What is your damage?, he said,
but the way he spat it out told me
that he didn’t really want to know —
not there in the Grand Rapids airport
(do I remember right that it was named
for Gerald Ford?) while we ate hot dogs
and waited for our flight home. Home.
Now, there’s a word for you. What a joke.
Maybe my damage was all the time spent
assuaging him, his ego, assuring him
that he was smarter than me, that I was
lucky to be with him, even when he was
surly as any god who is distant more so
than loving. But I didn’t answer that day.
I never did answer, really — I just left
when he told me to leave. I even left
our cats to fend for themselves with him.
But that day, like I said, I didn’t say
much of anything until we got on the
plane and we both made small talk
with the other person in our row. He
was good at that. You’d never know
we were fighting, every day a little
more damage, and that a moment before
we got on the plane, I’d flicked
a piece of onion off the table,
wadded up my napkin, and cried.
Monthly Archives: April 2015
Dining Room: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 12
Room where we sit to eat meals,
where I do a lot of writing.
Tablecloth is vinyl, has
large floral print,
blue background. Walls are
covered with children’s art.
Plants on windowsill and
on one end of table.
Two wingback chairs —
both need to be reupholstered.
Ceiling is high.
Windsock made from
toilet paper tube, streamers
hangs from light fixture.
Dark red curtains tied in knots —
better view of neighbors’ yards,
small tree, squirrels that run
on power lines. Heat comes from
noisy steam radiator that clangs.
You Look In My Heart: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 10
Awful is as awful does,
but I
can only aspire to
do fewer awful things
every day
for at least a month.
Goodness is tiring,
how it sets expectations
I can’t meet,
just like a report card.
Kings abdicate for
less than this, and
magistrates rule
neither for them nor
obdurately against.
Perhaps I can be
quite good,
really kind
someday, develop
that inner resolve,
utter discipline,
valor, and
will. You
X-ray my chest,
you look in my heart,
zip it closed again.
How Shortsighted of Us, to Subsume Our Tails: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 10
We were so sure
we’d never need them again.
We had this walking upright thing
down pat, no need for balance or
to swing from the trees, no matter
how sweetly they called us.
We’d chop them all down instead, or
admire them from the ground, or
climb them for childish sport
and then come back down, walk
on our feet, our ridiculous hands
dangling at our sides.
Reach down — do you feel
that little cob of bone?
We could still turn this thing
around, regain our proper
branches, a new leaf nest
every night and a tail
to call our own.
I Must Tend to My Bread: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 11
We never saw the ships at night when we stood
on the shore awaiting them, the return of
all the men we loved, all the men we didn’t
love anymore, but
felt we owed something, a feigned concern at least,
in exchange for promises made before the
voyage that was more important than what we
felt or hoped or dreamed.
The sun came up, and we went back to our homes,
the sailors still unaccounted for, the ships
quite probably lost with all aboard. We have
learned, in these eight months,
other occupations than entertaining
gentlemen who then must go, heeding some call
greater than our own, with barely a goodbye.
I am a baker
now; I must tend to my bread, the dough that yields
under my hands, is transformed by my caress.
Bread becomes me as I eat, it never leaves
by death or by sea.
My Daughter Picks Wild Onions Outside Abraham Lincoln’s House: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 11
Is it fun,
watching death come in
week by week,
ice crystals melting
by afternoon,
turning the last zinnias
to mush?
Who imagines this as
caramel apple time,
wool stadium blankets
and bonfires?
Well, I think they have
a screw loose.
I think they’re stuck
in another time, or
an advertising world
that never really existed.
Now, spring, that’s another
story — there’s a real season
for you. My daughter
picks wild onions outside
Abraham Lincoln’s house,
eats them in the car
on the drive back to Chicago,
where my son sees the first
painted lady of the year.
Excited to Be Today’s Featured NaPoWriMo Participant!
Was so thrilled today when I checked out napowrimo.net and found that my money poem from yesterday is in the spotlight!
This site has particularly great daily prompts each April — a nice mix of tricky form challenges and more open-ended ideas. I think I’ve been doing this one for the past three years, and I know I’ve learned a lot from it and grown a lot as a poet. Some of my favorite poems that I’ve written have come from NaPoWriMo prompts, and I can think of at least a couple that have gotten published.
If you’re inclined to take up a poetry challenge this month, I strongly encourage you to do this one. There’s no harm, no foul for the days you’ve missed — just jump in now and enjoy.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going on a little trip to the capital of my state for some Lincoln/Route 66/restored’60s mod hotel fun. (That would be Springfield, Illinois.) While past experience shows that I am capable of writing on the toilet while my family is asleep, results have been mixed. So … If you come by and don’t see any new poems for the next couple of days, don’t panic. I plan to catch up this weekend, once we get home.
You and I Will Know: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day Seven, and a Program Note
Hold me closer, Tony Danza, tell me
what’s on every last bit of your mind.
Call me a taxi if I’ve said too much
on the talk show you still host, even now,
in the darkened conversation pit here
in your apartment, under all the
framed photos of you and Judith Light.
People say I look something like her,
Tony, and the other good thing is
I’ll never make you ask it, the question
that defines and haunts you, years later.
You and I, dear, you and I will know.
Also, I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss the next three days of the two challenges I’m doing, and will catch up later. I have some travel coming up, and while I can write under those circumstances, it’s often not the best.
Dime Room: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day Seven
If I had a dime for every nickel I’ve spent—
forget it. I never was any good at math.
Each dime is a drop of water, and I dream
of it sliding cool and thin down my throat.
But then I’d be weighted down, even more
than I am now, even less able to achieve
lift-off of any kind, even more earthbound.
If I had enough dimes, though, I could buy
a space station and a launcher to get there.
Or I could pour them all into a dime room,
swim and dive in them like Scrooge McDuck.
I bet that’s sublime, too. And changing.
Reality Show: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day Six
And Greg in his Johnny Bravo suit
tells you how he’s really not all that
fabulous
without his five siblings,
three of whom are really
stepsisters
(but no one seems to talk about that
beyond the first episode or two)
and really, if you want to get
right down to it, all of them
are actors, and at least
one of them will hate another one
someday, and several will write
insiderish books that contradict
each other on a few key points.
But now, all of them
gather on the Astroturf lawn,
assembled in pixels on your screen
as if waiting for you to acknowledge
just how real they are—sometimes,
more than people you know.
Sometimes, more than you.
Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia 