Beloved

God is wherever two or three

are gathered, like at this recovery

meeting where one regular

is drunk and two have brought their new

twin girls. They have dubbed

my friend Uncle.

Our facilitator, diagnosed

with PTSD today, has asked us to close

our eyes and pay attention

to our breath and to the music

coming from her phone.

It feels to me like a Quaker meeting

again and also like winter recesses 

again, spent indoors playing 

those guessing games 

of who touched me. 

This is the best part of my life

now, sitting beneath flickering

florescent lights with these people 

whom I want to call

my family - 

Eyes closed waiting for God

to tiptoe in, to choose  

me, to make me 

beloved.

A Baby and Someone Else 4/8/18

to look at a baby
is to look at yourself
for a long time,
for years really,
before you
realize
she is not
a baby and somebody else
anymore.

she is just
herself now.

you had no idea
who she would be
when you looked upon
her face,
face to face
for the first time.

her hair was so much
more than you thought
it would be.
it was so black
and it had that curl.

her fingers were so much
smaller than her brother's
or any other baby's
you'd ever seen
up close
or imagined.

her nose was perfect.

her mouth was perfect.

and when you spotted
her tongue
you felt like
you spotted
a dolphin
on a day cruise
you took once
but couldn't
afford.

you were twenty-six
and she was
your last baby.

she was the baby
who made you
the mother
of a whole family
while you were
still in your
twenties.

all around you
it was the
twenty-first
century
and you'd never
believed
in a sexist god
or voted for
a republican
in your whole
young life.

weren't you a curiosity.

wasn't that
your thing
for a little while?

she was the baby
who made you
a young woman
with a baby
again.

she was the toddler
who made you
the young mother
of a certain kind
of toddler,
the kind that
is hard to raise
feels so much
is some kind of fairy -
beautiful
magical
not of this earth really
with dark hair.

and then suddenly
you are a woman
all of your own
for the first time
all alone
for the first time
realizing
this baby
is a person now
and you aren't
more than
her mother
necessarily.

it's just
now you aren't
even
her mother,
not completely.

because
this baby,
like all the ones
who came before her,
is writing the stories
of herself
and you aren't
on every page.

wilderness 1/4/18

Where have you been God? because I've been in the wilderness.

In the old days, the wilderness meant Missoula, MT, walking around Walmart at midnight with our food stamps and our WIC checks and our wedding rings and our boy. I had panic attacks in the check-out line.

I first noticed you in my baby's face on a sunny day at a Quaker meeting.

Me and my husband, all alone in that town, thought we invented parenting. We thought we invented routines and bedtimes. We thought we were the first people to ever clean shit out of baby clothes.

Two years in that town and the only friend I made was that beautiful boy with buttery little cheeks, and you

We settled Missoula - the most beautiful place you'll ever starve to death, where you can't eat the scenery, where no one ever lived or thought of having a baby before we invented the whole thing, where God finally showed up.

But this wilderness, three states and 12 years later, was settled and sprawled out and then frozen hard. I came here once in the middle of the night when I was 19. Out the car window, I saw a colony of bee boxes and a low moon. I felt like I was on another planet.

The bible I read said nothing about other planets, but it talked a lot about hell. It was my friend Jenn though who said hell is just separation from God.

I miss you, God, in my new wilderness. My boy is so forgiving - of me, of the miles I put between him and homes left behind, of the nine city blocks I put between my home and his dad's. But he doesn't believe in you anymore, and I wish I knew when you were coming back.

Jesus Year 12/11/17

Here I am, Jesus, in my Jesus year, and I am transformed.  I have regressed and I have returned to places that have grown much uglier in 20 years - places like emotion, like vulnerability.  Where did you go when you went away for 20 years?   Were those the years you filled with building a good life, and then it got destroyed just like that?

Hop a Train in November

Well, Stephanie.  Here we are having just made love on a train and we aren't even married.  And when I say train, I mean a boxcar and also that I will never marry you - never never.  Whatever is wet is also cold now.  You said the floor stole all the heat from your butt, Stephanie, but the whole front on my pants is frozen.  It's real ice.

There are always women hitting their little children on the Greyhound bus.  A good day is when it is just me and the parolees.  You could be there with me or not.  I think all in all, both ways of getting around have their minuses, even if I did just get a nut. Being on a bus, I just ignore the little kids getting smacked.  I go to sleep and try not to say anything to whoever might sit next to me.  It's warm there, and the seats are soft.  They smell awful, but on a train, I use one corner to piss in, so that doesn't smell too good either.  If you piss out the door, you gotta have one hand on your dick and the other holding yourself steady.  You could fall right off the train if it's moving, and who knows when it will stop, and sometimes your really have to go.  Other times your piss blows right back into your face and all over your clothes. Greyhound, they have a bathroom right there on a bus.


I regret we made love too, Stephanie.  So there you go - all points in favor of the Greyhound bus. Now that I think about it, a good ride would be just me, some parolees, and you in some city far away from me while I ride the bus in the opposite direction. 

I guess there's some things a person just doesn't get over.  For me it's all the shit you did to me last year.  I went to a Baptist school, Stephanie.  It was always your idea to get undressed.  You invited me to live in your room.  You got mad when I pulled out.  You left our free condoms on some sidewalk in Austin, Texas.  Now I'm going to Hell and you're following me around again talking about marriage.

Ryan Patrick

Home again and my face
slides
down my neck
in handfuls
at the thought of you
in a number of shirts.

One is red
and like a ribbon
and compliments your hat.

I think of stickers
you chose for me -
a yipping dog, perhaps,
with ambiguous genitalia.
Perhaps an orphaned
spoon.

I think of words
we called one another
like gamete, zygote, and fetus,
but not baby.

I think of your relationship
with the spirit world
and the things you predicted for me
in your bedroom.

I think of games we played
and did not play
because time got away from you
and Iowa loves
its prodigal son.

In my dream
you are not allowed to talk to me
or to feed yourself.
I tell you what you need to hear
in broken English
and piggish French groans.

I feed you and I feed you
as you gesture
with green eyes
and stiff shoulders
at plates of crackers, melon, and berries.

What on earth do we have
to be proud of?
Asks Nan Reagan
and a bevy of oversexed
children.

The answer is,
our bodies:
home of our spirits,
our love,
our human connection,
and the lizards.

Born in a Prison, part deux (or Matrimony of Self)

YOU WERE BORN IN A PRISON. Break the chains and marry yourself. Naked in a public park. Officiated by the fresh air that remains and the gawking millenials on their IPhones. Pledge nothing. Divorce yourself often and for free.