My dear ones all, we expect no hint
of any iceberg or other such calamity,
nor typhoons, floods, landslides,
nor any fractured bones. We expect
even our eggshell porcelain teacups
to remain, as ever, unharmed. These
are our expectations. Shall we be
surprised, insulted, injured when our
expectations are not met? To whom
shall we write our letter of complaint
as we break and burn?
For NaPoWriMo, Day 26.
I.
Once, I went to Walgreens
to replace my daughter’s Hot Huez hair chalk
because the blue chalk pan tumbled into the toilet
when my son was just looking at it.
II.
Once, I went to Walgreens
to pick up some photos of my kids so I could
put them in Christmas cards that needed to be sent
Priority if they had any hope of getting there in time.
Somehow, my online order had not gone through,
and I felt hot and desperate, like everything was
ruined. I huffed at the nice employee–whose
fault this was not at all–and now I see her
there often, can’t let her see me.
III.
Once, I went to Walgreens
and the panhandling lady
stationed outside told me
I looked great. I gave her
something for that. When
she said this on other days,
too, and I realized it was
only her patter, I tried
not to feel as if I’d just
been taken, had never
looked great at all.
IV.
Once, I went to Walgreens
and was told to Be well, but
somehow, it only made me
feel sicker and sadder
than I did before.
V.
Once, I went to Walgreens
and the art school-looking cashier
asked me what my cinnamon supplement
was for. I told her it helps lower blood sugar.
I didn’t tell her that mine has been a little high
in my past couple rounds of bloodwork, and that
I fear this is the beginning of an internal collapse
that I could have prevented but chose not to,
or even now could reverse but choose not to
because I’m afraid it’s now a done deal, that
I’m headed, at last, for the world of lancets and
Glucerna. So many failures. She told me how she
loves to chew cinnamon sticks. I wanted to stay
there for a while, in her zone of judgment-free
curiosity. Someday, she might learn that it’s
rude to ask about people’s purchases, that
even the most innocent-looking basket
can be freighted with secret grief. But
it didn’t have to be that day, and I
don’t ever have to be the one
who tells her.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 25.
I.
You know the lady with the beehive hairdo?
She also has a floating eyeball. If you can
grab it, look into it when you say hello,
she picks up a golden phone, whispers
that you’re all right. She knows your name
before you tell her, even if you never say it
except inside the walls of your mind.
II.
In high school, one of the popular but nice girls
was in something called Job’s Daughters. Did the
initiation rite involve witnessing a pantomime
of suffering? She wore a lot of long, denim skirts;
I don’t know if this was a condition of belonging
or just a style choice. It was the late ’80s, after all.
III.
Many important men
in American history
were Masons,
I’m sure.
IV.
My daughter was born
at Illinois Masonic. I hoped
for a tiny fez. They gave her
the standard knit hat–the kind
that seems impossibly small
years later, given that it once
enclosed your entire world.
V.
The daily machinery of the body
is made of bricks: cells respiring,
growing or dying. Always a few
laddering off toward some
malignancy or other. In time,
you have too many bricks
and your reflexes are too slow.
The music speeds up, and then
there’s nothing left to hear.
VI.
I guess I’m no better or worse
a wall-builder than you are.
I guess we all leave some spaces
for the sun to come through.
VII.
I have a mortar that’s
stronger than honey.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 24.
Some, I forbid. Oak, metal. Why stay like a gilt tiger hat?
What farthest deeds to the marina
negate mere language? Men like effective
fair trade in sighs and love.
And a water star for vanishing
over our sternest furlough,
an oak rocket in Heimlich benediction.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 23. I haven’t been explaining the prompts here lately, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t direct you to this poem.
McCormick refused to take his bath.
He ran out naked, to see the stars.
One thing led to another, and he
decided to lie down, just stay
outside for a while. His father
brought him sandwiches. His mother
brought him a pillow. His little brother
brought him his favorite rocket ship.
No one cared that McCormick was dirty.
No one cared that McCormick was stinky.
They knew he’d come back inside …
eventually.
And he did come back–several days later.
He thanked his father for the sandwiches,
his mother for the pillow (he forgot to
thank his brother for the rocket ship).
He told everyone what he saw–how the
moon licked his bedroom window at night,
how the possum ran along the back fence,
how the sun scrubbed the stars from the sky.
He showed them, too (and this was the
most surprising part) what had happened
as he lay there for all those days and nights.
Would you believe it? McCormick bloomed!
Felt like sketching him, for some reason. If I were to do it again, I’d have him holding something over his bits and pieces. As it is, I just drew extra dirt. Also, please tell me Shel Silverstein didn’t write a poem about a dirty kid who blooms, and I’ve subconsciously replicated it here. (This is for NaPoWriMo, Day 22, by the way.)
You, there, dreaming with your dick in your hand
here on April 21, 2014—all the trees just beginning
to bear down with their menace of bloom—
did you know that you look just like Marilyn Monroe,
or, if I squint, like Albert Einstein? But you’re no genius
of flesh. You live your life like a Hostess Sno-Ball,
soft and pink as a pair of testicles. Fuck being soft!
Let’s you and me just do some blow, watch the river
rise to kiss us like some simpering bitch. Clark Street
makes me sick with its tiki bars and celebrity chefs,
all that noise. Did you hear that Brad and Angelina
are going to have twins? I read it in Walgreens at
Clark and Lake, that taint of a corner. Imagine
his cock in her pussy again and again, just like
in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the movie that started
everything and nothing. Maybe some fucking
blue octopus from Australia will come over,
swim up all their assholes, kill the entire
grinning fam damily. But I love you! Do you
love me? I remember going to Disneyland
when I was five, the submarine ride with
that goddamn giant clam. And a mermaid—
maybe it was you. I don’t think we should
get high after all. I don’t think anything.
“Be well,” said the cashier at Walgreens.
“Be well,” said my hash pipe, settling itself
against my inner thigh, “if you can’t be good.”
For NaPoWriMo, Day 21. Questions? Complaints? Hey, read the prompt and click over to the list of requirements.
My lemon tree. The pool.
Avocado-colored everything.
Black wrought iron, bar stools
at my kitchen counter. This is
California, where I followed
my parents, had a husband
and three children, and now
a divorce. I wear my hair big.
I pretend to be younger than
I am. Leslie knows the truth,
but I don’t see him often, or
his wife and children. I can’t
help it that I was always
Mother’s favorite. She calls
me Phyll, comes over a few
times each week. She knows
my children well. Leslie could
have had all of this, too. He
chose to stay in Ohio when
our parents moved. That’s
right—he chose! And now
I see him bristle when
Mother brags about my
children, treats his like
the visitors they are. Well,
we all make our choices in
life. I chose a lemon tree, am
happy to have everything
that came along with it.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 20. Sorry it doesn’t look as Ryu-tastic as usual. One of Ryu’s quirks is that if you copy and paste, it doesn’t autocorrect the font for you. Sometimes I can manage to type directly in the WordPress window, and sometimes I can’t. WordPress users … Have you encountered this with your theme, too, and if so — any workarounds? Thanks!
Sparse dove! What is in your Lazarus jewel box?
Do you know what is under your Peruvian hat?
O, my false cup-and-saucer, why are you false?
I wear the heavy bonnet of your deceit; it is
a ghastly miter. Even now, I would be your
Strawberry Top; you could again be my
Woody Canoebubble. The old names, our
old love, under this incised moon–no longer
this shoulderblade sea cat, unequal bittersweet.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 19.
At home again, back on this couch.
My eyelids droop; I am a grouch.
When it comes to travel in a car,
I’m not so sure that I can vouch
for refreshing change in going far
and stopping in some hotel bar–
to piped-in music’s thumping beat,
crossing the lobby like a star.
Nor having different things to eat,
no vegetables but lots of meat.
Now I’m back to peace and health,
but, oh, that detour, short and sweet!
For NaPoWriMo, Day 18.
I don’t wish I were downstairs in the No-Name Bar
or still looking out at the greenish, clouded moon.
I’m perfectly fine sitting on the toilet to type this,
and I don’t feel like a jerk for the under-door sliver
of light while my family is sleeping. I never feel bad
about any of these small gaffes and blunders, the
many ways I am inconsiderate, oafish. Actually, I am
never oafish. I swan about and am pure delight to
everyone I meet. I skim over the surface of the earth
like a low-lying cloud–a kittenish cloud, all foggy
caress, never causing low-visibility accidents, my
wet fingers never ever wrapped around your eyes.
For NaPoWriMo, Day 16.
Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia 