The Needle Pointed Corkscrew

In my youth, I had a friend, my best friend

We shared secrets no one else could know

With no warning, she betrayed me

Like a needle-pointed corkscrew, she ripped my heart

I couldn’t take a breath without sharp agony

But somewhere in my hollowness

I still love her

Years later, I had a friend, so close and reliable

We shared secrets no one else could know

I became the needle-pointed corkscrew in his heart

He had to turn away, banish me from his life

I knew his pain, I regret my betrayal

I know that beyond his sorrow

He still loves me.

Twenty Lovers

In the springtime of my life

I set goals, many goals.

One I knew I could easily quantify,

Twenty Lovers

The first was chosen carefully.

Who deserved to capture my virginity?

It turned out he was a virgin too.

All we needed was each other’s body,

Until we didn’t.

The second was better.

I knew what I hadn’t known before.

He was generous,

I was indulged, I learned.

He left me wiser.

The third was great.

Now I wanted more than his body.

I wanted his mind, maybe his soul.

He lit me from the inside.

Our passion was bright, hot, and short.

The fourth, well, they can’t all be good.

He took from me what I didn’t want to give.

He mastered me for a time.

I learned his game and left.

My ego dented, questioning my goal.

The fifth was, no is

The last in my life. Not merely a lover,

My love. Even if he leaves me

There can be no other.

He is my forever.

This poem is dedicated to those who were not fortunate enough to find their perfect love on the first try but did find it at last. This is a sample of stories they told me.

His Hands

His large hand enfolded my own tentative, smaller one on our first date, a move at once assertive but reassuring.

His hands cupped my face, tenderly bestowing our first kiss, third date.

His hand on the small of my back guided me around the dance floor on prom night, and then into our life together.

His hands took mine before God, friends, and family, and placed a ring on my third finger, left hand.

His hands that I crunched with intensity every time cascading labor pains racked my body.

His hand gently held the head of our newborn, her little feet barely reaching the length of his arm to the crook of his elbow.

His hands challenged his copper-miner father’s tough hands to arm wrestling duels – winning more than half the time.

His hand deftly translated an engineer’s arithmetic scribble into precisely drafted drawings of a bridge, or a building, or a subdivision with roads and utilities.

His hand, large enough to hide a baseball and manipulate the shape of a pitch with fingers across seams, two or four, so that it would float surreptitiously by or speed swiftly past a ready batter.

His hands devoted their strength to sensual massages of my body and much appreciated foot rubs.

His hands could fix a toaster or rewire a house.

His hands could stem a bathroom flood or change a kitchen faucet.

His hands cut firewood for our fireplaces.

His hands could adjust a timing belt on an engine or change a tire with dexterity and ease.

His hands mastered every tool needed to maintain our home and cars.

His hands painted every wall in our house with sometimes two or three colors in a room, the joining place of the colors knife-edged perfect.

His hands taught our grandson to build an RC airplane and fly it.

His hands, my safe place.

His hands changed when Parkinson’s appeared with trembling that became shakes, then quakes, until he could barely get a fork to his mouth using both hands.

His hands returned to peace after brain surgery calmed the quakes.

His hands, thin-skinned with ropey blue veins near the surface now weakened, no longer able to open pickle jars or pop champagne corks with aplomb.

His hands still reach across the bed at night to rub my back, soothing unspecified tensions that hide in the crevices of my being.

Thinning the Past

Most of us have décor in our homes: Tchotchkes, pictures, bits and baubles, generational curios, memory laden echoes of our time on earth. My house is full of them. They bring a smile of remembrance. Occasionally I endeavor to thin them out. Endeavor being the operative word in that sentence.

Why, oh why, do I need a 10” yellow ceramic duckling in my curio cabinet? Because it was once a treasured keepsake for my mother. It was given to her by a friend she loved and lost many, many years before Mom died. I remember that friend, and I remember how much my mother loved the duckling. How can I toss it? It is a piece of my mom.

Some of the artwork was given as gifts by friends and family. We have porcelain figurines by Lladro given to us by our niece in Spain that are dear to our hearts. There are carved wooden figurines that Mom brought back after our trip to Germany. We have crystal and glass that dates back to great-great-grandparents.

Most of my walls are filled with photos of friends and family from great-grandparents to our grandchild. I can go to any room and reconnect with those people. We love to take out-of-town visitors to Tombstone and have a photo taken in old west period clothes. Our visitors have endured our obsession. Those pictures reside in various rooms. I chuckle about the memories every time I look at them.

We have collected artwork over our sixty-plus years of marriage that has significance for us. We remember the why and where of each painting and print. A print of praying hands by Albrecht Düerer (1508) graced my great-grandparents living room from the time I remember as a small child. On the back is written 1896. I assume that was when they acquired it.

Among our eclectic collection, we have two prints by Michael Parks, a Salvador Dali, a Diego Rivera, a Renoir, an Edward Hopper, native American drawings, as well as original paintings by close friends who are amazing artists. NONE of which I would part with willingly. I love looking at them every day.

Is it living in the past? Well, maybe, but we have so much more past than future, why not? I’m willing to add new mementos as they arrive.

It is popular among my friends to talk about divesting themselves of those “things” that won’t mean anything to their children or grandchildren. Much of my wall art and shelf dwellers were acquired when our children still lived with us and may evoke a memory or two. I admit the things we collected have no monetary value and will probably not be passed along. They still bring me pleasure and will until I die or become catastrophically forgetful. I want to enjoy them for the remainder of my life, and then, I really don’t care what they choose to do. I will be on to bigger and better things.

One of my favorites is a print of The Juggler by Michael Parks that is on the wall of my office. Our writing critique group had a prompt to write about a piece of artwork or a photo in our house, and what it means to us. This is a poem about The Juggler.

The Innocence of Childhood

Believe.

Anything is possible.

She balances on the precipice of flight

Into the season of ripeness;

Into a world

That doesn’t remember the magic.

She watches once more,

In wonder, the magician

Blindfolded to reality.

He balances

On the tightrope of life.

Juggling

Three lessons of childhood:

Love without borders, authenticity, curiosity.

She will carry these throughout life.

The Juggler by Michael Parks

Death Nudged Me Today

To Gerry 5/4/45 to 4/10/19

This poem was written six years ago after the death of a dear childhood friend. Years accumulated without contact between us. In her final months, she reached out to me, a tender reminder of the bond we formed over sixty years before as twelve-year-old girls. Our families both relocated to Bellevue, Washington the summer before our 7th grade year at school; hers from Oregon, mine from Kansas. We were the newbies so naturally clung to each other as we learned how to navigate a new school and integrate into a new community of teens. She will always be a happy memory. Today is her birthday – Happy Birthday, Gerry.

Death nudged me today.

Just to say, Remember

I will be your escort one day.

She was a friend of childhood,

A bosom buddy in a mutable time.

We were close, two coats of paint.

Teen dances at the gym

Girlhood angst

Secrets whispered and shared

A rambunctious orb of energy

Her infectious laugh

Reached the corners of my preteen world

She, the adventurer

I, the eager sidekick

Exploring adolescence together

A blueberry summer, picking for money

Her buckets overflowed, mine barely topped

She reaped a summer salary, I lasted two days

Blessed with natural athleticism,

She excelled in gymnastic maneuvers.

My feet refused to leave the ground.

An enthusiastic cheerleader, she leaped

My leaps fell short, I tried

My place in the bleachers assured

By high school, our paths diverged

Friendship, a shadow

Not gone, just faded

Our last summer together after school

She led the way, I followed

Clerks at an insurance agency

She married, I married

She had a baby, I had a baby

Then two, and one extra for me

Ambitious and motivated

She had her own business.

I focused on three children.

Our contact was sparse

Never completely closing the gap

To reclaim friendship

She moved, I moved

She divorced, I didn’t

The contours of our lives unaligned

She moved to the desert, Las Vegas

I moved to the desert, Tucson

No contact for decades.

She reached out

A year ago, email

Stage 4 cancer was the verdict.

I sent prayers, encouragement,

Cards and emails for months.

She died.

The phantom of our friendship

Rests in my heart.

I see her smile, her laugh an echo.

It will be my turn someday

To dance with death.

Again, she led the way.

An Ode to Isoroku Yamamoto

I would not be alive

Were it not for December 7, 1941,

A brazen incursion of Japanese chutzpah.

I am a consequence of war.

A Kansas farmer joined the Army Air Corps

To fight the good fight.

He trained at Lowry Field in Colorado.

My mother, a young Denver girl,

Met him on a blind date.

Relationships blaze quickly in wartime.

They married within weeks.

Thank you, Yamamoto

Yellow – an Ode to Palo Verde Trees

The color of spring

The color of sneezes

The color of itchy eyes

Most of all

The color of happy

what goodbye feels like

Over 60 years in each other’s lives,

Surfing the waves of highs and lows.

Enduring tsunamis of emotion.

Living, loving, hating but never ignoring.

Always engaged

Now as we head to port,

The end almost in sight,

We navigated mainly with fair winds and following seas,

Occasionally full sails held close to the wind,

And the doldrums, only pauses that emphasized

The beauty of our voyage.

Memory is a quirky thing

Good ones leap to mind

Jumping fish at the end of eternity’s pole,

Bad ones huddle, snakes in a dark basket

Only stirred forward by prodding.

But why prod? It was done.

Done.

We are solid, a team

We smile at the same songs

We crack up at private jokes

We get teary over tiny gestures

We are grateful for each other’s company

Unnumbered days ahead, begin to feel numbered.

How many?

I’ve never been good at math.

Numbers have been known to lie.

I only know that the days are precious

Not endless as when we were seventeen

How did we last so long?

How did we come so far?

Together!

A mystery that needs no resolution.

Chronos has ushered us nearer to our ‘sell-by’ date

Health is now the prominent daily topic

Parkinsons has robbed you of prime vigor

I assume roles for which I didn’t audition

Mutual patience is our new superpower

The thought “will he be here next year?”

Now resonates in daily reckoning.

But the question, “will I?” comes less frequently.

How will I be me without you?

The tether is so strong.

I am only an actor in this play

Not the author

I am not privy

To the final scene

I will play it as it comes

With faith

I wrote this poem for Ken in celebration of his 80th birthday and over 61 years of being together.

Nine Eleven O’One

I’m sure all Americans who were adults, even children on September 11, 2001 remember the horror of that September day. Ten days later I was on a plane from Tucson to Seattle and the images of buildings toppling and people throwing themselves into the air were fresh in my mind. Could it happen again? When? Where? How would it feel to be the sacrifice to that terror. This is the poem I wrote while on the plane to Seattle. On the twenty-third anniversary, I am wrapped in the emotions I felt that day.

Billowing palisades, pewter airfalls

            Cascade in slow motion

                        Overflowing the fountain of commerce

                                    Gracefull and grotesque

Soft tarnished silver clouds

Enfold futures lost

                        Spewing them

Into a bright Manhattan morning

Elegant plumes tumble gently one over another

            Carrying tattered remnants of lives

                        Ripping spirits from bodies

                                    Turning their shells to ash

Is there a torture more sublime

            Moment by moment terror

                        Smelling the hot acrid breath of death

                                    Approaching their prison in the sky?

Does hope flee quickly

            Or does it leak slowing

                        From the corners of their eyes

                                    As the dusk of life turns to night?

Written September 21, 2001 on a plane from Tucson to Seattle.

And I Fly

Our writing group writes to a prompt for each meeting. A recent one was the challenge to write an anaphora poem. First I had to look up what an anaphora poem was. Anaphora is a literary device to emphasize meaning or create rhythm in poetry or prose by using a word or phrase repetitively.

It is exemplified by Charles Dickens’ – It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity… giving a rhythm to the opening paragraph of Tale of Two Cities.

Or Martin Luther King’s – I have a dream…. repeated nine times in his speech delivering his dream of hope for our nation.

Or William Blake’s poem London: In every cry of every Man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban,…

This is my attempt at anaphora.

And I Fly

I fly in dreams

Across landscapes of imagination

Reaching for adventure.

And I fly

I fly across time

Unbounded through memory

Yesterdays as fresh as flowers.

And I fly

I fly with my mind

Examining my interior world

Life an unending mystery.

And I fly

I fly with words

Extending my thoughts

Through story and poem.

And I fly