Winter

The snow is yet unbroken

Upon the branches and the ground,

The scene is still and quiet,

A bird song the only sound.

The morning sun has yet to rise,

The moon has yet to fall,

One by one the stars wink out

Until none are left at all.

The day burns over the landscape

As the children come to play.

Footprints and sled marks disturb the snow,

But it was never meant to stay.

Digging Down Deep

Lightning illuminates the scene in fits and starts.

The world stinks of pine and mud,

Half-frozen rain pelts my face,

The night sky consumes the landscape.

Blisters on my hands burst,

Feeding the ground with blood.

Filthy and soaked and exhausted,

I dig nonetheless.

I need to be done and gone,

Before light,

Before conscience.

Up to my chest in the ground,

Handsfeetearsface numb

With tears and sweat and rain.

Metal head hits wood—

Polished wood—

Wipe the dirt away with my sleeve,

Exchange the shovel for the ax,

Chop at the wood.

Can’t see.
Too many shadows.

Doesn’t matter,

I found it.

Spit,

Spit at where my father’s skull should be.

Heave myself out

And walk away.

Snowstorm

Daddy broke the TV last night.

Spider web cracks across a dark screen.

I burned my finger on static,

Trying to turn it on--

Just a black and white snowstorm.

He didn’t mention it.

He might not remember.

But doesn’t he wonder?

I took the VCRs to my room.

Princesses and talking animals.

Kids’ movies, mostly.

But I was afraid he’d sell them,

And they hold parts of me.

We watched them together.

Thanksgiving

I sit beneath the tabletop,

Examining the shoes,

The clock ticks, the oven dings,

Bob Dylan sings the blues.

The relatives have all arrived,

The children gone to play,

But here I sit, alone and content,

Enjoying Thanksgiving Day.

The adults all talk loudly,

They gossip and laugh and swear,

Memories of days long gone,

Each retelling adding flair.

Mother calls “the turkey’s done,”

The shoes all disappear,

I’m the last one to emerge,

Thankful to just be here.

Advice

Listen to the ones with no voices.

The ones who cannot,

Or who will not talk.

They need you the most.

The ones with love written on their arms,

But not in their hearts,

And the ones who sit alone on the bus,

Who scream at walls, home alone,

Who the teachers wonder about

But never ask.

The ones without lunch money,

Or in-style shoes,

But who write the most spectacular poetry.

Remember them.

They are asking for your help,

Even if they don't know it.

All you need to do--

Is listen.

Sea Glass

Daddy promised to come home for my 7^th birthday, and me and Lucy spent the whole day with our noses pressed to the front window, waiting. He never came. I wanted to wish for him to come home on my candles but I didn’t. I didn’t wish anything.  Maybe that was why I didn’t get the wedding Barbie I wanted.  That was the worst birthday. I didn’t get Barbie, and I didn’t get Daddy neither.

Mom was mad at him for a while, but then the man with the suit came and she wasn’t mad anymore. It wasn’t Daddy’s fault he couldn’t come, she told me. He wasn’t going to be able to come home again. He had gotten killed where he was fighting.  So it was just her and me and Lucy now, she told me, and she was going to have to go back to work.

The older girl from across the street, Melody, would come to stay with me after school, and she would sit in the kitchen and do big math problems and let me eat popcorn. She was the prettiest girl I’d seen, even in movies, and she would braid my hair and even helped me paint Lucy’s nails once.  Her parents were splitted up, and she lived with her mom, too. Once, when Mom had to go away overnight, I got to stay at her house and she gave me her old Barbie and showed me her collection of sea glass. She had half a jar full, red and blue and green, and one big purple piece.

“My dad showed me how to find it when we went to the beach when I was your age,” she told me. Then, a week later, she told me she was going to go live with her dad, which was a long ways away. I went to bed one night and she was there, and then the next morning she was gone and I never got to see her no more. But she left the jar of sea glass on my doorstep.

I went to the beach that summer, and brought Barbie and the sea glass. I took Barbie swimming and the ocean stole her, and I cried and cried until I found a piece of pink glass. Mom told me that was the ocean’s apology for taking my doll, so I added it to the jar and spent the rest of the trip looking for more.

Sometimes, if I’d have a bad day at school, late in the evening when the sun shone right through my window, I would dump the jar out onto my yellow bedspread, yellow with pink flowers, and sort them by color and size and texture and they would make different colors on the walls. I broke one or two, but mostly I was very careful, and they were ordinary colors, anyways. They made me think of my babysitter, and of Daddy, and then when Lucy died I put a few pieces in her shoebox and I thought of her, too.

I stopped collecting when the jar got full, because I didn't want to throw any away but more than one jar wouldn't have been the same anymore. It moved from my shelf to my desk, then to m closet, but whenever I had a bad day I would find it and dump it onto my bed and everything was okay again. It's funny, how to this day sea glass makes everything okay.

Keeping Score

One-nothing, Ellie in the lead. She won the last game, too, and I’m determined not to lose again. My face flushes at the thought of her smug grin when we exchanged scorecards. She knew she had me beat, and I knew it too. She did that unbelievably annoying hair flip and sashayed away, just daring me to try to do better. Well, I’ll show that bitch.

I won the game before last, but Ellie won the two before that. Honestly, it’s not really a fair match—she’s been playing for longer than me, and anyways, no one ever suspects a girl. Especially a pretty one. This time, however, I’m pulling out all the stops. There’s no way I’m losing this.

I head down Elm Street towards Maple, hands deep in my sweatshirt pockets, hoodie pulled up against the cold. Maple Street is an exact copy of Elm Street, from the matchbox houses to the soccer mom minivans and the plastic playsets in the back yards. On Maple, Mr. Jinks walks his 9-year-old beagle around the block every evening at 9.

It’s 8:58.

I reach the junction of the two streets, peer down either way. It’s a relatively bright night--the moon’s out, and the streetlights are lit, and sure enough, Mr. Jinks strolls on down with that damned dog stopping to sniff every two feet. I lean back against the lamppost casually. He passes on the other side of the street, gives me a casual salute. Used to be in the military, I heard. I don’t respond.

He gives the dog a tug and walks on by. I turn my head to watch. 10 feet. 20 feet. I slide my hand out of my sweatshirt pocket, unable to suppress a small smile. Suck on this one, Ellie. Then once, twice, a third time, I fire my gun.

He collapses. Shadows hide the scarlet stain I know must already be seeping into the concrete. That obnoxious little dog stands over him barking, and the screen doors start slamming open. I drop the pistol, turn, and slouch back down Elm.

One-one. That bitch is going down.

Morning

A solid in a world of ghosts,

A 21st century Jesus walking on water,

Wandering among the bejeweled leaves

And shining spiderwebs.

Forget the sun-- I prefer my sky

Buried under a snowbank

Above the muddy swamp

Lost in a corner of the parking lot.

Twin cars burn up the wet road

As rain winks in perfect circles on puddles,

As a ball of once-alive greenbrownpink tumbles in the gutter,

And as I float away on the morning.

Midnight

They were all asleep. She made sure of it, listened for each individual, distinctive breathing rhythm before crawling to her feet. The fire had smoldered down to the last coals, throwing haunting shadows against the cave walls and their faces. Her stomach knotted as she unhooked her belt, let it and the weapons it contained slip to the ground next to the other packs. She wouldn't need it where she was going.

She left the weapons for them, and the water bottle. And then she pulled off her necklace and left that, too. If they wanted to get sentimental over it, that was up to them. She just didn't want to worry about it jingling or shit. It still felt final, though, as the silver chain slipped like liquid through her fingers.

She was doing this for them, she reminded herself one more time. So that none of them had to do it. She wasn't going to let it get that far. So she took a deep breath and crept lightly through the cave, stepping over them one at a time, glancing down at each face. She paused at the last one. "So long, old friend," she whispered, crouching down briefly. "It's been a blast."

And then she stepped out of the rock prison, into the night, and began her eternal walk down the mountain.

Suburbia

The pavement stretches out under the early morning light. Water sizzles as it evaporates, shadows creep away. A child's chalk drawing, smudged but understandable, lays imprinted atop it, beside an abandoned ball and rope. Grass pokes up through the cracks, ever resilient, and damp green moss, too. Ants swarm out of their sand pile and across the yard, one by one, a perfect never-ending line.

Slowly the first car roars into action, hesitating before backing down onto the street and taking off. More and more people begin to stir, just like the ants, one by one emerging to check on the flowers or right the garbage cans or retrieve the newspaper, tossed casually into the bushes. Screen doors slam open and shut then open again as children, heavy with books, race after the growling yellow monster.

Soon the street is silent again, cars gone, children gone, cats visiting friends in the street over. Bees start to emerge from the flowering bushes, dreamy and slow, this way and that way, searching for that open window. In the hours alone the blossoms open and the squirrels brave the trellis and the weeds pop right back up.

And then the children return, emerging triumphantly from the belly of the beast, and the cars do too, settling down happily to sleep for the night. Neighbors greet neighbors with friendly eyes and suspicious smiles, kids become warriors and pirates and cavemen in their backyards. A half dozen barbecues fire up, even more frozen dinners are freed from plastic, and radios switch on- here jazz, there a detective program, and down the street, that dreaded rock and roll.

The shadows creep back out and porch lights flicker on, casting a sickly soft orange glow upon the black tar. The fireflies replace the ants, bright as stars come down to earth, and the glass mason jars come out-- this is a take-as-many-prisoners-as-you-can war. Maybe one will shatter and there will be blood and tears and a bandage, but it will be forgotten by the next night.

The sunlight waits just beyond the hills. It will seize its chance to slink back over and usher back in the ants and the monsters and the blossoms. But for now... it is content to wait.

Death Row

Your nails are bleeding again.

Funny, the things you notice. Little specks of dried blood around cuticles, for one. The rattling of the overhead vent. The stains on the linoleum floor. And of course, your pounding heart. Throbbing in your throat, beating against your chest, spiraling down into your wrists and head. Nearly drowning the world out.

Six months is a long time to wait for death. You suppose cancer patients or whatever have to do it, but for them it's never certain. For you, it was written in stone from the day you stepped into that courthouse. You never really stood a chance.

There are four guards, two in front and two behind. All built off the same assembly line, looks like. Same short hair, same stocky builds. Same pitiless eyes. Your priest is there too, of course, and you think about his job. Must suck, forcing confessions from criminals day after day. Being there to reassure them -of what?- as they draw their last breaths.

You slow as you near the room. The priest is talking again, but you can't hear him, can't hear anything but your own goddamned heart. Behind that door... a doctor, and a bench, and a tiny vial of poison. You think how unfair all of this is, how much more you should have done, could have done-- but then the door is opening and you step inside.

The Dancer

I still remember.

I wasn't sure I would, to be honest. It's been over a year now.

But I still remember. My feet ghost silently across the floor, tracing the same familiar patterns. I stumble, nearly fall, catch myself. Slip back into the rhythm of the nonexistent music.

I remember the first dance, and the last one. Most everything else in between is a blur of sweat and sprained ankles and too-tight costumes. That And perfection. Or at least, the attempts at perfection.

But now, alone in the dark room, there's no one to watch and no one to be perfect for. At last I can dance again.

I still feel every wrong move, every time my feet slip out of position or my upper body contorts out of shape. And it tears at me, the drive to be better still burns within me, but I allow the mistakes. The mistakes I was never allowed to allow.

It's almost funny. Dancing was my life. When I stopped I thought I would be nothing. But when I stopped, I found a different person that could eat pizza or laugh with friends or go out on a friday night, and as it turned out, I liked that person. I liked them a lot.

Still, to dance again. Arms flowing, legs bending, toes arched up; each piece in its place, everything perfect.

I trip and fall this time, crashing down to earth with bang and a cloud of dust. But I don't move, tilting my head back against the wood, hearing the music in my head. The ceiling reaches up to the sky miles above me, lost in shadows.

And then without any conscious effort I'm up again, skidding across the floor wildly now, angrily, skirt catching air and lifting up as I twirl, leaving the floor and returning far too quickly, but at least it was correct and I'm off again, faster and faster, blood pounding through me.

When I finally slow to a stop, applause roars in my ears, in perfect time with my breath. The ache is familiar, stronger than it used to be. Tired muscles, tired limbs, tired mind. But the happiness is familiar, too, familiar and strange at once.

I bow for the empty room, one at last time.