Fall comes in like a shadow
that is only joking
about death

Fall expects you to believe this
one more time, just like
last year

Fall says that everything
can still be mellow
and it can

for a while

In night terrors, there are monarchs I could still save
(if only I get up out of bed) from my own forgetting.
A butterfly being eaten by a praying mantis on my nightstand,
the other night, or fat caterpillars drowning in a jar of water.
Last night, it was my own hands, falling off at last because of
milkweed poisoning, not just asleep because I sleep on them.
My mother used to have, many times, dreams about
an impossibly tiny baby, palm-sized, say — the baby belonged to her,
but she had forgotten, hadn’t fed it or bathed it in weeks.
My mother’s mother probably didn’t have night terrors or
repeating nightmares of caretaking; she was stoic and only wanted
that the world not destroy itself in war. Toward herself, she was
calm. A generation back was more fretful; my mother’s mother’s mother
taking to her couch with mysterious ailments. Fears. Later, in Florida,
she made people out of seashells, little ones, or seashell flowers and shoes.
I don’t know where they are now, and it bothers me. Did she dream about
her shell people, her shell jewels, lost and turning into sand?
These tiny things we invite in, we invite all the way in, some of us.

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Formatting note: WordPress is not kind to long-line poets. Where you see weird breaks at the end, it’s because I’m over the maximum width.

Ha ha no
I’m living in a changed body
having marshmallowed out
two marshmallows
I’m tired
haven’t I done enough,
putting new leaves into the world?
Isn’t that enough for a life,
having one child
two children
let’s take this all the way up to seven
and then also to zero
Some people never do have
kittens

I once kicked a man in the
arugula
for less than what you’re doing now.
I wouldn’t mess with me, if I were you,
after a long summer of wounding
and being wounded.
The moon unwinds sometimes
and reveals the sun,
which it has hidden in its
least pocket.
I have a least moon pocket
designated for you.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello, again … I raised and released 380 monarch butterflies (so far) this summer and did all this other stuff, while trying to work with two kids at home. I hope to get back to writing, even though no one cares if I do or I don’t, I’m totally stalled out while *everyone else* is getting their first or second book published, blah blah blah … (I’m joking, but seriously, I don’t know anymore what to do.)

It’s OK. Life gets complicated. I’m tired, too,
I beamed, mentally, at the ladies in line ahead of me
at our golden bank. But we never did make a connection
as they argued about finances and health, both poor.
Life collapses sometimes, and all of us can break —
last night, I watched (over and over) a YouTube video
in which a ride at the Ohio State Fair comes apart.
What message in the arms and legs flailing against sky?
Replay, replay, replay the moment before a human
realizes — just before he hits the ground.

At first it looked like a grave
a patch of dirt
with a single red flower
in the middle of your lawn
but lately it has become
a rectangular meadow,
and I see cosmos
(Sensation and Bright Lights)
poppies (the little kind,
not the ones that are like
small dogs)
larkspur or bachelor’s button
something blue
and a drift of white
which I would say is
Queen Anne’s lace, but
no one plants that on purpose.

Did you send off for
the packet of wildflower seeds
from Cheerios?
Some people said that was
ill-advised, greenwashing,
and that a California poppy
growing in Illinois
is not really a wildflower.

But then, I’m an interloper, too;
your meadow cheers me
from the middle of your lawn,
and I think of you
uprooting a patch of grass,
wondering what would happen,

I know this:
It’s an act of courage
every time you plant seeds
to attract bees.

Your misery is not
exquisite,
but we think it’ll do.
We bet you’re an ugly crier,
but splotchy tears are better than none.
Sit right down, and we’ll show you
the paper bag people we made
when we had no actual people,
before you walked in.
It’s fortuitous that you’re here.
We’re out of paper bags.

But what would I say in my 911 call?
That six or seven young black men
were standing on the corner with a phone,
saying, How much do you need?
How much what, and what did I really see?
Meanwhile, the police would come
and possibly ruin a night that didn’t need
to be ruined that way, and there I would be,
the white lady whose biases are allowed
to dictate how other people’s lives will go.
But still. Still, there’s menace in the air tonight,
and the smell of weed, and I’m spooked by
leftover firecrackers from 4th of July.
Every time we take the last walk of the night,
I imagine it — what I would do, what it would
look like and sound like, how I would be
forever changed. Would I scream? Run?
Hit the ground? You’re allowed to think
I’m self-centered in this scenario,
because I am. But what would I say?
That something has finally won, or
something in me has broken?
That after 20 years in Chicago,
19 on the South Side, I’m now afraid
of young black men, afraid of them
when all this time, I only meant
to be afraid for them?

There’s a reason Out of Meat is in every mother’s treasure chest of best-loved recipes. Serve Out of Meat when the children are being surly or when clouds invade your head. Quick! Run to the front door and see if anyone is there! You cannot be alone when Out of Meat is on your table. Enjoy!

Out of
completely out of
meat

You are made
out of
meat

tell me

how you were made
and what you like
to eat

Inspired by Janelle Shane’s blog about her neural network.

Longingly look out the window as breezes blow lace curtains in, against your tear-stained cheek, my maiden. These are dead sailor times. Enjoy!

And someone’s joined the navy
lace his name in chocolate
fill a plate with chocolate
load him up with chocolate
before he goes away

Another neural network recipe idea courtesy of Janelle Shane.