Choices

No need to tell me your sad story. I know how your world worked with Angela. Upside down. Crisscross. Days and memories folding over one another until you couldn’t tell up from down.
Sometimes she was the woman you couldn’t wait to see, other times, angry times, you ran from her, faster than the wind. Even after your children disappeared you found reasons to stay.

No crying on my knee. No bunching my skirts and wailing about Angela locked behind bars. She made her choices, you made yours.

At one time my choice was you.

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I Love You

Before your heart turned
break-your-back mean
you were giving
softer than a goblet of deep red Bordeaux.

For two years you and I followed the same path
making love between clean cotton sheets at sunrise
or
perhaps
many hours before

And at noon
in grape fields
littered with angular stones
that scratched divets in our backs
divets we laughed about while lathering one another in our open-air shower
kissing, wishing
hoping
for a child

Or at midnight, underneath moss-covered cliffs
my favorite
if the rain held

But the rain didn’t hold
Squall followed squall for 106 days
conjuring your anger and my angst

You declared you wanted freedom
Another life

The air I breathed smothered you
How could that be?
My fault?
Your fault?
No one’s?

Now, even as I leave you
hoping you find the man you want
all I can say is:

I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

Pain Relief

Boy-o-boy! Don’t know what me and the boys drank last night but it must’ve been good.
Must’ve been plenty.
Nothing’s in focus. Buildings are all wonky and, at this end of the street, there’s a giant caterpillar face.
Do you see it? Just there?
Oh, never mind.

Džons. That’s what we drank! That’s what the clean-up crew always drinks.
Me, Juris, Edgars, even Ilze drink when we’re done digging through rubble looking for the remains of our families.
Ilze. So beautiful! I hope we’ll marry when this ugly war is over.

Džons is the only way to relieve the discomfort of concrete dust that dries our nostrils,
and clear the stench of moldering flesh.
Džons. Džons. Džons.
Džons runs through my veins day and night.
Džons keeps me sane.

“Come with me, Love.” Ilze gently steers her husband’s wheelchair out of the garden and into the asylum’s foyer.

The Remodel

Today Pegman took us to Middle Torch Key, Florida. I had fun researching flora and fauna and bugs. I hope you enjoy the result.

When Roger drug me to Middle Torch I figgered I’d died and gone straight to hell without even sniffin the boundaries of purgatory.
Our slapped-together house on stilts was so far offshore we rowed through a mile of skeeters just to climb a ladder into what served for a kitchen.
Not sayin nothin bout the bedroom.
Screw worms, ants and love bugs that didn’t show love to no one but theirselves tormented me like the devil hisself.

Days brightened when Calusa Injuns showed me a few things.
Best thing? Torchwood.
Roger bout peed his pants laughin when I done told him to use lit-up Torchwood to attract shrimps at night.
Later he claimed he’d conjured the idea hisself. Kept the profits in his raggedy pockets.

So, when he got cut up fightin, I kept the knowledge bout the antibiotic nature of Torchwood to myself.
Yessirree, now I’m redoin the kitchen.

The People’s Stand

Today Pegman took us to Black Hills, South Dakota. I immediately went to the history part. Hello! Custer. My husband and I visited the site of Custer’s Last Stand several years ago. When one looks over that field of slaughter, it is truly amazing. But Custer’s backstory brings chills. He was one self-centered guy.

 

Call me Lean Bear or Bloody Knife or Dancing Wolf
it does not matter.
My true name is Man Who Killed Custer.
When Yellow Hair came to The People’s land
we guided him through our valleys.
Let him kill our bears.
We did not stop his military band from playing unrecognizable tunes
that broke the silence of our mornings.
No one flinched when his troops leaned across saddles to pick flowers,
tearing the plants from the ground.
Plants needed to feed our women and children in winter.

We should have stopped the telegraph announcing gold was discovered
but The People were unaware of gold’s lure.
The gleaming rock had always been with us. Its glitter meant nothing.
We signed treaties proclaiming our sacred lands would be protected.
Still, men tore up our mountains.

Two years later Yellow Hair returned to make a forest of mistakes.
This time I was ready.

Lake Whatcom Divorce

when we met
you said you would do
anything to get money
in order to take care of me.
you bought me furs, diamonds,
two, no three, trips to paris.

i never asked how you paid.
why would i?
why should i?
i was hopelessly
ecstatically in love.

marriage was never mentioned.
i didn’t reveal
boring, unimpressive tom.
avoided asking if you had a wife
or children.

today, flying high over the lake
you, at last, reveal your secret.

tom, you say, is tired of me.
has paid for everything.
you inform me
the final payment arrived today
then shove me out the door.

 

Lake Whatcom is about a half-mile from my house.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g58350-d2527907-Reviews-Lake_Whatcom-Bellingham_Washington.html

My Mistake

You offered a kaleidoscope of promises strung on a golden thread of words.

Gardens brimming with succulent greens to guarantee comfort on steamy summer nights.
Brightly snapping fires composed of red flames and blue,
blending excitedly with tendrils of crackling yellow.
Fires built strictly to keep me warm while snow floats like pale sapphire feathers
across the grey rock face supporting your cliffside palace.
Madagascan oils, infused with the scent of juniper and colored with tiny flecks of gold.
And women, or men, to massage the oils into my hair and over my skin.

Now, here I sit, captured within a tower built of white-washed stone.
Alone. No way out.
I should be pleased. I have all you offered and more.
The one thing you did not offer and I neglected to request? Freedom.
My mistake, for I thought your heart knew that liberty is what I require above all else.