The Scene: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 24

Let’s spend a moment debating
how the apple fell into the sink
(far from the tree). Did it jump,
or was it pushed? Someone
knows something, and the apple
tells us nothing, just sits there,
all silent and apple-like as
another drip hits it, and another,
from the leaky faucet that
surely saw the whole thing but
chooses to remain stainless.

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The Mummified Head of France’s King Henri IV: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 23

The mummified head of France’s King Henri IV was lost after the French Revolution until a few years ago, when it showed up in a tax collector’s attic.

— Mental Floss, “10 Facial Reconstructions of Famous Historical Figures”

Why was your head in the attic,
and why did you smell like
“garlic, feet and armpits” —
enough that this fact would
go down in history? Maybe
you had bigger fish to fry
than a modicum of bathing.
Maybe you were busy being
a good king, dancing at
the peasants’ garlic feast,
waving your arms and making
various proclamations as
your feet strained against
your stockings. I confess
I don’t know much about you
other than your stink
and your mummified head.
I guess that’s what
a life comes down to:
Some idiot like me
writes a poem like this,
ignores the fact of
your murder by zealots,
whatever it is you tried
to do with your time, and
whatever put the twinkle
in your reconstructed eye.

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White 10 in a Red Swimsuit, White Swimsuit Perfect 10: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 23

White 10 in a red swimsuit, lines everywhere of coke
you look like a Coke can sun rays bouncing off your
curves all around if I hated you then, I hate you more
now in your white swimsuit perfect 10, Bo Derek, the sun
rises and sets on you these are not elephant days
these are not days to write home about
these are not days when I feel flesh-colored
and fabulous and sit by a pool eating Twizzlers
and drinking Tab and not caring about cancer
or anything else that I can’t see and don’t have
to care about yet, not while we all still live in this
apartment complex Shady Arms, where you are
the godforsaken queen someday you’ll get wrinkles,
someday you’ll get moles, someday I’ll look down
at you in your box and still be jealous of you
because just like any other day you will
still be the finest one of all.

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Paloma in the City: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 22

She pieces the morning together,
this pigeon; I hear her beak
clack against the sidewalk
outside the city college
each time she tries to burst
a brittle plastic wrapper that holds
a few small crumbs of something.
I double back and offer her
a bit of crust from the leftover pizza
that I’ve brought for lunch.
And I wonder a few things:
If anyone saw, if I’m now part of
the Urban Pigeon Feeding Problem,
if I’m bound to get a ticket,
and also if it was best
to fill her stomach with dough.
But I gave her something—
what I had—and she seems
glad to take it, shaking free
one bite at a time as people
weave around her work.
The next day, I’ll recall
a drink I once had in Mexico:
tequila and grapefruit soda.
Paloma.

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He Pierces the Morning with Fresh Urgency: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge

In our courtyard,
in the tortured and trimmed
hawthorn tree, whose blossoms
send their stink into our front window
every early June,
a male cardinal puffs himself up
in a topmost branch
and sings so loudly,
so persistently,
that I worry that he’s calling
for his lost mate.
So often, you see them
first one and then the other;
when you spot the flash of red,
you know to look also for rosy brown,
winter, spring, summer, or fall.
And now there is only red,
and he pierces the morning with
fresh urgency.
Maybe it’s only an announcement:
This is my tree.
But then, where is she?
Maybe in the bushes below.
Maybe waiting until I go away,
until I stop watching and listening
for the answer to his call.

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My Mother the Car: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day 20

That’s one clunker show
that I have never seen.
Can you imagine?
(Maybe you were a fan.)
Did the dead mother/
decrepit car talk to the guy,
or just honk? Was it all
a series of terrible car puns?
Did she ever just floor herself,
drive her son right off a cliff?
Did he ever push her into a
murky brown lake, watch
the fish invade her leatherette
interior? Was there ever
a time when kittens nested
in her carburetor and
the studio audience said,
“Awwwww”? Is there
My Mother the Car
merchandise? Is there
fan fiction? And if so,
is it dirty? Do I even
have to ask?

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Things I Know: NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 20

The horse who played Mr. Ed was named
Bamboo Dancer.
The preferred spelling for maple syrup used to be
sirup.
The only think a monarch caterpillar eats is milkweed,
except in a pinch, they’ll eat cucumbers, too.
If you see a drowsy bee, you can feed it a little sugar water
to help it get back home.
We all have tiny mites who live on our face.
Many people rode that night, yelling things. Paul Revere
is remembered because he was in a poem.

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