Tuesday Poetry

Well I woke up late for a day which is late heavy. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon in Hartford and immediately after I need to race to campus to work. Campus is not close by. And I am apprehensive about the doctor appointment. I already saw one guy in this office and he was a jackass.

So for today, we get one of mine because it's here. And it's seasonal too. How about that.

Spring 1999
Her hair ribbon's on the counter.
Blue green coil, a plaid crisp when she first bought it
brought it home fresh from the store
still holding the shape of the spool it was cut from.
My mother lifted it out of the bag and held it up to be admired. She had made a big deal of ribbons that month. I don’t recall the details, just the quest: To find a ribbon for her hair.

The bathroom scale is broken, and has been for a while. I still weigh myself on it when I'm home, hearing something stony crunch against the charcoal porcelain tiles.
I wonder when she wears it, why? And how she fastens it around her head. With a bow, small and almost perfect, perched on the top, or worn to the side? In a slipping knot underneath, in the back, so all that shows is a neat thin strip of blue green plaid? What is she thinking when she ties it? When she tries this side, then that, and the shades of lipstick to go?

I would rather not see her hair ribbon wilted and knotted,
obscured by the tumble of cremes and powders,
or lost in the midst of lacquers and gels,
or sulking behind splashes and ointments.
Seeing it crumpled there over rings of rust
caked with dried soap lather, I fight the urge to clean.
I comfort myself by blowing a bit of powdery lint off a corner of the counter.

She is a christian again, or seems so since she goes to church now.
On the door, the useless one that has loose hinges and no knob, she's hung a calendar from the church. It has a picture of jesus and some lambs.
She says she doesn’t WANT to be angry. She asks God to forgive her for hating.
My sister says “if she really wants to stop hating, she should practice on the small shit”.

She wakes up 5 minutes before I leave to drive two hours in the car to clear my head before Monday starts. She comes into the kitchen dressed in a pink robe holding her reluctant cat. The cat jumps to the floor.
She sits on the foot-stool and sighs.
The dogs greet her with wags and snouts, and she pushes them away.
She shoves and says “No, God damn it, No! Go away, fucking dogs”.

She tells me I wouldn’t understand, that it is loathsome to me. I ask her if compassion is really so bad.
We have been given the wrong scripts, I realize this as I am saying my part. Or we are not on the same page.
I flip ahead and back, looking for where she is. She says she hates February. I watch jesus pat his loving lambs above her, calmly waiting for her to turn to April so he can die and come back as a fluffy bunny with candy and plastic grass to teach us that an egg is just an egg.

Today is March 1, but I do not tell her. Any contradiction will be taken as a blow, and I'm still looking for a smooth ride home. And anyway, God will forgive her for not knowing what month it is, for blaming the days and weeks, for hating Februrary, for hitting the dog in the face for trying to give her a kiss. Everyone knows God likes plaid.