Lil's Glare

settled in with Alzheimer’s — all

the ire she swallowed all the years

of her too small old maid life

as hairdresser, also smaller than small town

journalist (Mr. & Mrs. Leo Jones

drove from Randolph, Mass. for a weekend

visit with Mr. Jones’s mother, Mrs.

Lillian Reardon Jones). Four siblings

returned to live back home — Tommy,

Charlie, Mary, & Lil. Their mother

Lillian (my grandmother) broke her hip,

lived another decade wheelchair

bound & diabetic. Lil ran the house —

caretaker, menu planner, bill

payer, task caster. She taught me

how to make macaroni & cheese,

let me read her notes for news stories

taken in her tidy hand. Lil’s best

friend Miriam — widowed & empty

nested — lived just three doors

down the street, most nights shared

Lil’s bedroom. Everyone played songs —

Red Red Robin Comes Bob

Bob Bobbin’ — we learned the words

& sang along. Later we grew up,

Lil & the siblings grew old, Charlie

& Tommy died. When Mary rolled up

the shades, Lil pulled them back down,

walked out to the river. Mary hunted

for her, coaxed her back. Lil snarled.

An hour later she’d be gone again

until they shut her away, exiled Lil

to where one day the glare died.

from Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways:

Anatomically speaking, the reason that the eyes of birds and animals glow uncanny colours in low light is due to the presence of the tapetum lucidum (the 'bright carpet'), a mirror-like membrane of iridescent cells that sits behind the retina. Light passes first through the rod and cone cells of the retina, then strikes the membrane and rebounds back through the retina towards the light source. In this way any available light is used twice to see with. What we are witnessing when we perceive 'eyeshine' is the colour of the tapetum lucidum itself, which varies between species and according to light conditions, but is often red in owls, pale blue in cows and greenish-gold in felines. Even moths and spiders possess this membrane, and their eyes can sometimes be seen in darkness as tiny silver stars.

Oh, Beatrice

Not quite a frost today

though I wish I’d drained the hose

& brought in cuttings that might be frozen.

Icy mornings in Charleston are rare.

Warm air roars through rusted grates.

Between my legs on our fleece throw

the kitten snoozes, doesn’t know

she’s headed for the vet this AM,

will come back home with her belly shaved,

her eyes crossed. She’ll meep & moan.

I’ll keep her warm, leave her alone
to dream of sex, one final wave.

Flood Tide

my front yard & my road

& the front yards across the road

one gleaming sheet of water

trees rise from mulch islands, trees

double in water covering my lawn

palm fronds etch my yellowed driveway

sea water lapping his shins, barefoot

neighbor Billy stands & shouts

I’ve never seen this! the tide pours

through the culvert into the pond

plastic floats by, my dock is sinking

five gunshots down the road after dark

I close my book, turn off the light

lie flat — maybe they won’t see me

Myths and Texts [excerpt]

by Gary Snyder

"Wash me on home, mama"

— song of the Kelp

A chief's wife

Sat with her back to the sun

On the sandy beach, shredding cedar-bark

Her fingers were slender

She didn't eat much.

"Get foggy

We're going out to dig

Buttercup roots"

Dream, Dream,

Earth! those beings living on your surface

none of them disappearing, will be transformed.

When I have spoken to them

when they have spoken to me, from that moment on,

their words and their bodies which they

usually use to move about with, will all change.

I will not have heard them. Signed,

( )

Coyote

Thanksgiving

Because it’s about to be United States

Thanksgiving I’m making Hawaii-style

Portuguese bean soup the day

before & sourdough loaf from yeasts

captured from South Carolina air.

I need a heating pad to wrap the rising

dough, just as five decades ago

I wrapped cultured milk to ferment yogurt.

My boys were babies. Five gallons of raw

milk we carried home each week

(we owned the five-gallon stainless

can) from the nearby Verrell's dairy farm,

also the source of a long-haired black

kitten who lasted until the boys were grown.

Along with yogurt I made egg custard,

rice pudding, Indian pudding, heated

milk on the stove (pre-microwave)

to fill Matt’s cup, Ben’s bottle,

my mug. Some of us, because we yet

have homes, we are still fed.

Morning Before the Daylong Rain

Beatrice has decided not to eat

her breakfast of canned food

to beg for it only to turn away

to beg for my egg, lick bacon grease

from the tips of my fingers

two pair of kingfisher buzz the dock

one patrols from the furled umbrella

great blue heron is a cargo plane

low over the water just offshore

mallards a raucous flotilla

pelicans dive for mullet

leaping from the salt marsh pond

silver arrows that fall flat

rise again, fall, rise three times

like silver skipping stones

now it's the next morning gray skies

S-shaped, dive, Z-shaped

cormorant glides past the dock

predators here for prey

more rain is on the way

Rescue the Dead

by David Ignatow

Finally, to forgo love is to kiss a leaf,

is to let rain fall nakedly on your head,

is to respect fire,

is to study man's eyes and his gestures

as he talks,

is to set bread upon a table

and a knife discreetly by,

is to pass through crowds

like a crowd of oneself.

Not to love is to live.

To love is to be led away

into a forest where the secret grave

is dug, singing, praising darkness

under the trees.

To live is to sign your name,

is to ignore the dead,

is to carry a wallet

and shake hands.

To love is to be a fish.

My boat wallows in the sea.

You who are free,

rescue the dead.

Ground

light rain

or the heater fan

rustle of

blanket in the dark

hiss of

teakettle

drops slide down

every pane

daylong drum of

rain

outside

docks grow green

kingfisher pans

from a furled umbrella

a hunkered egret

is snow

banked on a stone

pelicans

swan dive

make high jump

mullet fly

Redstart [excerpt]

by Forrest Gander

Phased and tilted,

    a philanthropy

of tunnels and saliva, soil

    particle gripping

soil particle: heed the following,

    heed the high climbing, a building

wingspan from mucilaginous

    bodies, legs “just special

effects”: how affected

    and pernicious all scriptures

and hymns.

Scene 1. Woman & Bear

why are you, a bear, in my dream?

I’m a bear, I can’t speak

you are speaking, & you’re being snotty, or wry

[silence]

you are a bear & you’re tearing the guts out of a dead bear in my dream

guy’s gotta eat

so you’re a guy

guy is a gender-free term in my vocabulary

sorry, that’s my line

[silence]

I’m eating cashews at 9 am in the morning because I feel a lack of something

like the lack of a bear in your life?

right, like I need a dirty, smelly, large, dangerous animal in my life

everyone needs one, more than that, everyone has one

my dirty smelly animal is my body that has been decrepit since I was a 12-yr-old child

you sure have spent a lot of time faking it, pretending you were clean, neat, pretending you were healthy, pretending you weren’t in pain, limping, bleeding, peeing & shitting your pants, falling over

whereas you wear your degenerate filth right up front — I’ve only seen a bear in person once & it was a juvenile, far enough away that I couldn’t smell it or experience its filth, but you’re a full grown bear, umpteen years of filth accumulation, do you ever bathe?

I love to swim, as you well know, swimming to a bear is like showering to a human

humans use soap, well, most humans use soap, I barely use soap, my skin’s not happy with soap, besides, I’m so clean, I don’t need soap except at my pits & nether orifices

what about the glop you discovered in your eyes as you were driving down to the field trip yesterday, you fingered that out right smartly before a stranger could find out you were a drippy old lady who doesn’t wash her face in the morning

yep, that I did, & I behaved quite nicely to the field trip leader, nicely to the point of boring him, at least gauged by his frequent lack of response, he was polite, he thought I was a mildly tedious old lady (or he thought something else entirely, how would I know?), he had no idea I am secretly a dirty smelly bear

aha, so now you’re claiming you’re the bear, now that you’ve insulted me, insinuated that I might be male

no, that was you called yourself a guy, & I’m the one who says guy is gender free

must we talk about gender? why is it relevant? can’t we just talk about humans & bears?

ok, why were you tearing the guts out of that bear

it was there, no one had torn the guts out yet, I was hungry, actually I killed that bear in a ferocious fight, I might have been the bear on the ground getting eaten

how did you win?

the fight went on for so long I can’t remember, might have been a third party intervention, I’m a fine combatant, but I often don’t show up for the win

why not?

let’s see, 1) I get bored, 2) I might lose 3) it’s very hard taking something dead seriously, as in fight to the death, after all, life is a dream, life is not real, at any moment you can wake up & start over

I don’t suppose you’d think that if you were the bear dead on the ground

if I were the bear dead on the ground, I wouldn’t think at all, I’d be dead

did it taste good?

everything tastes good to a bear, we just pretend it’s honey

not much tastes good to me, that’s why I don’t eat much, that & I don’t want to gain weight, I don’t want to be a large person, I want to be small, invisible, anonymous

believe me, bears are anonymous, we are large, dark, & dangerous, no one cares who we are as individuals

no one cares who old people are as individuals either, so we’re equal there

that’s horseshit, & you know it — numerous people care about you as an individual, & they take the time to show it

yeah, yeah, yeah, once a week, maybe, Ben or Esther calls with Tova, once a month Matt texts — my friends are here, ok, this is what it boils down to, I’m used to having a one & only, most of my life I’ve had a one & only, now I’m too old, & there is unlikely to be another one & only, so get used to it, knucklehead

that’s why you dreamed about a bear eating another bear, cause you want a large dirty uncontrollable wild creature cause you think you can tame it & you have done so, have managed to tame someone three times, & then something happens, you find out they’re not enough or they’re too much or they’re the wrong one, they have you trapped, or they don’t pay enough attention, wait, I’m losing my thread, how is this related to dreaming about a bear?

who knows? a bear would be an exotic pet, maybe a one & only is no better than an exotic pet until you get tired of it, & then it’s just a dirty old bear

so you rip its guts out

food is food

nope, that’s my line, guy

it’s been real

no, it’s been dream

right

American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin
by Terrance Hayes

If you have never felt what is fluid

In a woman run warm along your thighs
And testicles, Mister Trumpet if you do not know
The first man was in fact a woman whose clit
Grew so swollen with longing it hung like a finger
Pointing toward the lover stirring her meadows

Mister Trumpet what the fuck do you know

You are lonely because you could never unhitch

Your mother’s terrifying radiant woe

I mean my mother here she the crazy bitch in me
She the way I weep she the way I break she manly

Trumpet I can’t speak for you but men like me

Who have never made love to a man will always be

Somewhere in the folds of our longing ashamed of it