love is a doing word

Down to the wire, I’m sore and exhausted, overwhelmed with the giving, selling, gifting, donating, and trashing, the parting with things I sometimes struggled to purchase in the first place, financially or emotionally. I am not in my bed familiar where the time between lovers grew until they were recollections. I am not in my house haunted with wonderings of the years and hours of those who lingered, meandered day and night before me. I feel I am…”not” for I am in a place void of history and seeped in transient comings and goings, one foot in, one foot out. Mostly, I no longer hear the pattering of feet, the scratching of nails on wood and tile. That was the thing that meant life was good. That is the thing I need to get back to. 

Massive Attack ~ “Teardrop”

there she goes, there she goes again

pulling pictures 

out of frames I struggle 

to recall the names of

faces from past lives; I question,

is it the third? the fourth?

the fifth life? I approach, surely, 

but who were theses people?

who was I? as I pack the frames 

for gifting, donation, disposal,

I pack the photos for archival, 

much like I pack the girl, ever-tinged

in a sorrow of worth on the horizon 

pulling pictures 

out of frames, I choose 

to love the broken thing I am

from my window

in my hood I seen

coyotes in the street 

a strolling, the smaller 

one a limping.chatting 

close, speaking soft:

a man, proper in boots, jeans, 

white shirt, hat  

on a horse at a light:

ducks in the rain

that left the yard a pond :

an old horse clomping 

leading a boy on a longboard:

eagles, hawks, owls

parakeets wild; jays 

harassing cardinals timid 

and squirrels brazen: 

neighbors driving lawnmowers 

In the street 

seishi

what will the day be,

bring; there’s a plan,

a to-do list unwritten, 

spatially conceived, 

sketched and plotted

echoes the stillness 

calling…later.

leaving on a jet plane…

sitting in chaos amidst

     the Things I thought I 

needed, loved, cared

for with attention and

upkeep: time and money 

     spent to exhaustion 

body spent to ruin, mind

butterflied and pinned 

     behind glass on the wall

There are little red pin-dots circling my ankles

when did they arrive and why?

Laura

She was barely 50 when she passed to ether, my older sister who is younger than I. She was the pretty one, the troubled one, too wild for taming or the grind of 9 to 5. 

Happy Birthday, sister…