magic kaleidoscope of statistics.

You can make anything seem true if

you graph it right, I remember that much.

If my life were a film it would have

to be in black and white to capture

all the grays, and a buddy movie starring

me and my faithful companion a horse

named Fear I ride madly to the West

until the sky gets big enough to swallow

us whole. I start out as a call girl but

soon enough I am running the saloon

and deputized to just keep pouring.

You announced for the second time

that you were going to purgatory when you die.

I told you the Catholics have closed it, but

no worries because God is nicer than that

anyhow, and if you have done wrong he

just writes more in the margins of your Final.

No one likes to talk about the fact that we are

all making this up as we go along. At least film

directors know they are crafting a story

to make us feel better as we sit in the dark.

In response to cinema is life by John Timmons

Day 28 Drive On

2010-06-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

If only memory was like fresh jalapeno

in tuna salad - a hint of what was grown, no bite

-- not like the pickled ones brined

in the vinegar of emotion. We could savor

the history without that feeling of things

rushing toward us faster than we can swerve

into another lane safely. Photos are

superfluous anyhow, it is the heart

that takes the snapshots: Kendra standing on the deck

one thick braid entangled in her blue hoodie

as she holds out her gloved hand full

of bird seed, waiting, waiting. So sure

a winged creature will come her way,

the definition of patient faith. Fishy

hard at work on a white board

at the age of two sketching planets

of the solar system, no shit!,

with details as he leans over his diaper to add

the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

He might as well be wearing a scientists

white coat or a corsage for his first dance --

he knows what is so. Jordan, finding no bandaids

in the bathroom leaning forward

sincerely asking me why I can't just do things right like

Grama Julie. He knows what is missing.

There are no photos needed.

The heart always sees what is approaching

and reflects it toward us as we journey on.

In response to browse by John Timmons

Day 27 A Word About Longing

2010-06-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

The dogs are dead, they lie

in holes a third of the way up the hill

behind the house. Last winter a birch

branch broke off and fell across the path

like a bridge they might pad along

from where ever they might have gone.

After the last one got sick, there was a moment

climbing the stairs to bed when I realized

that just as I could always feel him through

the wall curled in sleepy vigilance on the couch,

so too would I forever feel him no longer there.

Cliches appear like paper cuts as I search

for what words could carry my message.

You can't miss what you don't remember.

You don't remember. I am left behind

sorting these letters on the keyboard myself.

In response to self-portrait (episode 1) by John Timmons

Day 26 Until It Stops Hurting

2010-06-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

In New England it is a rite of passage

when a child learns not to cry, when

his lip just trembles, eyelids blinking

as if hiding from the embarrassing paparazzi

of any pain. Being three is a celebrity status

all are expected to aspire to, sucking it up

a tradition we hand down to our children

like the stories of stockades in the public square.

It is the first order of business at every town

meeting, the way you earn your middle

name, the first lesson in the delicate

art of lacemaking, place taking, restraint,

stability. I sound like I'm knocking it

but I'm not, I'm lamenting that somehow

in our house we dropped a stitch, put

the whole damn ball of lisle behind the cellar

door, abandoned all hope of finishing

work beyond that. We only bought in

by halves, I have penny jars in strategic

places, but the clank of that change serves

for thrift. I don't talk to really, scary

people, but I long to strap strangers

into afternoon airline seats and hear

their whole story before evening lands.

I no longer scream in public, or swear

in front of my children in anger but

real self control remains a mythical

beast whose existence I search for

in snow banks, dish drains,

a newly waxed lip, reflecting back

in the rectangles of my mirror.

In response to perspective #3 by John Timmons

Day 25 The Trail We See Before Us

2010-06-15T06:27:00.000-07:00

I often fight with God as if he were a pesky sibling

I have no use for - I don't hold it against him

that he is imaginary, some of the best things are!

But he misplaces my belongings, makes me trip

on the way to the garbage bin, plays awful tricks

on friends the world over. Was he raised in a barn?

Still, there are times he gets under my skin

in a good way, gets it just right, offers

a day like a greeting card, handwritten

in multi- colored crayons using a scrawl

only I can read filled with clues I am only too

happy to decipher. This cloud, for instance,

surely it is a crumb left in my path to follow.

A radar image showing where the missing craft

can be found. A rock in a river my toes have started

to scrape free of its fresh water algae to gain a perch.

A post card announcing it is possible to reach

a destination. Such joyous perfection,

such a giddy find! A call from NASA across solar systems

asking if anyone else is out here. Yes, I shout back, Yes!

But there are satellites all around me and I am not sure

how to break orbit without further instruction!

That brat never follows up, leaves me with static.

In response to satellites surround us by John Timmons

Day 24 Seuss vs Emperor

2010-06-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

II.

You stand at the door staring,

watching me leave. I might as well be naked.

My desire to escape is right here

behind the wheel for all to see.

Your grandfather made an appearance today:

this time when I suggested you buy a treadmill.

The reach of his powerful phantomly chill

was over your shoulder, scolding you still,

though he is fifty years gone and under some hill.

The Lord he does giveth, the Lord taketh away:

this is what passes for wisdom they say.

I think he's a bastard with a short twisted smile.

I had no more walked in when you said without guile

I seemed "more sedate". If only you knew! If only I'd say!

If I believed in a Lord I might drop down and pray

but, I wanted to laugh, I near about choked.

The truth is this might just be the first

time I've shown up so naked, no faking!

No xanax, no whiskey, at my best, not my worst!

But listening to you I just want to burst

out of the front door, run on past the post,

everything, anything's better than this.

Still, we pill and we puzzle before I dash off

away from your struggling. I love you the most -

but I leave you to battle it out with your ghost.

My thirst for awayness is harsh and it's true

but I know that you know, whether back here or there

my 3 hour visits, they show that I care.

Whether weather is wet or weather is dry

my love it stays put as big as the sky.

In response to the search for meaning part one by John Timmons

Day 23 When It is Time To Go

2010-06-13T14:48:00.001-07:00

You remain the gracious hostess, even

in your housecoat. This morning the lights

were on in your kitchen for the first time

in 2 months when I arrived. The dryer door

was ajar, freshened sheets cooling. Something happened

to wake you up in time to see the boys on the Sunday

chat shows, eat your bagel, strip your bed before I arrived.

You had the coffee loaded to go, asked after all

at home, even almost remembered what you had last

night for dinner! We did your drops, your pills.

I emptied the dehumidifier while you emptied

something ladies never talk about. You took

my help remaking the bed, but made it quite clear

that you do certain things in a certain order on Sundays

and next up was a bath, to which I was not invited.

You are indeed a magician. The napkin remained

under your coffee cup the whole time, but somehow

the last eight Sundays I showed up to find you

sleeping after noon have vanished. No apologies

necessary. I'll see you tomorrow, I call,

to you waving in the window, but wonder

what your inner sleeve will next reveal.

In response to sorry by John Timmons

Day 22 Avert Your Eyes

2010-06-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the truth is a real stick in the eye,

the bloody pain of the wound distracts us

from the pulp that poked us to begin with.

No one wants to see what they don't want to see.

When I lived in the Rio Grande Valley, I didn't look

at the shacks thrown Pollack-wise across the sandy canvas or

imagine the babies too hot to cry from hunger living inside,

I focused upward and beyond where a huge cross

forgave all sins as far as the eye could see into the horizon.

When Dad was evicted and I had to pack up his porn

I confess, I peeked and what I saw left me

feeling far too raw to speak of. Now, as I see

you so eager to please the ghosts of your grandparents,

I can almost hear your Nanny waiting at the top

of the stairs to give you your tea after one more curtsy.

There is not a man behind the curtain, but craving

pure and simple. Like the sun, it should never be

looked at directly.

In response to phone call by John Timmons

Day 21 Forgiveness Is An Old Woman

2010-06-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Resentment is like a yeast infection. Ladies,

you know what I mean, it is a clotty itch

no fresh underwear can change. Gentleman,

it's the athlete's foot that follows your shoes

every footfall, the length of the Appalachian Trail.

Kids, don't go there, don't try this at home.

It will dry up your gummy bears, wear a hole

in the knee of your favorite pants, and send

you to bed early, riddle your sleep with nightmares

that whinny ceaselessly in fear of the fire

no one has noticed yet in the barn.

Secrets are killers, worse than the cooties

I steamed about, watching Dad stumble out

of some bar--Benny's!-- next to the gas station he'd demanded

I pull into in Beacon Falls that Friday night.

How I fumed as I waited for him to swallow

down his martinis, how smug I felt stealing his change

to get a bottle of coke, how thirsty I was to get him

back -- but before I had had more than a sip

he threw himself next to me, grabbed the soda

with his shaking fingers, took a hard sloppy pull.

I vowed to not touch it and drove the dry mouth

of my rage up to the lake. People wonder

how the Grand Canyon formed, but I can tell you.

Somebody pissed off Arizona so badly, she hardened

and one day when a Monarch butterfly returned

from Mexico and lit down for a rest on a purple mesa

the weight broke her open. If only her grandmother

had pulled her close years earlier, set her lap as a pillow

and stroked the sides of her face with the worn linen

of her fingers. Close your eyes on what happened

little one, I promise you, the landscape

will be transformed.

In response to sullen ride by John Timmons

Day 20 What Dog People Don't See

2010-06-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the chaotic symmetry

just below the surface of all things? One night

not long after we got the kittens I pushed my way

down the dark hall to the toilet without

my glasses and instead of darkness I saw the entire

universe was filled with cats. Flexing and jumping,

arching and chasing, their movements widened

around them in electronic echo light drifting

and mingling on every level in all directions

around me and beyond. They rubbed my legs

as I peed and wended around the walls and doors.

They never stopped moving and my movements

moved them too, like pieces of egg shell they glided

in their cosmic goo ahead of me, influenced, but never

touched, as I walked back to bed. Omnipresent, immutable

they filled every ion of space around me on my way.

It was beautiful, it was endless, I felt I would never

not see these essential feline spectres again,

but of course the next day

there was no trace of them. I hope

that doesn't mean they're gone.

In response to forever by John Timmons

Day 19 The Secret of Life

2010-06-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

I think there is a reason witches are said

to have familiars. The power at our fingertips

hides in the things we keep close, the napkin

you tuck under your Diet Coke, dab

your chin with, crumple, and refold --

is it a security blanket, a distraction

or a superheroes cape? If I were a better assistant

maybe you would reveal a dove.

I massage the endless line of dinner

plates and utensils one by one, hold them up

to the light of the window over the sink

to hail their transformation from sticky

to clean before releasing them to the drainer.

Boredom and gratitude

are the salt and pepper of time; the first so easily

overused, we can taste every granule of the seconds,

the latter must be introduced sparingly until

the tongue becomes fluent in it.

Then the endless moments

can begin to hold their commencement.

In response to thank you by John Timmons

Day 18 Come Closer

2010-06-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

Come closer, said the flower

to the honeybee, there are petals

softer still and untouched, within.

We can make a magic carpet

and waft beyond what nature dictates,

what we know.

In response to pretty things by John Timmons

Day 17 A Little Knowledge

2010-06-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes on the cusp of sleep

just when limbs of mind begin to sway

to the motion of the clouds as they come

to sweep them from form, I have an epiphany.

Often it is a woman's face I realize is always, always

there, in every scene of my everyday life, why

don't I see her when I am awake, everything

would make so much more sense! But

sometimes it is a sticky, tarry, o my god

you're soaking in it realization, as if caught

in a scottish play I think: shit how can I walk

from day to day without washing this from my hands!

Or acknowledging I am carrying it? Why don't I

lift it up, for all to see...

Do you know what I mean? As if you hold in your hands

something so full of flash and resonance you can not

believe you keep forgetting it is always with you - this magical

obvious gist of the thing, the piece of the puzzle

you didn't realize your dog ate. I tell myself : this time,

this time, I will remember when I wake up,

but I never do.

In response to south by southwest by John Timmons

Day 16 Letting Go

2010-06-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

They come and go once they grow, my children do.

They show up breathless and brimming

with duffle bags, new habits and hugs, rushing in

to touch me like I am the elm in the garden

of their childhood they used to call base, telling me

shows I should have found like sea glass in the ocean

of tv, asking for things for dinner or dorm I've never tasted

but try to serve, describing how they live their lives

calmly dealing another hand of Crazy 8's, not seeing

how many wild cards they have been given.

If they were chicks I had pushed from the nest

I could admire how they never hit ground just

flapped and flapped and flapped into the next day

the next tree started collecting their own bits

of grass, bramble and cat hair. If they were

messages I carefully wrote out and threw into the sea

I would say they have been traveling the right tides,

found shore and been received. If they were tissues

I climbed to the top of the stairs to drop over the balcony

I could clearly see how carefully the currents hidden

in my home play them into their next move. I have one

last tissue in my hands, with a few more years of not

crushing or tearing. There is no right answer I will tell it

just before I let go. Life is not a straight line at all.

In response to l'escaliers by John Timmons

Day 15 What Could You Say

2010-06-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

What could you tell me that would surprise me?

I already know you are afraid the pain in your thighs

from me making you walk to the mail box each day

might kill you and didn't bat an eye, told you I would add

it to the list of things I am afraid of right under stroke and heart attack.

I must admit to being skeptical when you told me you loved the ocean as

I have never even seen you dip your toes in sand and brine let alone look

longingly off shore. But what if you told me there was a hunger located under

your right breast that has gone unfed for 80 years. What if you told me

you had dyed your hair platinum blond and hit the road,

that there was a Hungarian Trapeze artist with your name on his wrists, just waiting

to catch you and let you go -- just right-- over the net so you would never

be afraid of falling again. What if you said you just might throw

the Mason Dixon line to the wind and book it till an itch or pralines made you

stop and scratch. What if you told me you believed it possible

to make best friends with every bartender you meet in all fifty

states, without over tipping, just by breathing in that first drink like

a trapper searching for snow, breathing out as if setting the animal free.

What if you told me you have never really been afraid to be alone

at all, wanted it even, savored it as if doing a casual seven veiled dance

all these years and you still have two sheers to cast off before the tide

turns red for good. What sound would I make as I took this in

and left it until we could talk again.

In response to message by John Timmons

Day 14 The Technology of Violence

2010-06-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Your childhood had turbulence, sure: the war

to end all wars, for instance, though all I heard

about was the agony of slopping the pig before school.

You never mentioned the fallout or the Enola Gay,

just the time you and your cousin Barb drank martinis

when you were fifteen with a troop of some sort. That sounds

so glamorous, but fey in these times.

Mine seems so wall to wall: elbows and fingers

from siblings and the three stooges, cowboys and

guns and indians, they were still indians then and I practiced

stealth in the trees to avoid being "shot" by the guns my brothers held,

the backyard playground was perfect to corral captives and make them hang

from the swing set til they fell. And the nightly body

counts with Chet and David, napalm and burning monks and

four dead in Ohio. You were there, too, we wept together for John and Bobby and Martin,

protested against the war and for the dolphins. It was everywhere

we didn't even always see it but it was always wrong when we did. But

I don't think you caught The Matrix, you missed when they made it so

beautiful: supple, sleek, lithe women and men inflicting slow motion

arcs of damage, piercing flesh as if planting wounds that flower

forward up and out like nebula in a distant galaxy. It wasn't destruction

it was a dance and shamefully, I was tapping to the beat. O for the simple nostalgic

shoot out, bang bang your dead, when the hero fell, we cried. Now it seems

violence is something long and slow and in the background as we sit silently,

smiling even, just living with it, silhouettes in the sun.

In response to great moments in cinema #61 by John Timmons

Day 13 Freedom To Associate

2010-06-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

This green dot tells me nothing but that I have failed

another test, like the one at the eye doctor that I have

to squint and wear for 2 more years if I panic and say

I can see better from the wrong lens.

This green dot leads me nowhere but to the peep hole

Dick Cheney used to listen to us laugh about John

Ashcroft needing to cover up

Justices tit; gnash our teeth over the untidiness

of Donald Rumsfeld and democracy.

This green dot is in my site the way I imagine

the kill shots appear at the gun club I pass

driving to your house every day. No matter

how I steel myself the shots still startle, jolt inside

my chest before they rattle through the valley.

I can no more shut this green dot up than cease

the noise from the nostrils Buddha swears I will

be able to feel different temperatures in and out through,

if I only concentrate. I must have numb nostrils.

This green dot tells me nothing

and it never stops.

In response to please concentrate on the green dot by John Timmons

Day 12 Even Numbers Are a Foreign Language

2010-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

You repeat a lot of things to me but one

of your favorites is "Every day I look around

and Thank God there is no Man in my life."

This is one of the only mantras you repeat

that I believe. Two by two remains an equation

you could never solve, a foreign language

you had no interest in learning. To you

such an existence is not something old or something new

it is all about giving up and resenting until

you are just stone cold blue.

No offense, I knew plenty of girls like you in college -

only wore their holey t-shirt true selves with their girlfriends, changed

into fancy lingerie for their dates and wondered why nobody understood

them. Hell, I was like that once - took pride in being a 4th generation

divorcee, called myself Samarai Sue cuz once you cut me I never looked back but

then it hit me: partnership is not a martial art, not a game you have to protect

your Queen. It sounds crazy, girl, but

you have to puke on the shoes of the man you love, have to see

him fall down the stairs and help him up because it is only when you do

that you can recognize nothing has changed at all you are both

still smiling from the solid frame you have placed around the middle of your love.

In response to 2 x 2 by John Timmons

Day 11 When We All Come Home

2010-06-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

City streets are so straight, my eldest

son could never accept there would be space

for our car to get through up ahead when

he came to visit in El Paso. He could see

where the lines met, you see, and my protestations

and illustrations of focal illusion did nothing

to sway what he knew to be true, even experience

didn't matter, after all, we passed through didn't we?

What a heavy burden it must be to see

where all things meet, whether they want to

or not, whether they are even going in that direction.

I myself cannot picture it. If I set off one way

and arrive and put my feet up just how

am I going to end up at the end of the rainbow

in San Diego or Saturn?

But some nights you might feel it, maybe

that is what keeps you up so late. Maybe you feel

all the lines and their hard edges letting go of their angles,

curving gently where they know they have to go.

Maybe you hear the apex of all creation whistling

around the woodshed like a handyman who always made you laugh.

Maybe you know that when we all come home

we won't just be passing through at all.

In response to perspective #2 by John Timmons

Day 10 Lingering Hopefully

2010-05-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

O Stevie Smith i would have saved you had I known

you were not waving but drowning, can you forgive me

for only waving, reaching to tickle what is just out of reach, what

fills the sky with appetite and longing and what may be...

I could be a remedy or

a ripe peach you will never know

unless you grasp what is before you.

You should be a comedy or

a blackberry renowned for its transcendental

revelations, I don't know I only wish

you were a potent I could swallow

stomach take advantage of for my own

pleasure or sustenance but

that was long ago disappeared

before my fingers could grasp.

In response to cloud by John Timmons

Day 9 Let's Get This Done

2010-05-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

I used to do this by telephone, gentle queries

always answered with affirmation, agreement but

no truth so now

I sit in the driveway and wonder what

flavor will you order today - a threat? a plea?

Tall? Short? Latte? Frappucino?

My fingers rifle through my purse

as if sifting for the right cosmetic:

will you forget we agreed to this

like last Sunday? Will I need to holster

my impatience as you smooth every wrinkle

from your pillows as if they are the faces of children

you loved and are sending off to war? Will I do

a good enough job lingering over the puzzle pieces

pretending I don't see how they fit, trying

to let you win without tipping my hand?

Or will you hear my fingers on the strings

muffling the music as I reach for this new chord?

As I approach the door I see you peering

out the sidelight wondering who it might be,

I would pay you anything

if you would remember who you were.

In response to outside of your place by John Timmons

Day 8 I never dreamed of you

2010-05-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

It can't be true that I have never dreamed of you.

I remember waking up crying when I was little cuz I had a dream

that Olive Oyl died, remember one where I was trying to hide a body

from Paul Newman, still another when I was at a party flirting

with Gregory Hines and I liked it so much I had to confess

to my husband when I woke up! Grandparents, wolfmen, children

have all appeared beneath the surface of my slumber. I have fallen and flown,

climbed and cried, disappeared into a wormhole that turned into an alley that

opened in Turkey with my little brother David in his diaper still carrying his sock monkey.

It can't be true that I have never dreamed of you.

Ptolemy said Earth, Copernicus said Sun, but I say you.

Every planet in my solar system has somehow revolved around you.

I remember hoping heaven would have doughnuts, but sure

I would refuse God if he didn't let you in.

It can't be true that I never dreamed of you,

but I only remember the one you weren't in -

all four of us kids are in the back seat and we are barreling

down the Clubhouse Road to the lake, God

how we loved Tunxis!, in one of our blue Buick station

wagons, how many did we have?, and I look up and no

one is driving. Why weren't you there?

I had that dream so many times, until,

of course, I jumped over the seat and slammed on the brakes.

So I guess you could say I have been

practicing for this moment my whole life right? But wait

how can it be me driving the car and also

banging furiously on the window in the way back to be let out?

Oh, that's right. It is only a dream.

In response to cloud by John Timmons

Day 7 Life Is Good

2010-05-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

I wonder why you do not talk

to more people in your mind, especially

the make believe ones. Surely fiction

is our friend and why I imagine

all my daughters friends who go

into medicine will write me random

opiate scrips which I will hoard

like a squirrel in an oak tree, dress up

like Aldous Huxley and go for a final walk.

Maybe my last words will be: It's ok, Walter -

sometimes death is high fructose and tastes

of strawberry! before I curl up to dream

the next chapter.

In response to life is good by John Timmons

Day 6 In Common

2010-05-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

An ant scurries across the porch, does a half

body climb on a chair leg, seems to think

the better of it and backs down. Maybe he saw

the cat peering behind him, certainly he echoed

that same cat's actions when he wants to see

what's up but knows he shouldn't jump there.

There are certain actions we all perform, a scorpion shakes

his fist to tell you to get off his sand just like a cranky neighbor.

A spider's uncontrollable appendages haunt the skin like

a secret molester. The only ark of the covenant I've found

are these types of arcs, motions we can all read.

Surely you have paced in front of your door peering

for what you are waiting for like a dog? Certainly

we have all been hauled up gasping like a fish

when something we wanted so badly caused us pain?

One day my brother started crying on the phone:

he had seen an old woman walking so slowly in the market

he took pains to try and explain what he meant, why

he couldn't bear to think of Mom moving that way. This was

a couple of years ago before her hobble was clear to me, but

I should have known what he meant. What is posted clearly

for all to see cannot always be read by everyone. I'd seen

the same with my father one day at the age of 10

when the man in front of me at the deli

didn't have enough money to pay for his orange juice and was loudly

castigated and run off by the proprietor. Oh my God that's Dad, I thought

as I sobbed all the way home. The A word had never been applied to him,

his well pressed suits bore no resemblance to the dirty crushed man

that made himself smaller and disappeared like a mouse.

As you huddle in your chair for most of the day by your grandfather's

pub table you sigh often, chew purposefully, restfully like a mare

in a solitary field. Tonight I have a date

with my husband. Perhaps we will be seen as happy as

In response to spirit shoppe by John Timmons

Day 5 Objects Are Louder Than They Appear

2010-05-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Your house is pristine. Objects sing

from their places, a choir of color. No thing

is out of place, they harmonize with your

needs as you pan across your day.

Even vacuum marks hold their notes

in the midst of the living room between

Melissa's visits every other Monday.

Without these touchstones I imagine

your days too quiet to bear.

The kids came to visit last weekend.

While we all played Uno they played tones

on their iphone that only the young can hear.

It was true! Fishy flinched in discomfort while Papa

& I looked at each other in bewilderment.

We didn't hear anything, but our ears hurt

after it stopped.

There are things we no longer have that still

remain. Your turning 40 Elizabeth Taylor earrings,

tiers of awful awful pink orange and red you wore

with matching orange lipstick. A knit navy poncho

I took without asking and left on the bus in 4th grade.

The slow arc of the vodka martini Dad threw

in your face in the upstairs hall of Patterson Avenue.

That ultra mod sectional couch we all watched

Charlie's Angels on after the divorce and that your grandson

later drew on in crayon when I passed out on a quaalude

I never told you about. Your list is longer, I bet.

Maybe sometime you will tell me.

In response to perspective #1 by John Timmons

Day 4 Habits

2010-05-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

You are as stubborn as old wives tales. Cutting

a babies hair does not make it grow, saying cricket

on the first of the year will not make someone lucky

but the practices go on and on.

You will not make a list. Oh sure, notes multiply

like fruit flies in the spot where you read the paper:

bagel, laundry soap says one; Patsy or Susan will come

to take you to Dr. P says another.

They say muscles have memory, but your muscles

recall things they should have done, not did.

I cannot get you to see that remembering you took your pills

no longer counts amidst the countless days that came before.

My brother chastises me for being too wed

to schedules. But I know change is a harsh draft

on your neck that could lead to a cold, simple

repetitions knit your day snug.

If you would just write a list every day and take

pleasure in picking up the pencil to check

each item off! My world would be so changed

knowing what you have done.

In response to Change by John Timmons

Day 3 What is Around the Bend

2010-05-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

This road seems familiar - no, archetypal!

Between the voids a path appears and our soles

answer their heavy duties with gentle callous.

There is no way to know what we will find

around the next morning's curve, only

the knowledge that many have been here before. O

for a Jungian perspective with which to apply

drops each noon into your clouded eyes...

Where is Joseph Campbell when I discreetly peek

into your trash to try and gauge what you had for dinner?

What myths do I tell myself

as I drive myself back home.

In response to sky|road|sky by John Timmons

Day 2 Reading Between the Lines

2010-05-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

In response to face by John Timmons