First and Second Impressions

 

            I didn't understand a single thing he said, but I smiled and nodded politely anyway.  My mother always told me to be polite.  But, honestly, I was bored out of my skull.  I didn't know anything about this car he was planning to get and restore.  Why wasn't he like most guys; why couldn't he spend his time talking about sports?  Sports, I know.  My father is a big football fan and he has been dragging every member of our family to games for as long as I can remember.  My best friend, Mary, says that is why guys like me so much, because I don't mind sitting around on the weekends watching sports.  I would like to accuse her of holding incorrect stereotypes, but to be honest I have never been out with any guy who didn't love sports.

            Until Greg.  Greg has been talking about this car for the last half an hour and all I have understood is that it is red.  Personally I don't know why anyone would go to so much trouble to restore an old car when there are really great, new cars out there.  I tried to tell Greg, but he scoffed at that idea.

            "Great, new cars?  I don't think so.  They just junk them up with stuff people don't really need.  And anyway, there is nothing quite like the look of an antique."

            I nodded politely.  And then I tried to change the subject.

            "So how did you do on Mr. McKinney's test today?"

            "Oh, I think I did really well.  I am pretty good in math.  It comes in very handy when you are working on a car.  For instance..."

            How did we get back to this?  I nodded politely again.  I am going to have to thank my mother for teaching me that.  And I think I am going to have to kill Mary for setting this up. 

            I never talked to Greg in Trig. class.  But I saw him.  And Mary saw me see him.  I suppose I could not have been more obvious.  My chin almost hit the floor.  There he was standing there in jeans and a flannel and I could tell he had a beautiful body, which matched his smile.  His eyes sparkled when he smiled, letting little specks of gold intermingle with the brown.  His hair was short, so short I wasn't even sure if it was blond or brown.  Now that I have been sitting here looking at his hair for almost an hour, I can definitely say it is brown, very light brown, but just a bit too dark to be said to be blond.  Of course, it is probably a judgment call. 

            Mary was the one who talked to Greg first.  I couldn't.  I wanted to talk but I just stood there, next to Mary, smiling like a fool.  I did notice, though, he kept looking at me, even when he was talking to Mary.  I was so nervous I just grabbed Mary's arm and dragged her to two empty seats in the back, as far away from him, as possible.  And there we sat for two months.  Every day I would sit in my seat and stare at the back of this completely gorgeous person and daydream about how our date would go, if he ever asked me out. 

            According to my daydream, he would pick me up in one of those sporty cars which he has spent the evening decrying.  He would walk up to the door wearing a three-piece suit.  I don't know what it is about a guy in suit that makes me swoon, but I can't help it.  I would come down the stairs, wearing a pale green (to match my eyes) dress, backless, of course.  He would be so enamored with me, he would almost drop the flowers he was carrying for me.  After handing me a bouquet of a dozen white and pink roses, he would take my arm.  I would hand my flowers to my father, who would be standing there, nodding approvingly.  I would glide out on Greg's arm and he would open the door for me.  Then he would drive me to an elegant restaurant, where he would order for us and we would laugh and eat lobster and drink champagne.  Then he would take me to go dancing and we would be so good that the other people would stop dancing and just watch us.  And then he would return me home with a soft kiss on my lips.

            Okay.  I realize that was a big fantasy.  I don't even own a pale green dress, let alone a backless one.  My father has never approved of any of my dates.  No high school student could afford lobster and we aren't old enough to drink.  And I can't dance.  But everyone has to dream.  And that was my dream.

            The reality was different.  He picked me up in a station wagon, his mother's station wagon.  He didn't bring me flowers.  My father did not nod approvingly.  My father didn't kill him, so that’s a start.  I am wearing jeans and a tee shirt from our high school.  First we went to a movie, which was a fine movie.  Not great, not terrible.  And now we are sitting in the local fast food restaurant/hangout.  And I am listening to him talk about the car he wants to buy and restore.  I can't believe this is happening.  I smile and nod politely.

            The food is gone and I am truly bored and I am just thinking I want to go home and go to bed and forget tonight even happened.  I start to put my trash on the tray.  Greg takes the hint and starts to clean up his trash.  We stand and go to the trash can.  We dump our stuff and walk out to the car.  He does hold the door open for me.  I get in and he walks around and gets in the driver side.

            "So, I hear you are really into sports.  I don't really know much about any of that.  What is your favorite sport?" he says to me.

            I am a bit taken aback.  But I start telling him about football.  He asks me some questions and I answer them.  He looks genuinely interested.  I hope I looked as interested in what he said about cars.  We reach my house and he comes around and opens my door.  He walks me up to the door.  He looks at me, a bit nervous.  And then he leans in and kisses me.  Sparks.  Definite sparks.  My legs tingle.  Oh, this is nice.  I have never been so happy.  Very happy. 

            Pulling away from me, he asks if he can call me tomorrow.  I find myself unable to speak.  I smile and nod politely.

            "Great, maybe we can watch the game," he says.

 

Scented

 

In the sticky, hot

mid-August air

of May,

On the backroads

that silently wind

over the green hills

and past

the sno-cone stands

on the way

from Washington, D.C.

to Baltimore,

A scent hangs

on the humidity;

It comes

from the pastures

on which nothing grazes,

up over the trees

that shade

the small roads

and their sharp curves,

and sticks to the cars

along with the yellow

dusting of pollen;

A mixture

of youth and home

of honeysuckle and green onions

Directions

 

                                                                     

 

I sit to watch the children playing where I played, as

   a small child, on the school's playground

I swing again on the jungle gym that I once fell off of

   and broke my nose

Beyond the fence, which wasn't there in my smaller days,

   is a wooded glen with the creek where I used

   catch crayfish

If you follow the water, you'll end up next to the baseball

   field, where I spent my summers and the houses

   that I watched them build

Behind those houses are the ones where I grew up

From there you follow the fence that was meant to keep

   us out off the road but didn't

Go past the swimming pool on whose diving board I broke

   my nose a second time

Keep next to the fence until you get to the hole, still

   there and big enough to crawl through

On the other side is a pond, nothing special, even the

   ducks don't go there

Walk around the pond and you'll see two posts connected

   by a chain, to keep the cars out

You can swing on the chain, if you want, but I wouldn't

   because I fell off it once, though I didn't

   break anything

Follow the road, past the house where my best friend used

   to live

Cross the four-lane road, very carefully because the cars

   might not stop

Walk up the steep hill between the apartment buildings

   and turn left

Ignore the playground and pool on the right, I never played

   there anyway

Second to the last apartment building, second floor, door

   in front of the stairs, be sure to pet the

   cat when you come in

These are the directions my life has taken

Tea Time

 

 

            I checked through the peephole.  I found there were five of them.  Two more than I’d been expecting.  Leave it to them to invite along their own guests without telling me.  The ducks stared up at me when I opened the door.  They started quacking immediately.  Quack, Quack, Quack.  Loudly.  I stood back and held the door open.  The ducks came in.  One of them was pulling a little red wagon.  Inside the wagon was a plate of cookies. 

            I led them to the living room.  I tried to make pleasant conversation, but the ducks were quacking quite vigorously and quite loudly, so I could not get a word in edgewise.  I had put my good china out for this tea party.  I hustled to the china cabinet to get two more settings.  The teapot was full, but I went into the kitchen to put some more water on to boil.  I wasn’t sure there would be enough tea for all of us.  I would just have a small sip; that should help.

            When I got back to the living room, I saw two of the ducks sitting on the coffee table.  One of the tea settings had been knocked over.  Another duck was quacking wildly at the cat, who was cowering in a corner.  The other two ducks were going through my DVD collection, picking a selection up with their bills and then discarding it on the floor.  The stereo was playing Sheryl Crow a little too loudly for my tastes.  And the quacking!

            I tried to pour the tea, but one of the coffee table ducks kept pecking at my hand, until I finally dropped the teapot.  It smashed to pieces on the floor.  I went into the kitchen to get some paper towels.  When I returned, the ducks that had been going through the DVDs had moved on to the CDs.  There were two piles.  The first pile included The Byrds and Counting Crows.  I assumed the other pile were the rejects.  I tried to offer a nice game of Scattergories.  I was ignored.  I cleaned up the mess that had been made of my teapot and finally gave up.  I took the tray of cookies from the red wagon.  Eating a cookie, I plopped myself down and listened to the quacking and watched the destruction of my living room. 

            Ducks have no manners, but they bake the best cookies.

Outside Baltimore

 

                      

 

Waking to the grey sunshineless light that

       falls over my bed covers

I rise and go to my window with its

       suburban snow view

The perfect white on the parking lot, like my

       own typing paper, and then the cars

       come to write their poetry

I dress like the day, grey and black with

       hard boots, so as to stomp

       the people down

I go outside where the air covers me in

       softness that I am unable to

       reach through

The smell of snow long gone from the air and

       the snow on the ground turned into

       slush, like the slush that fills the sky

I long to be two months and ten miles

       forward, sitting at the Inner Harbor

       in the spring sun

First Bloom

 

I shift into a position, purposefully, 

where I can listen to the honeysuckle

that absently teases my nose;

To sit in the woods,

these abundant gardens of wildflowers,

for hour upon hour…

Life here

is starting to bloom

Cat Poem

Sitting at our window and

watching the entrance to a restaurant,

her head rests on my shoulder;

Looking at the rising tide of people,

turning over and over;

I think about the others before her,

all special,

some with even stranger names;

But I thought of this poem while I was watching her

 

Soon the image of words died

as I became entranced with petting her fur and

as she found the unimagined spot in my heart

Life With William

 

There were more than I’d been expecting.  The night before, when I had left my jeans on the floor, there had been four holes in them.  And now, in the morning light, there were six.  The four old holes were getting a little larger everyday.  But the two new holes were small.  Small and in the shape of a little bunny mouth.

            I looked over at William.  He was looking innocent.  He was not innocent.  He munched hay, as I talked to him.

            “That’s it.  No Star Trek for you today.”

            William is a weird little bunny.  Not because he likes to chew holes in things.  That is a very normal bunny activity.  William is weird because he likes to watch Star Trek.  And he knows his Star Trek.  The Original Series.  The Next Generation.  Deep Space Nine (his personal favorite).  Voyager.  He does not, however, consider Enterprise to be a valid Star Trek series , but who among us does?  He understands that all of these things are Star Trek.  When I turn on Star Trek, he comes running into the other room and stares intently at the television.  During the commercials, he cleans his toes and ears or snuffles around.  But he understands that’s not Star Trek.  He doesn’t watch any other television shows.  Not even other science fiction.  Just Star Trek.  Weird little bunny.  So every day, at 4:00, I turn on the SciFi channel and we watch Star Trek together.  But not today.  Today, William is being punished.

            I put on my jeans, the ones with the holes in them and a tee shirt, which also had little bunny holes in it.  I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen.  William followed closely behind me, anticipating breakfast.

            Walking through the door of my kitchen, I found myself in the Oval Office.  There was a nice looking gentleman behind the desk.  No president I knew.  But, hey, anyone sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office had to be the president, right? 

            “Good morning, Mr. President.  I’m just getting some coffee.” I said to the man behind the desk.

            “Security!” the man said into an intercom.

            I walked over to a coffee trolley and poured myself a cup.  Just as I was taking my first sip, several Marines with guns were standing around me.  I walked slowly backwards, showing my hands and the fact that they held nothing but coffee.  I kept backing up.  William was circling my feet, making it hard for me to not trip and fall down.  Tripping and falling down would definitely be a bad thing.  William and I continued our slow movement backwards.  The Marines continued to point guns at us.  And then we were back in the hallway of my apartment.

            “Well, I’ll have to get your breakfast from the grocery store, but you’re going to have to wait until I drink my coffee,” I said to William.

            I went to the front door and opened it.  I was looking for my newspaper.  Instead I found an alien vista of some sort.  William continued to snuffle around my feet.  He looked up at the vista but quickly lost interest when he figured out that if wasn’t Star Trek.  I closed the door.

William and I went into the living room.  Standing there, looking quite confused was a Roman solider.  I smiled and pointed to the porch door.  

            “You want to go out there,” I said, which was silly, because he couldn’t understand what I was saying. 

            He looked at me, looked at the door, looked at me.  I walked over to the door and opened it for him.  Through the door I could only see my own porch, but I had a suspicion that it really lead to some part of the Roman Empire.  I motioned to the soldier that he should go through the door.  He seemed to understand and went through.  William tried to follow him, but I put out my foot to stop my bunny from ending up as Caesar’s dinner.  I closed the door and went to sit on the couch.  I turned on the television and leaned back to drink my coffee.  William jumped up on my lap, causing me to spill my coffee.  I sighed.

            “You know you have to stop chewing holes in the space – time continuum,” I said to William, who was licking up the spilt coffee, “And my jeans.”

 

At a Loss for Words

 

He looked sad;

He'd had a bad week;

I walked over to him

and gave him the biggest hug

that I could muster;

No words spoken;

No need for them-

He hugs me back;

Then,

we go our own ways;

I can hear a slight, quiet, "awwwww,"

as I walk away



Thanks Marc.

Here I Am

 

          My lover of six years left me.  He left me with “I love you, but I love her more.”  Could there be anything more horrific in its romantic implications than that?  I would have preferred to hear, “Get away from me, you psycho bitch.” Instead, he told me he loved me and then he left.  And I was left alone to contemplate how he wasn’t such a bad guy, to think about the times he’s nursed me back to health and the times we had laughed together, to dwell on the fact that he loved me.  He just loved her more.

          “Adonai,” I cried.

          And then my pet rabbit looked up at me and said, “Here I am.”

          So I went to the kitchen and returned with a carrot and I stroked his ears as he nibbled on his treat.

 

          Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe who gives us bunny rabbits.

 

          My boss went insane.  Technically, I suppose that’s not right.  It implies that at some earlier point, he had been sane.  In all the years I knew him, he had never been that.  Then one day he walked into the office and met with the other senior partner to tell him that he was closing down the firm and then left for the day.  It was December 30^th, so when we saw all the junior partners crowd into the office of the only sane senior partner and close the door, we thought they were talking about our raises or, maybe, considering giving us New Year’s Eve off.  Then came the memo announcing that we were all fired.  I wanted to call my lover and find support but I remembered that he wasn’t my lover anymore.  He was hers.  And she probably hadn’t gotten fired today.  Instead, I went home and threw myself onto my bed.

          “Adonai,” I yelled.

          And then I felt my cat rubbing up against me and she purred, “Here I am.”

          So I wiped my eyes and got her mouse-on-a-string and played with her until we were both tired and we fell asleep, curled up together.

 

          Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe who gives us kitty cats.

 

          I spent the day feeling sorry for myself.  Alone in Chicago, with no lover and no job.  Far from my family, with only the winter winds which come off the lake just to stab me.  I missed the Southern Januarys of youth and the hills where I spent them.  I was as flat and freezing as this place I lived.

          “Adonai,” I bellowed.

          And then the phone rang and from the other end of the line, my younger sister said, “Here I am.”

          So we talked about her life and mine. We talked about school and love and happiness.  And we promised to see each other soon.  No amount of distance should keep family apart.

 

          Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe who gives us baby sisters.

 

          It was Friday, so I set out candles and bread and wine.  And I said prayers and performed rituals 6000 years old.  In the morning, I went to synagogue.  There, members of the congregation greeted me with understanding in their eyes and voices.  They clapped me on the back and spoke kind words.  After the rabbi had brought around the Torah and I had kissed it, I went back to my seat.

          “Adonai,” I whispered.

          And then there was silence.