Homemade Cheese Crackers

We're trying to eat better around here. I've got an app on my phone for it. Really. I'm a total thrill at the grocery store where I scan items and the app shows me what is in the so-called food I've just scanned. We don't buy much at the grocery, but my husband likes Cheez-Its. They are not food. Honestly, I liked them too, but when I found out they have TBHQ (tertiary butylhydroquinone - a chemical linked to causing ringing in the ears), I threw them out of the pantry and looked for a good cheese cracker recipe. I found one at inthekitchewithkath.com (and she found hers from smittenkitchen.com), and modified it ever-so-slightly to use wheat flour instead of white. I also doubled the ingredients because I knew we'd want more.

There are a couple of things you gain by making your own crackers: the delicious smell of them baking, and the satisfaction of knowing what's in your crackers because you made them. You just don't get that experience by sliding a box of pre-made crackers from a shelf. These would be really fun to make with kids. Very easy.


3 cups (12 oz.) grate extra sharp cheddar cheese
8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2-3 tbsp. milk

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Put everything except the milk into a food processor. Pulse the processor, 5 seconds at a time for 5 or 6 times until the dough is in coarse crumbs.

3. Add the milk and process until the dough gathers together in a ball. 

4. Roll the dough out on a floured board with a rolling pin that has been floured. Roll until the dough is about 1/8" thick.

5. Cut the dough into 1 inch squares. Or, you can do what I did and break out some of your smaller, cuter cookie cutters for some sassy shapes. If you want the Cheez-It style hole in the center of each cracker, poke a hole with the flat end of a wooden skewer. Don't use your purple pen.

6. PLace the crackers at least 1/4 inch apart on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

7. Bake for 12-15 mins. until the edges are just starting to brown.

Rondel Supreme of Unbeing for Hoopers

Close your eyes and spin.

The swimminess of poetry,

letters loosed, swallowed with glee,

dissolve with each turn. Unpin

thought and let it go. The din

of the daily erases with velocity.

Close your eyes and spin

the swimminess of poetry.

Pop and static, you’re the song in

heavy rotation, a dark ocean of free

forgotten foreverness. You can’t un-be?

Oh, here you can. Ha, ha! A win

to close your eyes and spin

the swimminess of poetry.

Sonnet for a Sad Dream

There’s a way to pack the chandelier

that no longer fits in with the rest

of your furniture’s bleak and blear.

Each crystal dangled undressed

except for its prisms, twisted on wires

of twilight metal. Use tissue paper.

No. Toss them in a glass box, amplifier

of their song. Unsayable stars, capable

of anything, ask them about the basement.

They will tell you how broodiness

and longing can build a monument

to the wrought scrollwork of sadness,

how once taut links will ease to the floor,

relaxed. Inside each teardrop, the salt of furor.

Self-Portrait at 44

When I was seven years old
I was sure I was going blind.

I sat on the floor of the bedroom
and stared down the calico pattern on the bedspread
until the little yellow flowers buzzed

into apple red background blurriness.

A stuffed duck dissolved into a furry moon.

The curtains, unsuccessful in their ruffles,

disappeared into the light of outside.

I never told my mother.

How could I harpoon her heart?

“My youngest daughter can’t see.”

Focus and unfocus,
it’s a trick I’ve played through the years.

I still don’t know what I want.

Sometimes I can’t see the beauty in my own neighborhood –

the two workmen on top of the roof across the street

who stretch out, smoke, and laugh into the clouds they make,

or the little girl who tears apart  hydrangeas for confetti.

Command plus plus the view,

take up wearing glasses. See?

Sometimes I’m happy but music pushes me into a lump of tears

and then the song ends and the DJ comes on
with the little jingle that announces the station 

and I feel foolish because the whole day was there all along.

That’s what I want.

For a Young Friend Who Wants a Bra

Nothing yet.

Soon enough the fabric

buckles, deploys boys.

Your lively thoughts play

down the street, overheard

by mothers who wish

they had the energy,

the same instrumentation

of imagination.

Memory shames.

I kept a growth chart

of breast progress,

held a loopy washcloth

over my chest in the tub

and cupped my hands

over the nothing

that was there. I hoped,

and then I lost interest,

and packed a bag

to run away from home.

I lost interest in that too,

the idea sillier than

saving my nickels

for a chihuahua.

Don’t worry.

You’ll grow as you’ve grown,

an arrangement so fetching

you won’t even notice, lost

in the drowsy navigation

of your beautiful days.

This Title Needs You To Read It As a Title

This line has a syllable count of ten,

and this line has eight syllables.

This line makes you think of bears.

This line is set apart from the rest.

This line is nothing without you, reader.

Maybe only the punctuation will remain.

                                                       ,              .

Nope, not even that, this line says.

This line won’t finish itself, it needs me.

Ah, but the day?

The day doesn’t need me to finish.

Ten syllabled trees will sway

and darken against the sky without me,

eight syllables of footsteps will own the pavement,

bears will still grizzle or be stuffed cuddlers.

This line will still be lonely, maybe,

or original. Or both.

All of these lines need you.

The Sixth of February Lemon Cake

This is the cake I baked for my mother's birthday. She loves lemon! So do I, so I've been experimenting with lemon cake recipes, tweaking and adding, subtracting, and tweaking again. This one is based on a Martha Stewart cake recipe which I found on the Everyday Food website, but I changed some of the ingredients and added a couple. This is a keeper, and I'm calling it The Sixth of February, because that's my mother's birthday. If you ask me for a lemon cake, and I like you, this is what you'll get.

The Sixth of February Lemon Cake

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature, plus a bit more for the pans

3 cups cake flour (I used Softasilk)

1 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

grated rind of 1 meyer lemon

juice of 1 meyer lemon

1 jar of Dickson's Lemon Curd

Preheat the oven to 350.  Butter two 8-by-2 inch round cake pans; line the bottoms with parchment paper. (This is a pain in the rear. I trace the bottom of the pan on the parchment paper, cut it out, and then use the first one as a pattern for the second. If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm all ears!) Butter the parchment once you've placed it in the pan, and dust with flour. Tap out all the excess. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set it aside. Grate the rind of the lemon into a small bowl. Halve the lemon and juice it, taking care not to let seeds into the juice. Use the paddle attachment on your mixer, and beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture a little at a time, alternating with the buttermilk. Add the juice of the lemon and the lemon rind last, and mix on low until it's blended.

Divide the batter between the two pans evenly, smooth with a rubber spatula, and tap the pans on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake for 30-35 minutes, rotating the pans in the middle of the baking process. Put the pans on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes, then flip, and peel off the parchment. Invert the cakes on the racks and let them continue to cool with the top sides up.

When the cakes are cooled, use a serrated knife and trim the tops of the cakes to make them level. (What a shame! You'll have to taste the extra pieces!) Split each layer into two so you have a total of four layers. Place the bottom layer on a plate or cake stand and with an offset spatula top with some lemon curd, spreading it evenly but leaving an inch of bare cake on the outer edge. Place the second layer on top, and repeat the process until you get to the top of the cake. 

For frosting, you're on your own. Don't feel cheated. I'm not much for measuring during this process, I test as I go along. I make a simple buttercream frosting (butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, dash of milk), and add a little lemon juice to it. I'm not much for measuring during this process, I test as I go along, which is why you're on your own. Have fun!

Valentine

You are everywhere, and covered in snow

in a park where no one even sleeps anymore.

You are the various conversations

between black gloved, very important men.

You are the screen door flung wide

that everyone tries to latch shut.

Whenever I return to you, a fight breaks out,

or someone shoves an eggplant in a tuba.

Oh, my blastoff of lions, my symphony of planets!

I write your name in water spilled on the countertop

and cover myself in books. I lie down in their pages

and swim around in all those letters. You

are in the story that is very near the sea, see?

I am trying to take you home with me.

Other People’s Happiness

Other people’s happiness

is not yours to hold. You

weren’t there for the flower

made of felt,  last night’s

baking scent still snugged

in the rafters, the titmouse

on the feeder. Confess,

that under your system,

everyone else’s happiness

may be as important to you

but you will never understand it.

The seeds of thistles, glory

of fire, temptress spots of the body,

cracked hands prized with dirt,

bootclack on the sidewalk,

salt spit at the corner of the mouth,

blue sky wine.

What pleases you

is not what pleases others,

and tapers to monosyllabic

in the attempt:

Street lamp winks off at dawn,

leaves creak shut, curl,

lift in the sun.

What other people own.

Wisdom

It’s the day I lose what’s left of my wisdom. There’s not much. I’m not sure I really ever had any, and if I did, it was probably on loan. Out they go, the teeth that should have been liberated twenty years ago. The waiting room is all morning television and fluorescent light. Outside, a piece of plastic tries to strangle the branch of a tree. Three other people wait for their names to be called like they’ve made an appointment for a mugging. A large man in a plaid overcoat talks to his ride about every little thing that can go wrong with wisdom tooth extraction. This is his way of overcoming his nerves, I say to myself as I read my book harder. Reading harder means I ask my husband if he will listen as I read to him. He's reading something by Pynchon, and seems happy to oblige, but he also knows it will relax me to read out loud. I hope this will block everything else out, but in this case I only hear the plaid patient's freight train nervousness over E. B. White’s essay titled "Poets". It goes something like this:

These are busy days for poets. There’s dry socket. You hear about that? Now happily, those days will soon be over; because America is to have an authoritative listing of major poets. I was pretty damned wobbly the last time I walked outta here. All a person need do, when confronted by a doubtful bard or a poem of uncertain proportions, will be to thumb through “Who’s Who in American Poetry” to discover if the writer has attained his majority. Yeah, it could get so bad you pass out. You might throw up.

I hope anesthesia is like an elevator ride. You get on, press the button, and for awhile you’re really nowhere – between floors. Ding! You’ve arrived, awake again. I think I might have interesting visions. Maybe I’ll see my dad, or my grandmothers, or some Gordian Knot will be cut.  I finally understand string theory! I can juggle!

My blood pressure beeps up anxiety. There’s a television in the new room too, where they’ve taken away my book and glasses, and connected me to enough wires to keep me cataleptic. A couple of missed veins later, a needle full of something that makes me feel like I’ve had a few glasses of wine, and claret swims behind my eyes. I’m between floors without knowing I’ve even stepped onto the elevator. I am not anywhere.

My husband tells me my heart rate went up when the nurse asked me if I was ok. It went down when I was told he was in the room. That’s the room I always want to enter when I get off the elevator. The one with him in it.

First Grade

She loved to draw and looked like you,

he read books, she played scientist,

he pretended he was a distance

runner at recess. She took kung fu

lessons with her mom, he chewed

on paper (delicious), she was proud

of her older sister, he  bowed

to the teacher. Everyone laughed. You’d

find her coloring each cloud pink,

she kept a seashell and a penny

in her purse, she wore a dinosaur

print dress with sneakers, he liked to think

there was a castle inside every

dandelion. She rolled on the floor.

She dreamed of spiders, he twirled

his hair, she knew there were faeries,

She danced during math,  he buried

a toy gun, she shared her gum with Mary.

She said love is harder than spelling whisper,

She painted long lines, he threw kisses.

Where I Started as a Poem

In the dream I smooth a hand over my belly,

thick with ripeness, a pregnancy, a melon.

It ends in a stillbirth, creativity

bypassed, membranes of thought

flushed. A punishment arranged itself

in my sleep. Judgment of the self.

I wake in celestial sweat, slide one foot

onto a cold floor. I am gladder to be alive

in the dark, in the dank, where I started

as a cloud, where I started as a poem.

Warehouse

Last night’s dream is watermarked stationery,

the sudden and unexpected architecture

of your day. Climb inside, says the deaf man

with binoculars, and the ceiling opens up

into a wave of calendar pages, each one

a reward you can’t reach. Fix it, he pleads.

You don’t feel like repacking old ideas.

Sequential, he demands. His hand

is unfinished, three fingers missing.

He can only point like a gun.

It’s just a day like any other,

a deaf man in binoculars

with you as you butter your toast,

tune in your favorite radio station.

His hand, what did it mean?

Learn a second language, you think

as you tear off yesterday’s

page on the calendar.

Mine Subsidence

Here is the hole. See how it leans

into the yard as if it always belonged,

seeks the warmth of your blood

like a lost kitten.

The borough calls it a hazard.

We call it a household.

Our Most Popular Manipulative

“It’s our most popular manipulative,” she said. Her voice was a highwire of mid-twenties control, a rise and fall cadence like the casual and lull toss of a ball. The trainees sat in rows, folders of papers in their laps, packets of papers to sign. A warship of organization, quite shipshape. There was a powerpoint presentation to follow,  reading along with the papers in the folders, then a dinner of sandwiches and potato chips. The woman with her hair in a frizzy ponytail didn’t raise her hand and was called on anyway. Another three women who sat in the back chatted away without any reprimand. Classroom management was a blip on the radar.  “It’s our most popular manipulative,” the director said as she tossed the pink soccer ball covered in numbers into the air. “Our most popular one. I don’t know why.” Learning is fun.

When she quit the job after only one use of the pink math ball, she recognized the voice from Human Resources as the same trained highwire act from training. The careful phrasing of “We’re going to ask you to go ahead and come in to finish up Thursday,”  and the final parting lob of  “Well, we thought you cared. We’re disappointed because we thought you cared and now the children are the ones who will suffer.” The most popular manipulative. She spiked the ball over the net with “I’m sorry you feel that way. Thank you for your time.”

Prime Meridian

The difference between me and you

is that, well, you are more alphabetical

and I am more numeric.

My God is better than your god,

who you don’t believe in anyway.

The difference between you and me

is skin color, eye color. The length

of your fingers? Spidery. Mine

are worker’s fingers. I live in the city,

you live in the country, and we all

know how important geography is.

You can’t live on the equator,

but you can sail over it and kiss

the fat belly of Neptune,

and become a Shellback,

maybe, if you’re tough.

The difference between you and me

is that you need to crawl through

rotting garbage, and I just have a raw

egg in my mouth. Your great-grandparents

were hit with short lengths of a firehose

while mine wore gloves for tea.

The difference between you and me?

Your opinions, voiced in status updates

on a daily basis, count. Your voice

is heard. Me? I don’t have

a public voice without an online

presence, so my ideas just knife

the air.

The difference between

me and you is, well, you are Filipino,

or Korean, or whatever, and I am

German or English or whatever.

All my relatives

are in silver frames,

and never had sex.

This means nothing, no,

everything in the world,

a glass of milk held up to the moon.

Your war is my war, brother,

we each have blood we need inside

our veins, alphabetical

or numeric. We crawl

on our hands and knees,

heads shaved, as we

hope to cross together

at the prime meridian.

To My Old Addresses

Oakland, NJ:

The apple tree, a yawn of lawn

where my father planted a vegetable garden,

porch where we played, 

a banister where my sister

lost a tooth, the accordion door

to my bedroom. Traffic

lights told stories on my walls.

A-Frame rental, Valley of Lakes, PA:

Red shag carpet, a loft, and stairs

with a space underneath I turned

into a post office. The pond my sister and I named

Anniversary Pond, one I wrote about twenty years later,

falling in love with the idea

of what is underneath the surfaces

of the world. So many.

Valley of Lakes, PA:

A dogwood tree, a deck with a space

left for a tree to grow through it, rooms

where my sister and I slammed doors

or created radio shows, a forest of cicadas

to wake to, dirt roads, a lake and a canoe.

The woods where I grew up, my parents

so young in t-shirts and jeans,

my grandmothers visited on Sundays,

holidays, and birthdays. Potato salad.

Nanticoke, PA:

first apartment during college,

my roommate’s knick-knacks and kimchee.

The Peeping Tom who left

a mountain of cigarette butts

on the lawn by the kitchen window.

Nanticoke, PA:

Not enough outlets to have

the fishtank and the coffeepot

plugged in at the same time,

a landlord who clipped his toenails

while my grandmothers visited

his real estate office. Green

shag carpeting. A kitchen table

from the 1960s, all vinyl and chrome.

My grocery receipts included

items that were only a dollar or less.

Ephrata, PA:

Home with Mom and Dad

for summer, then for a year or so

of a self-imposed college sabbatical.

Scrabble on the side porch, dinners with dad

while mom worked the three to eleven shift

at the hospital. House full of light.

Wilkes-Barre, PA:

Three flights up to a layered torte

of more green shag carpeting. My father

paid some co-workers to help him

haul  my apartment sized piano

up all those stairs. I didn’t play

it enough for that.

Topton, PA:

A slow chain of buildings with

blue doors, and a train that went by

at 1 a.m. every morning.

The piano only went up one flight

this time. When the building manager

had the units sprayed for roaches,

they only worked in the hallways,

so roaches became a staple.

Traps everywhere, scuttling

when the lights were flipped on.

Reading, PA:

Eight months pregnant, I painted

the ceiling of the bedroom

in our brick rowhome, and slept

on a mattress on the floor.

Later, I brought my new daughter

home and there was a bed.

Three floors to play with, and the top

had two rooms for painting and writing.

Our neighbor’s mouth was hidden by facial hair,

and he grew tomatoes where his dogs shat.

Gunfire.

Other neighbors threw eggs

at each other in the street.

Nanticoke, PA:

Here again, hello. Another whole

house to ourselves, two floors.

Cherry tree in the back,

a kitchen big enough to dance in.

Long walks in the strip mined land

my daughter called “The Jungle.”

Edwardsville, PA:

The first house I bought, then bought again

with the help of my parents during a divorce.

Not one right angle in it, thanks to the area's

coal mining heritage. The love of my life helped

paint the rooms alive again. My daughter

wore a cat tail, a ladybug costume,

a prom dress,  a graduation cap,

and then a baker’s toque.

We packed everything

but the years of growth

marked on the doorjamb.

Evidence it Was the Bee

Summer sighs Eh, and schedules herself
for something bigger, better, more colorful.
She's not gentle at all, but everyone loves her
and how she skims the novels of days
for their plot points and burns off their details -
the thirsty toad on the asphalt, seed in a spiderweb,
white pollen scattered on the petals
of a morning glory bloom. Later she asks
what you saw, what it meant.

How Many Can You Do At Once?

Well, up to twenty but sometimes they need a little nudge.
Ok, maybe 30, but honestly, that's a crowd, and I like to take it slower,
so the bigger the better, you know?

So I start with one, add another, keep one licking
around my knees, another two kissing my hands.
Oh they like the hips, sure, and I stall a few there,
let one drop a few inches, grind, then bump him back up.

There's the neck, mhmm, they like that, and I've let one or two
into my mouth, but only if they are clean. I toss the ones
that really want to play, and oh, how we giggle in the grass,
Oh, Oh, O, O, O!

Theorem

After a hard day at work of thinking about poems,
I like to trace the isolated spaces between powerlines
and rooftops. Unpainted triangles in a milky sky,
their spell of geometry is like a prism's
lick across the skin.

At least two equal sides would be satisfying
but this town is nothing but scalene.
Full of obtuse angles.

My neighbor has a family of grackles
nesting in his broken soffiting. That fallen cable
knobs up the isosceles. Children, be quiet,
please. I'm trying to see.

I like to think that poems are always around us
the way that math is, a structure hidden
to those who don't even look,
or who don't want to see.

You know the person.
The one who won't poke a stick
into a stream or hold a pollywog?
Maybe someone has to ignore for balance.

Wheel of Social Fortune

Light is pissed. The stars wrote yesterday
to say their coolness is now an iceball in the face.
The moon never asked for all the light from the sun,
she's fine on her own. Stop thanking the universe

publicly every time someone offers you a ride,
or a stranger pays for your coffee at Starbucks.
Open up a rock. Even a stone has insides,
maybe it's a cave, like a heart, so many paths.

Love? She's had it. Sistered too often with light,
splashed all over social media, she looks
like a prom dress made out of wax. Work
at life with the hush of a moth's wing.

Praise the world by living in it, give in secret
all you have to offer, even your wasp nest words.

--
This not-sonnet is not going to win me any friends. I may even lose a few.

Welcome to Foggytown!

Population: Veiled. Unsure.

A wonder to behold, if you can.

Town meetings every second Leap Year.

It’s so free! Belonging to nothing,

living nowhere but here.

Flip-Flop Handsoaps, Puzzles, and Stretches of Sand

Ah, the fascinating boredom of the beach. It is the only spot where people are likely to work on a puzzle, with the possible exception of a nursing home. The pearly insides of shells call to be touched, and the waves keep wooshing in, then out, and in again. There are waves to be crashed into, beach tags to be checked, the moon to photograph, and constellations of freckles to count. I have plenty of those.

People come from all over to Long Beach Island, New Jersey, to spread out their rainbow of chairs and umbrellas, don their floppy hats, and smear coconut sunscreen onto their bodies. By noon, the beaches are filled with families. Plastic baby dolls bake in the sun outside of the aid of a staked umbrella, while the owner splashes happily by the shoreline until the ice cream bells ring.

A pod of New Yorkers stays put in their staked claim of land, drinking Coronas and laughing. Some very tan young men lie on their stomachs and face each other. One holds a smartphone. They all huddle around its reflective surface as if it were fire. A few girls they flirt with pose on a nearby blanket. There is a lot of hair tossing, and feigned disinterest when their men get up and leave. Twenty minutes later, they leave too. The seagulls close in on the Cheez-Its they’ve left behind. 

We are here for an entire week, and this is the first week off work for the past twenty years for my husband.  So far in three short days we have eaten a lot of toast while sitting around in our underwear, we’ve flown a kite, saved a land locked sand crab, spent a total of 15 hours out in the sun while covered in SPF 1000 sunscreen, and fared just fine without wiFi. My writing “office” is the yellow dining room with a window that overlooks the beach.

The house we’re in is the Jersey Beach house of my childhood. Dark paneled walls and ceilings make it feel like being inside a cheesebox. The dining room is the only room that is painted, and the television, which we haven’t turned on once since we arrived on Saturday, still has a sticker on it that reads “32” LED TV.” The living room art consists of a resin plaque with a rose and the word “Welcome“ on it, and two posters of beachscapes – one of a porch with two Adirondack chairs looking out onto the ocean, and the other of a flower-filled dune.

Flower-filled dune landscapes seem like a good artistic choice after a few days of being lulled by gulls and waves, but everything I buy at the beach is rendered useless and sad at home. I suspect this is a common phenomenon. Beach artifacts. 

A few years ago I bought a large scarf that was perfect for walks in the evening along the shoreline, but when I wear it at home I feel as ridiculous as if I’d wrapped myself up in a piece of Saran Wrap. Shells plucked out of the sand are out of place and homesick sitting on the back of the toilet in the bowl my daughter made in pottery class. Thankfully, I’ve fought off the urge to buy the flip-flop hand soaps that were advertised in The Sandpaper.

On this visit I didn’t win over the henna tattoo. The lotus flowers fade on my ankle out of pure embarrassment now that I am home, having found themselves adrift in a sea of asphalt whose waves wash forward, and forward, and forward forever.

It’s Only Seventeen Quadrillion Gallons of Water

From this angle,

even the glittering water

just seems unhinged,

like a serial-killer

who prefers the summer

months, the thrill

of laughter and play

stretched out on the sand,

ah yes, yes, so close-by.

Lace of foam

at the water’s edge?

Hell, no.

Froth at the mouth. Spittle

of excitement. Drool.

The ocean wants to eat me,

process my precious parts,

no compromise, until I am

just an idea. My husband’s

beloved pattern dismantled.

So many shipwrecks,

skeletal slough now part

of the majesty of a whale,

oh poetry! The circle of life!

I should mention

the lifeguards are people

who still have locker

combinations to remember.

Soft-bellied and drowsy

from long vacations,

we wag in the waves,

leap, shine in saltiness

that keeps us thirsty.

Twist deeper,

ah yes, yes,

nevermind

the hiss.

A Side by Side Comparison of Burlesque and Poetry

Either everything matters, or nothing does. I believe that everything matters. I'm working through a knot of feelings about my creative life, so I came up with this list of notes about two art forms that I love. One is new to me (I made my debut last Wednesday), the other isn't (I made my debut in Kindergarten).

Playing Piano Alone on a Saturday Night

You don't forget any language
you learn as a child. Sostenuto.

Transitioning from note to note
there is no intervening silence.
Legato. I'm no mathematician,
but I feel the music, remember
passages that filled me with sadness
like a battle of seawater when I was fourteen,
find them again in Clementi and Chopin.
Light fingers. Remember.

No intervening silence. Legato.
My father now on a line parallel to mine

I hold my breath
to strike the chord.

Privilege

At the end of a fancy restaurant dinner
I like the sugar cubes that come with tea service.
I dip them into the tea, and watch the efficiency
of liquid wick into the grains, then I place
the saturated cube on my tongue.
Happiness.

Before that, the wine tasted like new envelopes,
then popcorn. The little spoon that supported the work
of the amuse-bouche was so lush with density
I wanted to eat it instead.

I know I don't belong here in this repurposed bank,
sitting among people who have more than a poet's
income. Well, right now we are all enjoying the same
kind of spoon. Ha! Take that! Oh, the bill.

At home my favorite spoon is a spork, it's good enough,
and at my mother's house, I like to use the one
with an elephant etched onto its handle.

I can make that cider with thyme in it
that we both enjoyed so much,
but I won't. I'll make chicken marsala,
or meatloaf, and we'll watch a movie
while sitting on the sofa. Our tablecloths
and their fashionable grease stains
folded into one another
will remain in the cabinet.
Happiness.

Nowhere at the Airport

When you're at the airport, you aren't really anywhere. Priority members, who get to step onto the tiny red carpet laid out for them at the gate, and later eat the warmed up toffee cookie, may feel differently. The airport is an airless, grey, non-space, but it is filled with people with plans. Two men spread shiny wax onto the floor by the exit, their work area cordoned off by caution tape. An older woman and her husband wait on a bench by the windows for their relative for arrive. A few days ago I watched a man on the tarmac idly juggle two orange batons from my spot in 8D. Juggling is a good way to spend the time before you need to wave a plane out of its parking space. The temporary corridor of space that appears to usher you onto the plane always makes me feel like I'm at the oral surgeon's office. Pure dread.

On the plane, I have ritual to keep me sane. I peruse the overpriced dog beds and anti-aging products in Sky Mall. I attentively watch the crew go through the motions with the seatbelt and oxygen mask instruction. When it's time for my complimentary beverage, I choose ginger ale. I keep an eye out for babies and children. A couple of babies might be annoying, but they are insurance against crashing. Everyone is cordial on a plane, until the overhead baggage compartments are full, and the cheerleader stuck in the aisle decides to turn the baggage issue into her own private Tetris game. "Those backpacks can move over there. Whose green backpack is this?"

A man adjusts the air flow vent and finds it broken, perpetually on a gusty flow that sounds like an angry, hushing librarian. The man in front of me for one flight was kind enough to rearrange his seat so I could sit with my husband, and the woman who complimented my bicycle necklace was able sit with her friend and work on pointing at charts during the flight. I stare at the man's S shaped scar for most of the flight. The scar shines at the base of his skull, through the stubble of crewcut. There's bump there too. An accident? A tumor?

As soon as the announcement is made that it is safe to take out any electronic equipment, tray tables are lowered and laptops open up like clams. The evening's cruise over the midwest is shared with people whose faces are lit by blue screens. A man to the left of me works on a Powerpoint presentation. The young man seated by the window next to me pays the extra fee to have internet and watches YouTube videos of monkeys while chatting with someone on Instant Messenger. A woman ahead of us rearranges fashion photos in a Word document. I read a book. In fact, I read three books over the course of four flights, the Sky Mall (twice), and puzzle over why the woman sliding down the inflatable exit on the "In Case of Emergency" instruction card looks like she's at an amusement park. 

Printed words are so soothing when you're really nowhere, in an airport, or over the states you imagine as a map from a geography class in elementary school. Texas is pink. 

Three Mom Memories for Mother's Day

I am fourteen. My father and I wait for mom to come downstairs. She's getting ready for dinner. We are going out, headed to pick up the grandmoms for a Sunday dinner at Top of the 80's. Everything is quiet, except for the water wooshing from the sink where dad fills a glass. Our kitchen table is blessed with sign that reads "VIRTUE" right above it. Just a reminder. The dogwood blooms outside the window. Dad swigs his water. I stand in the corner of the counter between the sink and the stove, with my arms crossed. I'm not a sullen teen, but I am a quiet one. Dad breaks the silence by placing his water glass back into the sink.

You know, you and your sister are really lucky to have your mother. Really lucky. He pauses, thinks. You have no idea how lucky you are to have your mother. No idea.

I look down. I know he's right, sure, but I can't admit it. If I admit to knowing I am lucky, I am going to owe her something big, and I am not in the mood for owing anyone anything. She is going to come downstairs wearing that shirtwaist dress she always wears.

I don't say anything for awhile. He looks back out the window, runs the water one more time to rinse out his glass and put it in the dishwasher.

You have no idea how lucky, he repeats.

I unfold my arms.

I know, I say. I know.

--

My mother stands at the kitchen sink. She is looking out at the dogwood tree, or maybe out beyond it. The sun hits her face, highlights some freckles, the shine on her nose, reveals the lighter downy hairs at the base of her neck. Her profile is lovely, I think. My mother is beautiful. It's the first time I see her the way my father might have. My mother.

--

We sit out on the side porch with the new baby. She's in a red romper, and is still too little to hold her head up by herself, but we prop her up and take photos. It's sunny. It's spring. You're Nana now, Mom. She grins.

--

I'm lucky. I know it. I'm lucky.

Paper Kite Books, Edwardsville, PA

Our yellow and white striped awning
is the only sun on Main Street.
"Make sure you ease it back a couple of turns,"
the installer advised. So I do. The rays
of happiness need some slack. I get it.

Milk crates filled with paperbacks
rest on the stoop, a handmade sign
reads "Give & Take Books." A young
mother and her daughter stopped
yesterday, perused. The mother
held The Velveteen Rabbit
for a few seconds. This morning
the rabbit still supplicates
among the mystery paperbacks.

A local poet's book was stocked
three weeks ago. His first
full-length title. Not one buyer,
but a man with a desire like an arrow
came in to ask about a knot tying book,
and another man with a voice like air
blown into an empty vessel
asked if we were currently hiring.

Each day, a parade of people bob past our windows.
Men whose licenses have been revoked ride bikes
with a case of Keystone Light in the basket.

We're here as the Reference Section,
to remind people that there is sun
so people can point and shout,
"Did you know you can get free books here?"
then turn into the mini-mart lot
and pass the Velveteen Rabbit
to buy their lottery tickets
and cigarettes.

Dispatches from New York City

July 24th 2011

Madison Square Park. A squirrel busks for a cracker. Positively vampy.

39th Street is filled with the trash bags of yesterday's street fair. Sour.

Hot and humid. Even the pigeons look tired.

In the broad bike lanes on Broadway, people sleep with their heads resting on the garden tables.

The Flatiron building.

March 12th, 2012, 17th and Broadway

Tourists pose for photos with the Andy Monument by Rob Pruitt.

Rafiqui's Falafel truck isn't doing much business this morning.

The man with the stand of candy and cigarettes has not sold one bottle of Visine or one box of Razzles in the twenty minutes I have been watching.

Young girls with makeup. Middle-aged women with fur vests and glitzy handbags. Tourists in green sweatsuits with jackets that say "Juneau Alaska."

440 Lafayette

Bellydance class in 4E: "One and two and three and four and oh! Let's try it and turn now. One and two and three and switch. Let's take it from the top, go around if you can." Glad I'm not in there.

It's funny how you imagine a person if you only see them on television or in photos on the internet. When you see that person in real life, they often seem smaller and shier in person. She has a child's smile.
I would miss the city if we moved far away.

Everything here is worn. The floors from dance shoes, the doors from hands, the edges of the walls from shoe taps and large props.
I wish my arms weren't all bruised. I feel worn, too.

March 25th, 2012, 2nd and Bowery

At Peel, the waitstaff stand at the bar, white aprons tied at their waists. A young woman takes a sip of water throughh a straw. As she sips, her eyes widen. Trees bloom outside, tentatively. Glasses and silverware clink. A man in expensive looking loafers with buckles writes in a small notebook and adds to his writing on larger sheets of folded paper. A little boy with curly hair drives his toy car over the top of the ice bucket standing near his table., He isn't tall enough to fetch it out.

The air is heavy this weekend. Pollen. Humidity. Plenty of daffodils loom behind fences.

Deactivation is Inevitable

Well Hell, that poem is null, thanks to a social media blitzkrieg of kitten photos. Shocking. That idea you had? Also sectored out by a comment, a like, a distraction so accurate it was flammable. Mere procedure. Move along. Never mind the landmines.