The Initiate
Elegy
Last week I lost a molar
To an almond
Nesting sneakily in a chocolate bar
But like hard times
It left a void
But not a scar
In New York or L.A. it would hit retinas like a slap
"Why doesn't she have that fixed?"
"And while you're at it
A little nip and tuck, sweetie", they'd say
But beauty's a temperamental muse, I've discovered
And middle age just a dull surprise
And how did the young men in this town
Miss the memo about older women?
With whom do they explore
The incertitudes they hide
Behind their ursine beards?
Though I've no appetite left for conquest
I still ponder what stirs them to covet
A starry-eyed Wisconsin girl in a chain store sundress
Worshipping at the shrine of her smartphone
Striding swiftly by, not seeing the phalanx
Of medical buildings that line the campus drive
Her swirling hemline taints sunburnt thighs
With the residue of sweatshop squalor
Or a frosty goth princess with a drugstore rinse
and a chipped black manicure
That sets off a slender white finger
Which is poised to deliver
A bruise-colored dollop
To her pillowy labret-ed mouth
Because I don't care for geezers
With extravagant eyebrows
As long as your thumb
And unquestioned entitlement thick as tar
To hell with your tenure
I won't be your nurse
This Midwestern town with its starlight and sunsets
And maple-lined streets dead quiet after ten
Except for the army of cottontails who
Under the nacreous moonlight ravage the lovely gardens
While the neighbors sleep soundly
In their quaint victorians
Yes, now I see - I live in a solar system and in the mornings
Eat buttered toast outdoors in the company of honeybees
And drink malty beer in hipster bars
When all I want is a proper martini
Served by a silver-haired Italian American gent
In an oak-paneled joint in Midtown
And no, you can't have my location
I'm still set to East Coast time
Because I crave an hourly reminder
Of that long ago, never to return place
That I pathetically cling to
In an implacable fog of resentment
New York City's a ghost who refuses to leave
A fine white powder still coats my skin
Of asbestos mixed with the ashes
Of the bones and viscera of the dead thousands
The filth and the noise are here too
And the fire-
The burning fire of tender souls
And of love that left the detritus
Of unrelenting regret like the aftertaste of sour milk
And the wounds on my back
A tally of false friends
Who wielded jagged knives
The morning-after shame
Of unbridled behavior among polite company
Strutting sultry-hot sidewalks
In four and a half inch stilettos
After one too many cocktails at the Four Seasons
Or the Oak Bar, or the Carlyle
But Bobby's gone now
And so are the wretched porn palaces on 42nd Street
Etched in grainy black and white on my brain
Because that's how I remember them
In the colorless night
*Originally published in The Commonline Journal, March, 2016
Mother
At the lavender light she retires to her room
Furnished with thrift and mementos
Murmuring a susurrus narrative
In time with the others
Lurking, waiting...
Anchored to the floor with leaden-soled slippers
Lest she drift through the rose-scented walls
A blood-red sun sets over Erie
Where the skeletons of steel mills now share the shore
With wind turbines and a half-finished bike path
One day soon we'll pedal all the way to Toledo
Across the road
The houses glow pink in the ripened dusk
And televisions flicker blue-hot flames
Comforting the half-dead in threadbare chairs
Awaiting release from indifference
While the dog next door
Starved and anxious
Howls along with the gales off the lake
That rattle the windows like
Waves against a sea wall
In every room clocks tick time in unison
With pulsating blood and nerves
A golden angel appears to her
Puts her on hold for a moment
And patches her through to St. Francis
Who informs her that the cats are happy in paradise
But I knew it already because we all saw
That robin dredged in a sugaring of snow
Perched fearless as we approached
And the pretty blue feather quivering in the dunes
On the way to Alamosa
The carpenter ants she equates with the plague
I wonder if they hear her radio
Through the drywall like I do
Or crawl through her drawers
Where my gifts to her have been stored:
A silk scarf bought on a flight home from Paris
The amethyst ring I wrought decades ago
Both saved for an occasion that never arrived
A boomerang hovering on the cusp of a rebound
A self-referential bequest
Church bells trigger a fog of memory
Of a smoldering thurible in a long-ago mass
Swung about by a phalanx of mitred holy men
Smiting the gaping sins of the world
Over at St. Christopher's on the boulevard
I've wasted so much time on bullshit since then
Tainted water wrung from a filthy rag
Lawn sign platitudes won't save us now
Nor hopeful words chalked on the drive
Washed away like dust by overnight rains and
As futile as yesterday's party balloons
Drifting across the primordial grass
Dwindling over time
Like daylight in winter
*Originally published in Gyroscope Review, Fall/Winter, 2021
Yellow House
At the end of the road
Stands the yellow house
Consumed by flames
Turning blue sky to smoke
A rain drowns the smoldering ash
And in the calm of evening
The moon rises through the clouds
wearing the limonite flare of mars like a crown
I've left the shoes I couldn't fill
Outside on the lawn
To be swallowed up by mud and leaves
And unrelenting nights
There, in that place
The fevered flower will bloom anew
Come spring
*Originally published in Making Waves: A West Michigan Review
Hear me read it here: https://ludingtonwriters.org/mwwm/making-waves