::
and live in this spot
with this view
with the man that drives me here
and stops for ten million photos
and thinks i’m a little bit crazy
but never says so out loud
::
instead,
he buys me dip-tops
::
.
.
it’s june and i sit before this fire
wearing socks and a big fleece blanket
wondering how it is that just last week
i sat outside in the breeze dripping
sweat with my feet in a bucket of water
and i was sad then and i am sad now
and it was may then and it is june now
and life skitters away before me on
slippered feet that make no sound
and i think about change and
the way it no longer
interests me
and can’t decide if that’s right
or wrong or somewhere in between but
mostly i think about silence and
flowers and reading books that take me
to places i’ve never seen, no, not places,
i don’t care about places, i’ve never
cared about places, it’s lives i visit
in the pages of books, hearts i hear
beating at midnight and dawn
and sometimes, in summer, i stay up
reading all night just to listen and
wonder and watch the sun rise
on someone else’s
horizon
she cooked for an army because she had one
yours, mine, ours and this bunch had nothing
in common with the bradys
mostly i remember white uniforms,
being paid a quarter to rub wintergreen
on the hot, swollen feet of a nurse
and i could never imagine her dancing
past the faux-wood metal shelf
filled with knick knacks i was forever
in danger of breaking all mingled with
the smell of starch and the best
molasses cookies ever made
i rubbed pink lotion and collected
my coin but back then
i didn’t know all the stories
didn’t know there was more to be told
in the world my mother grew up in
fairy tales lived in a bottle and evil
slept in the corner one eye open
shhhhh, be careful not to wake him be good be good
except good was never good enough
and in the end the deepest scars
smelled like wintergreen and antiseptic
fingers worked to the bone never quite
disguise enough for a flawed heart
not made of gold not made of love
not made of anything but broken
and broken begets broken
fosters heartbreak and failure
and i like to think intentions were good
i like to think survival shouldn’t mean
damaged children but all i know are stories
and all i have are a teapot and a photo
of a hard-working woman who cooked for
an army because that’s what she had
but the soldiers she raised needed so much more
than the purple hearts they received
