Poem 24

Here's another poem from my "ghost period". I don't use the motif much any more, but I don't mind seeing it in my older stuff.
This poem is only vaguely autobiographical. Besides, I always had to pour my own cereal.

The Workday

The ghost of your father’s cologne
after he left for work
was what you had to simmer over
at 8:15.
In that bedroom, in your underpants,
you stood breathing
and taking it all in.
The light through the curtains
had begun to reveal the clues.
Possible shoe prints
like smudges in the carpet
and a closet open to an empty hanger
among a crowd of shirts-
it all put together a tidy picture:
the man on his way.
Things to do.
He would be there already
prying open the tabs of his briefcase.
What evidence?
Could Mom have rustled the sheets
on his side
and dripped aftershave in the sink,
wet the razor
before she sat down with the paper,
your cereal piled in a bowl?

Poem 23

I wrote this on Thursday of this week mostly while I was walking to the grocery store. It was one of those days when nothing was really happening sunset-wise, but there were a few clouds packed onto the eastern horizon from the rain earlier in the day.

Let me Say Something about the Dusk

The clouds stuck to the East
like the last scrapings of frosting
in a mixing bowl.

And where they hung,
collecting easy light
from the leaving sun,
only a few in town saw.

Perhaps people driving that way
noticed how the clouds collected there
like the last fans
at a baseball game
watching a team leave the field.

But most, I was sure, thought,
At last,
a clear sky.

It seemed like a waste,
at first,
but I relaxed
because the sky let it go,
knowing she had beauty to spare.

Poem 22

I did not post last week in honor of spring break and the fact that I was out of town.
This poem took shape recently, but it's based on a story I heard from my friend Rachel a few years ago. I changed a few things to keep it a bit anonymous and because I can't remember too many specifics aside from the Post-it notes and the fact that the family involved still found them years later.
3M corporation, maker of Post-It brand sticky notes, may kick my ass for this one.

Knowing Him

When I opened the fridge
after school that day
to grab a can of pop,
I found yellow Post-Its
stuck to the milk carton, the OJ,
the ketchup,
the three-year-old cans of beer.
Taking one off the crisper door,
I read the note
in red-colored pencil:
“The truth will come out.”
That was the last thing Dad told me
because we never saw him again.

Those little yellow slips
covered the house like feathers
of some molting bird.
He stuck them to the piano bench,
the TV, the clock,
Mom’s employee-of-the-year plaque.
Each of the pictures in the hall
had a paper veil
and the doors to all the rooms.
He did not stick one to my bedroom lamp,
but there were two on shirts
that hung in my closet.
My sister had 15 on her dresser alone.
156 total, we thought.

We didn’t know what the truth was
or how long Dad had planned to leave the notes
before packing a small bag with all his socks
and one shirt
and driving off to wherever he went.
Maybe if I listened better,
while he talked about
how each of our atoms
was God,
he wouldn’t have left.
Maybe if Mom hadn’t been so mad
when he bought into
a buffalo ranch in Oregon,
he would have come back
and told us it was a joke.

Even today, and it’s been four years,
we find truth coming out
in brittle, yellow glimpses,
stuck to the bottom of drawers
and the bottoms of shoes
in closets since ’87.
On the back of the smoke detector,
Between books on the third,
but not fourth, shelf,
Behind the mirror in the hall:
like a textbook diagram
showing prepositions.

I wonder what we’ll do
when we find the last one.

Poem 21

I forgot that I wrote this poem or thought it wasn't good enough when I put together the set of poems I wanted to keep working on. A few days ago I happened upon it again, thinking it actually wasn't too bad. It's nice when my past leaves little gifts for my present to find.

I put the first draft down below so you can see that I didn't mess with this one too much as far as content.

Why I Run

The light spread over the sheets
and onto the floor of Saturday morning.
Without shower or coffee
I found the doorknob easy to turn
and the ground eager against my sneakers.

What has pulled me here
amid bird songs and dewed grass,
cars pulled neatly into driveways
like animals at troughs?

My feet pound shoe against asphalt
up the hill and past houses
sharing common floor plans
and different only by paint-
white with blue trim,
cream with burgundy,
the beige of it all
against that sky hot with sun.

I already squint through sweat.
But a wind blows
here along the pavement,
offering me more breath
as the hill punishes my legs
and my calves sizzle and clench.

With the morning so spent,
who cares how I waste this day?