June 6 - 8
June 6
overflow
I pull the dust bunnies
from out under my bed
by hand
I tell you
I love you by hearting
your texts twenty
first century apologies
maybe my smiles always flirt
with the pharmacist who doesn’t
confirm date of birth last name
when I need these refills
on endless pills I’m here
too much
I find eighteen socks
beneath the bathroom sink
none of them
are yours some of them
aren’t mine
out of the attic
I toss down worn flannels
homed with moths spoon
feed on plaid and all
the softer for it
books nestle by height
in drawers as you can’t
reach shelves like I do
right hand slack
you holler about coffee grabbing
the scoop wrong ruins
your morning
half-caff in the afternoon
at midnight you cry in wakefulness
I holler at you
about doing PT every
time I see you, then
every week
then only when I remember
I stop texting you
anything
your number becomes
assigned to someone else
In winter the rotary phone
in your office rings before
I can answer
you stop
I leave your webs
I’ve killed too
many brethren
when I was small now
I sloop you up in my forever
hands and wander you
out the door
June 7
The Pigeon Poem
I promised my roommate I’d write a poem about pigeons
about a tiny pigeon cobbler
making little pigeon shoes
for the hot summer days in the red bricks of Boston
about tiny nurse pigeons
caring for tiny wounded pigeons
from out in the war against the raptors
about tiny prosthetists pigeons
making tiny pigeon prosthetics
replacing missing toes and amputated feet
about tiny lawyer pigeons
suing the MBTA
train moving too fast for Dr. P. Columba
about tiny undergrad pigeons
bobbling from class to class
their tiny bird brains crammed in books
about tiny street vendor pigeons
in their tiny food trucks
slapping down food with a foot, taking money with a wing
about tiny pigeon children
flip-flapping to tiny pigeon schools
looking back at pigeon parents heading to pigeon jobs
but not about the ICE agent pigeons
they don’t want to be pigeons anymore
they’re not pigeons anymore
they can’t be tiny, don’t want
the contentment of walking
on cobbled streets, on rock
sure communities –
time to be the fattest pigeon, instead
of a famished pigeon, the pigeon king
my roommate didn’t want me to write about
scary pigeons who are hard
to see amongst the others
their gray and white feathers blending in
that’s until they molt and they’re proud
the skin they’ve pinked
I don’t want to write a poem about pigeons
but they sit next to me when I wait
for the T, plus I know how
to coo in harmony
June 8
On the Restoration of Wells College’s Statue of Minerva’s Head to Her Body
for 156 years of Wells College Alumnae
The Restorationist guilded your severance
with stony glue, aligned you,
with that soft precision as you deserved, rebar
drilled deep into your body and brain, reassuring
her. No one could sidle such love
to ground you headlessness
without alighting your scroll of wisdom.
Your daughters’ grief agonied
waved upon you in rainbow forms:
your rage of war, paradigm of strategy,
Kintsugi of hearts, frozen lake,
geese demanding in the 2 am hush.
Your daughters forever rush to your honor.
Your beheaders didn’t mean –
– they love you too – kissed
your face with fears, lips
raw with the blood of consequence.
Their bodies pushed stark to implications,
to lost jobs, lost paychecks,
a last tryst across your campus.
You forgave them, headless
as you were, but never heartless
You lead daughters in battle
whole, calm in your alcove
breathing in our feathered fears,
exhaling it as arrayed wisdom
we inhaled in return.
When we left your care we kissed
your feet, you deserved
our soft marble savior.
When we arrived to you, home
upon your armored breast, a liminal
space of devotion it was your sacred,
immovable hands that caressed
our scared hearts, forcing our chins up
– look at that world
it is yours