Phone Call

Like a dryer undoes
a bad stitch, you
unravel what I'd rallied -
a bitch of a lesson
I won't learn.
I need some pointers
and a slap in the ass.

What's sass these days
compared to spite?
The man loitering
at the stop light? I think
it's you, until he turns.
My god, this love feels
like hate! Brass knuckles
on both hands -
like skidding into gravel
instead of grass.

Dec 11th (revised) - after Morgan's six words

Already I can see the tart
in my preschooler. The sprinkler
catches her at the end
of its hemisphere each time
and she shrieks like she wasn't
asking for it - I saw her stall
at the edge of the water line,
one leg kept back mimicking
her brother's at-bat stance.
Or when I put away her toys,
she yells Hey from the floor
where she often sits like a small,
colloquial guru hey those are mine.

I can't flush myself out
of her system with good, clear
wisdom. In her lower lip is
her preference for skirts and powerful colors.
She will, she will figure herself into messes
evolved from the messes of her mother's,
paired like helixes, will crash her bike,
her car, her lover's car, will find
herself alone in a dark room
with a man and know instinctively
the movements she should not make,
will leave a Hindi bangle or earring at every
restaurant, unknowingly, like a fingerprint.

I wrap her in a towel. She is small
enough to carry, her weight natural -
a package of bright water.
She wants to watch the movie
about the talking dog, the one
we rented from the library a hundred times.
We love it. She finds the tape
stuck under the couch, dropping the towel,
leaving two chubby damp marks from her shins.
Yesterday, she whammed her head
against the tabletop, where she'd misgauged
her height. At the hospital, my mother
and I compared scars while the doctor
checked for concussion. I think she'll
live, he said and winked.

Dec 7

We visit the polish church down the street
and here the blue dome is so tall
it is bad for my heart.
Distance like that is too much
of a reminder.

Paris, a small farm in Germany,
none of us know exactly where
our friend is going
and neither does he
except for the name of the airport
and that he'll have to hitchhike.
He's used to it, the car pulling off
while he's still got one foot
on the pavement.

Slowly we'll get used to the absence
like a man adjusting the antenna,
circling the signal,
rewarded with a bit of a song,
making do.

He'll be on a highway or
a backroad, singing loudly
to the radio, a song he heard,
originally, in Chicago.