The Raspberry Jam 1/10/23

I am, finally, just like my mother.

Coffee carries water and I don't eat

until noon. We wear our bangs the

same, thinned and fanned out like

a brown parasol. Just an egg, please.

Toast, sure. The raspberry jam. The

sunny spot, I click red nails to key-

board, I care enough but very little. 

I flick the curl from my eye, I wear

glasses. When I think about death,

I don't fear my own. It's others; I don't

want to miss you. I want to be a family

with long summers and warm mornings

the house plants growing, the evenings

full of hot winds. When I think of

my life, I think of my mother, would

she smile knowing how much and 

how little I care? How changed I am,

and yet, the same, the same, as every 

iteration of us, every evolution surely,

graciously became. Mama says we 

all have the same eyes, she says sisters

are like leaves on a tree.

person place or bird

we are practicing the imperfect tense

and Elena asks (in Spanish) what’s something you did as a kid

that you don’t do now
I say I cried a lot as a kid

but now
I cry even more

she asks what was the last party you went to like
I say I brought a cake

and a hurt pigeon I found on the way
I brought the cake in a box
I brought the pigeon in a paper bag
I ate a sausage

and headed uptown to bring the pigeon to the wildlife clinic

how was it? Elena asked

misunderstanding, I said the cake was delicious, the party was fine

no, the pigeon, she corrected

and not having the words or the grace in any language
I say, she’s dead now

and we both frown

MY BROTHER’S FRIEND

my brother’s friend is being cancelled he’s had a lot of friends cancelled cancel themselves cancel each other a lot of friends die the other day i sold the camo carhartt hoodie then got a text from him that his dead friend gave it to him so i had to return to the counter and ask for it back she paused and winced and then i told her about the dead friend and she said ok, it is a really good hoodie, now it’s with me til he’s back it’s way to big for me but i like how the wrists weigh down as i conduct around my space, boil water, write a line, look for fingernail clippers, the other friend is “unsurprising” my brother says but also the videos keep coming and then i get in an argument about it where i find myself defending a bluff that i have no real belief in but that’s the way it goes we don’t know the people we just read the sentences in the largest font but i was around him my brother did does know him he’s in the psych ward now he came over he was younger than the other boys and they rapped in the basement and then the CD was confiscated by the soccer moms and my dad was across the country with his dying dad so i was in charge i made them spaghetti for every meal and did not catch the contentious content in time so there had to be a family meeting and money had been exchanged and the boy who is now cancelled was the littlest and also the best at rapping though he had an entirely fake voice but how startling for a child to learn an affect like that the persona did not stick exactly he changed again and again and is still changing

 I dream that you have a new insta account
@lennycuts4u
I log back in to watch you 
snip away at various textiles 
wearing a black and white striped tee
snow piling up in your windows

Simple Imagery

To make sense of dread,

words are enough,

I could have toiled for months

thinking

I have an axe over my head-

many nameless judges hold it

but I held piano competitions

in my stomach and whatever

bilious pulse chimed and

made me land sick from the car.

Perhaps a piano competition is

the only thing I've ever pinched the ends of,

folded neatly and filed away as

ahh but I was a child

what does it matter.

I may have accepted an offer in June,

something I could have done once 

in my sleep -

all I hear is the headmaster

saying "Matthew competed over the

weekend and now he will perform for you

now."

I wept bitter tears of terror on the veranda.

I skulked to the tray with the sheet music,

Sarah looked concerned, which was enough,

I somehow smashed it, better than the weekend,

where I was average.

I could have and wished 

I'd thought "- fucking pulled the rug 

didn't you?" 

Simple imagery as I rolled from

the axe rapidly coming down. 

How will I show

Rowan to make sense of dread?

Cindy

Cindy waited like a masterless puppet 
in the corner of the couch, hanging 
on… Christmas tree on
her sweater, still

…staring at a painting of Paris, I made 
observations as simple as death–
and Cindy made a river, 
as muddy as youth, and as lonely

She looked up at me… with traveling eyes
said, I feel ocean wide, and nothing else.
Slow shards of helplessness punctured
the present, left the past… bleeding out  

we held hands and surrendered, listened...
the silences of our bodies
lapping up against each other
like waves, like waves

carefully stepping 

over abundant loose ends, 

"I gotcha there, bud."