Oratory

Summer SolsticeSitka 1993

This day blooms
under wide meadows
of sky. We lay
our sun-stunned bodies
in constellations
of clover and buttercups. 

Salmonberry bubbles
of sweet red light
break on our tongues. 
Shooting stars
in the flowerbeds,
pollen in our sheets.

   
 

For an audio post of this poem, go here.

Sunday Morning

Azaleas and snails are mating in the garden.  Newsprint rubs its dark mark on the sheets. The remains of lobster and one pink shrimp curl together on a plate. I recently read that men and women are separate, symbiotic species, the males superfluous, parasitic.  I want to ease your predacious appetite, dampen your unnecessary shoulder, taste your briny needless tail.
   
   

Sunset on the Sangre de Cristo Mountainsfor Judd Polivka 1940-1992

In afternoon, sun
becomes more precious, spare
near evening, as it falls
toward that spot, there

on the mountain. That far
spot, where trees thin
and shale shows through. 

You can see the shape
of the world there
at the curving edge
of sky. 

In the last moment
sagebrush burns
red. Then

stars. Pale
and countless
as dust

       as ashes.

   
 

Swimming Sonnet/a nautical metrical exercise

The pool is long and blue and cool. I dive
into the soothing depth, the wet. I cut
the water, arms a knife, a curving slice,
a turn, another lap, a breath, a pull
and earth below is not allowed to hold
my body down and I am flying free
of ground, my cells expand, my spirit grows
and melts into the chlorine blue, I feel
the stretch of spine and soul, I reach to touch
some goal, it’s just beyond my fingertips
at last, another lap, if I could just
not need to breathe...
      now slow, I gasp and kick
           against the heavy claim of land-locked life,
           so hard, so harsh, so shallow, short, and dry.

   
 

Thaw

Birch trees downed
by beavers or storms
lay their heads in slow
water. Sparrows swarm 

into the tallest
locust; spill down
again, in a swell
of sound.

The rocky bank
is patched with snow.
An ice floe rolls
in the undertow.

My heart calls out
to something unknown,
an owl in its nest
of sticks and bones.

   

The Therapist

This piece deals graphically with the subject of sexual abuse/ assault. 
Be warned.

1

I was the woman they needed
I was the woman they hated
because I was the woman they needed
mother sister lover
the daughter
they held down in her bed

they said
women have all the power
only they said
cunt

they wanted me to love them
they wanted me to fear them

I watched my rear view mirror all the way home
I wanted them to be healed
I wanted them to die in prison
I wanted them to die

2

they were men who had done nothing wrong because they waited
until their daughters developed
and were women

they were men who had done nothing wrong because
they never touched her after she was five
and might remember

they were men who had done nothing wrong because they stopped
when their daughters were old enough
to get pregnant

they were men who had done nothing wrong because she was adopted
so it wasn’t really
incest

they were men who had done nothing wrong because
she was his own
blood

they were men who had done nothing wrong because having sex as children
with their own father/mother/uncle/coach/ had done them
no harm

they were men who raped their daughters and said
at least I never cheated
on my wife

they were men who raped women and said
at least I’m no
child molester

they were men who raped little girls and said
at least I’m no
queer

they were men who molested boys and said
at least I’m no
rapist

3

they were blaine, jim, bob, gary, phil, jonathan, paul, and paul, and paul
they were the boy left bleeding from his anus in a motel room when he was 10
they were the boy sold to his mother’s customers when he was 3
they were the boys loved by priests

they were the boy who smothered to death a 9 year old girl
after raping her with a tennis ball
when he was 13

they were the man who went to his childrens’ beds
as he went to the refrigerator for a snack

they were the boy beaten repeatedly by his father
who picked him up each time he fell
and beat him
again

they were the man
enraged at his wife
who raped and raped and raped his stepdaughter
on the concrete floor
in the basement

they were the man who hung himself in the bathroom
after being released from prison and finding
baby-raper
written on the door of his apartment

they were the man who loved only children
who asked me
how would you feel if they told you
you can never have sex
again?
If you knew that no one will ever touch you
there
again?

they were the man with 23 known victims
all boys 7-9 year old blondes with blue eyes
who told me
all the good things he did for those poor children
inadequate mothers and no fathers in the home
and how he had loved them all until they weren’t
7-9 years old
anymore

they were the man who shot himself in front of his wife and son
after calling a women’s shelter for help and being refused
because
he was a man

they were the man who woke from a week of drinking
covered with blood
beneath his wife’s
mutilated
body

they were the man who cried after four years in treatment
when he realized that the child he thought was asleep when he molested her
wasn’t

they were the man who raped all four of his daughters for sixteen years
and then assaulted another man in group
for taking the name of the lord in vain

they were the sweet slow boy who raped his teacher’s 10 year old daughter
after a failing grade when he was 12 and free
at 18 he attacked my friend with a knife
and when she told me a stranger had assaulted her

I knew who it was

4

I knew who he was

he was my father
he was my boyfriend
he was my grandfather
he was my uncle
he was my doctor
he was my brother’s best friend
he was my best friend’s brother
he was my cousin
he was my lover
he was my friend

5

I loved him

   

Thinking of You

The small black dog
is tied to the porch swing
to keep her from the river.

Crows, many, in the distance
complain in loud, quarrel-
some voices. Bird chatter

slurs together in an under-
tow of chittering. Nearby,
a red-headed, solitary finch

calling, sweetly calling
from the lilac tree. Light
slowly leaves the sky.

   

To a Worried Friend

You say I am no longer myself.
Who have I become?

I stumble on fallen leaves.

My soul follows yellow
into autumn.

Who is still here
watching this quiet river?

   

tripping

when you
embark
to that place
on the needle
or the glass
or the spoon, or the flame
are you trying to arrive at some particular destination?
is it the voyage itself that is so enticing?
impossible
to refuse?
or you only trying
to

travel
away
from here? when
you leave, why do
we, who stay
behind on this grassy
earth, so frantically, desperately want you to come back to us?
you who so eagerly leave, you who are so nearly
dead and dragging
us behind
you through your stony weed-choked
world