Wikipedia prompt from club :) How fun Two days before I turned 17, May 23, 2016 Steve Johnson Jr ranked 39th in the world, for tennis While I was having a nice dinner with my parents, maybe after school Steve Johnson Jr was probably popping a bottle of champagne or getting a necessary massage of high monetary value or just having a nice dinner with his parents math teacher Michelle and tennis coach Steve Johnson Sr who would die not even a year later on May 11th (as it happens, my ex’s birthday) Steve Johnson retired two years ago and is only 3 years and 19 days older than my current boyfriend and two days off from also being a Sagittarius What I mean to say if anything at all is that life is happening literally all the time and in every way to everyone all at once and I’d never know about Steve Johnson if it weren’t for this prompt and now I’m thinking of him kneeling down, sweat behind his knees, tying up his sneakers and winning big, and wiping his brow, and missing his dad the ball soars back over the net and bounces off the taut clear strings of the racket which I’ve seen must sometimes be cut and I believe, if cut recklessly will be ruined, or even burst Silly silly silly #Suddenly by a creek in Virginia I feel like a silly girl writing a poem but the air was so sweet four states down and the leaves were shaking high and silver green dropping spots of white on the wet dark stones scooping grit from the cool shallow water we watched the bugs drift like pollen or snap their metallic wings sometimes there was something that had gone unnoticed before scaly tudor bark of the tree arching its back the limp bodies of tulip poplars washed up like birds on the rocks painted orange cream in every shape and sensation suddenly far from where I expected to be there was the suggestion of something more we tried to glimpse what the other had seen skimming fingertips on the liquid surface I searched the skin of the creek dimpled with blue pockets of light to where you pointed there, little brown fish! dancing in this one clear cove of water cast floating shadows on the algae I don’t think it mattered, to any of us there the minnows, your gray dog, the rocks, the trees what that creek was called or where it leads #Bobby, Hachiko I love you, dog sitting on the grave I love you, dog waiting by the train he will not come back the one you wait for he will not touch your head or feed you from his palm or walk with you or call you good but he did once he did many times and what was given formed a tether his smell, his hand, the sound of his walk not gone but delayed and impossible to find beneath the loose and fragrant dirt across the metal tracks he will not come back but others will and time will pass it is easy to call this love or grief though you would not call it anything your wet nose shines in the moving air and the sun moves across the ground, your paws your lightened fur You come, when at last he calls and the tether is so strong, the smell of him so near that you never lose your way, and never once fear #Big Blue Band-Aid Another band-aid poem it seems- first attempt at water poem bent double and wretched drunk in Liz’s shower water from the fridge cold britta my pale feet swish in the chilly green creek where serious men catch trembling fish and trod in their big galoshes I trip and fall on my way to the river catch myself with my hands deny the help of passerby and hobble to the rail for a glimpse of the Schuylkill how it wobbles mauve and honey- blue, big wet eyes blinking slow my palm bleeds I cry on the street I piss in the ocean and bob on my back pour crisp pacifico on my fresh skinned knee #Sea Bird Limerence Sometimes the thing with feathers lands too heavy on your naked arm and then it takes off and your arm is bleeding bite down, like a talon in the mud on your fat fleshy lip sentiments stick wet dough between your fingers keep working it, sharpen your intention just rend into the stomach and get it over with dig sustenance out of your own breast if you have to the stranger's black and mild smoke sneaks into your chest and steals home in your brush torn hair if only you had been a fucking eagle bullet tight body freewheeling over the canyon if only you had been the wheat under the crushing wheel then maybe something would come of this watching fingertips twitch pale again catching eyes like far off minnow flash under the brackish mirror there might have been a hundred- but you'd still go hungry you stupid blushing bird looking away right when the silver hits the sun from 3/3 writing club prompt #1 bless, passive, patient the flame is still and then it sputters it is sometimes still and sometimes growing large and wild with dark smoke it eats the air and the wax and I do not notice the consumption of air but I do watch the wax as it changes is eaten is passively made molten melts and drips and then, again hardens it is hard for me to decide if the flame facilitated by the candle is a part of the candle, a victory of the candle or a force against it's a blessing though isn't it? wax collected and shaped to house a flame changed as intended through heat and air to a thing that lives, if only once sputtering, growing wild eating itself or its source the same scaled back and stomach the scorpion riding the strong wet back "it's in my nature" Isn't it? For everyone? drink wine, stay out late, eat voracious try hard, get better burn, melt, change shape, light up ............................................................... Prompt #2 Love/Place Mark rings the bell and it lopes down the grassy hill past the swinging wooden bench over the pale mist of the pond a boat sends whisper ripples early riser with the fishes I wake up groggy in the attic room big leggy bug batting at the window pine standing still and patient oozing amber sap It always looks the same to me the sensations come back after a year my pale shoe-soft feet remember the rocky drive even before I perform the wincing walk past the cars to the concrete carpeted screened-in porch Mark's shirt is faded "Life is Good" cotton his bald head shines and he smiles at me through his scruff as I shuffle past into the warm coffee dining room always, for everyone, like there was a joke on the line the big brass bell sits quiet on the step as breakfast begins Mark made special separate pancakes just for me and I'm sorry I couldn't finish them all Mark died this year but I only knew him one week each summer when he rang the bell to wake us and hugged us and made extra soup and special pancakes for me so I can't help but feel he's still there some week in early July waiting on the sun warm concrete steps by the picnic table with a striped apron on or at the bottom of that dark hill unseeable in the bowl of stars sitting on a wobbly wooden bench by the fire one big fish jumping in the quiet black water ........................................................ love poem warning not sure about reading this one out loud lol, I'm not sure if it's working that well as a poem, more like a record for me #444 You told me you’d forgotten and I reminded you You told me you never knew and I taught you We walked your delicate old chihuahua down the carpeted stairs and she shook in the cold, rattling against a dry leaf You could hold her with one hand I hadn’t known I could love like that We made pasta at my parents house and you reached past my chest to swirl water around the empty tomato can We didn’t kiss until I asked you if we could– standing up on the stone patio in the dark Reeling and heady, I held your suede jacket to my face when you left I almost cried when I saw you in the shower the first time your long wet hair and eyelashes your knees on the yellow tile We walked down to the creek with our arms around each others waists and when I had a cold you kissed me and told me you wouldn’t get sick and it worked You told me you wanted to give me everything I didn’t know people talked like that but I believed you You made me coffee and rye toast with butter and helped me move my mattress up two flights of stairs Sometimes it hurt, and sometimes it was wrong Even so I’m sure I could see your soul Even now I feel it Every once in a while I think about your dogs or what new movies you’d like I’m so glad that instead of becoming a landlord or a cop you decided to comfort the wounded and restart hearts, it suits you You tracked Eugene down to give him weed and a pizza when you didn’t have cash on hand You treated me like an important person Maybe there is a world where I was ready and you were less afraid of what I thought I never met your parents or your siblings We never went to the shore I don’t even know how you dance But I think you’d be proud of what I’m doing now and that still makes me feel good Sometimes I look you up on facebook or try to map out your tattoos I look for you in every ambulance Maybe there is a world where we learned the things we needed to and made it work Where we got a house and took in strays and made big pots of food for the whole neighborhood #February Hunting Party I practice figuring out What it is I want I sit at the dining table In the only seat touched by a tender slant of winter light I have to sit very still For my wants to emerge Like white hares out of Their burrows Trace the pale blue shadows Discern prints left by other animal bodies Eventually I brew some coffee Outside the window the top layer of snow is scattered by wind Off the top of the brick wall it Showers down gossamer beading Each feather point somehow catches Its own blinding light the coffee is hot and earthy rich on my tongue #Divine Assistance or Circumstance I watch a video of a frog trying to eat a worm round lunge forward misses the plump pink worm everytime Sometimes even when you do what you're meant to do, the perfect thing it isn't easy I laugh at the frog slapping back on its haunches wormless, blank-eyed, blinking Sometimes you are wet and hunting in the jungle hidden so good by the fat green leaves quick-tongued, deadly only to be gobbled up by some great orange beak Sometimes you are insouciant in a tupperware container A giant hand reaches down puts the food in front of you and waits for you to eat #Princess Band-Aid Humble yourself you are no winter martyr you are a lucky daughter treat your mind the way a parent treats a wound the child cannot see it will hurt more if they look at the blood, if they think it should the wound will be cleaned and cared for, anyway make it silly choose a princess band-aid change the subject do not tell yourself where there should be pain get dressed make soup go out get the work done do not mistake pain for virtue there is healing that happens naturally after a body's been looked after Here's what I read at Abyssinia: From the Zine... Perennial Bulbs the wet leaf shines blood red limp and stuck to the side of my shoe like an appliqué of a wound I think how every finger prick conjures the round vital mystery of my body how I’ll carry this bite tucked in the tissue of my finger though the cat who drew blood is gone tree rings have these same aberrations, like the dense little knots in felted wool overgrown pocket knife declarations or the sooty sear of lightning strikes even now there’s a mark for the hole I dig out of my cheek every time I feel nineteen injury becomes a method for memory or wanting something the way I used to every scraped knee stings like it did on the blue couch in the old office in the long driveway of the big white house where the spring crocuses came up and were mowed down the gooey sap of healing is recognizable I try, now, not to scrape it off the gales of old that howl in stone walls are proof of strength and care of craftsmanship I bleed from the reopened hole in my cheek and hold the familiar ache like a precious heirloom a fallen leaf a trowel of mortar ...................................................... About the ridiculousness of a crush... If only it broke the skin it would make more sense but there is only the blood in my face hot in my cheeks and forehead my lips chapped and glossed sweat wetting the hard crease of denim behind my knees If only you’d summon me with your ancient vampire powers I’d be helpless for only that reason I’d tip my head back and wait for your breath sharp whisper on the tight skin of my straining neck You’d be happy with me and satisfied I’d fall to the floor no longer blushing if only it drained me bodily if only you needed it if only it killed me ................................................. Going to Blair Mill in the Snow with my Mom.... A flock of geese honks in the snow on the other side of the icy bridge near the base of the sledding hill where kids padded with downy snowsuits nearly slip into the frosted creek catching themselves on each other or in a thicket of bending branches on the bank the geese surround a small house next to an invisible baseball field dark as velvet, they bob their necks, shift their plump bodies settle and slide on the tilted lawn I wonder if they’re cold black webbed feet press to the crust of snow half a second before sinking in they probably are, my mom says, but maybe they don’t judge it I imagine not judging it, which I guess is the same as not wanting it to be different not imagining how it could be different the woman who lives in the house takes plastic bags of groceries from the car she pushes past the familiar geese and throws them apples that land solid and red in the snow the geese honk and bicker over the apples but have about as much luck eating them as you’d expect what’s the use of fighting for something too hard to eat? instinct or experience tells the geese that what the woman throws what is given to them is beneficial, worth fighting for my mom and I pick our way through twigs and clinging dead vines down to the creek for ice breaking big rocks to throw from the bridge when we clamber out, my mittens are wet the rocks press muddy to my blood red scarf and my mom notices that the geese have gone still through the clear cold air, we hear the kids yelp as they fly down hill, past the jump into the protective shins of their parents the geese are sitting in the light, watching the sun that is moving now like a yolk through frosted tree limbs the geese face the warmth which arrives like a woman with full arms they move towards comfort which is maybe not the same as wanting it and do not bicker because there is enough light to touch them all the geese relax their long dark necks and quiet, in the current of cream yellow warmth like pebbles in a stream without having wanted, without imagining how it could be different is this I wonder the same thing as loving it my mom and I walk the short way back past the tipped over snowmen to our house on the hill for me, of course, it is