Inside Poems
I.
I was wearing linen pants
which bag terribly in the ass,
as linen does
especially if you have driven,
which I had, a few miles to get coffee.
And a sweater I love,
it is the light turquoise-y color of summer things,
often paired with yellow on beach towels
and plastic serving ware intended
for picnics of sandwiches and watermelon.
The top is wool and shrunk in the wash.
I like the small/tightness as it shows off my breasts,
reminiscent of a young girl who developed quickly.
My hair was clean but disheveled
from an epsom salt bath taken the night prior,
no make-up, well, lip gloss, a color called
red dahlia, I wear it for lubrication
and to make my lips blossom.
Two women were in line before me,
waxed and blonde, manicured and styled,
high heeled and big booby-ed,
one might have been a porn star,
wearing what you’d call a romper
little black shorts and sleeveless, deep V neckline,
dark roots in need of a touch up.
The other could run a cosmetic company,
crisp white blouse, pencil skirt,
her highlights perfectly woven and blended.
There were several men in the joint,
I joined them in sly looks at
backsides, silhouettes, faces
(we couldn’t not
and didn’t the women want us to,
such great genes displayed so artfully)
Were the ladies as perfect from all angles?
Yes, the ladies were.
I felt invisible, relieved,
invisible, released,
Invisible, I felt my feet on the floor.
My metatarsals couldn’t hate them for
their perfection,
not the men or the women,
not me, not for a moment.
II.
Attempting to live from
the inside of my body,
I reference
G-spot instead of clitoris,
third eye rather than retina
I am trading my frontal lobe,
for amygdala.
Forget face and hips and swagger
the brain stem is skunk cabbage,
whose flower is large and muscular as a fist,
canary, like sunshine cooled and sculpted.
The pelvic floor is a nest formed by
a dog or deer or god, circling thrice.
The backbone, that one is easiest,
a tree’s rope swing, supple with use.
The words fat or old
or ugly, dumb and lame
are poisoned arrows. I prefer plucking tendons.
There are roughly 4,000 in the human body.
I once saw a woman
make a guitar from an empty tissue box
and rubber bands, it sounded surprisingly good.
A mudra is a hand frozen in a certain position,
a prayer is wanting things to be different,
I am so over feelings.
Rather I am so over thinking about feelings.
Anger is exploding manzanita on hillsides
of red rocky soil.
Sorrow is certain birdsong at twilight
outside my bathroom window
when I run upstairs to pee before dinner.
I wonder if I would love the bird more,
the longing more, the sorrow more
if I took up birding and learned family, genus, species.
What now? is a better question than
why me?
My hands open,
can lay palm fronds. There are funerals
and births that need attending.
They can hold paint brushes that will forever be inviting,
now?
When I released life could be better
my left eye remembered a car accident,
sixteen years old, I had been drinking.
I am sorry fellow passengers and other car members
who weren’t injured but could have been,
until now I hadn't thought of you.
I was an idiot, I was a hurt child.
I want to write poems that make sense
but am being asked to put down the oars.
I do so but tell the River Captain,
I have always loved the smell of water
near the shore, especially the shore.
He nods impersonally and opens the dam.
My body is a rowboat, stolen from a bunkhouse,
what freedom now, when there is nothing any longer at stake.
