hot summer night
cold shower—
for two

resting on moss
he quotes
Lord Byron

helping the nurse
flip him over—
bare butt

sitting alone
I can’t tell
the tears from the shower

off the trail
we decide to cross
into the woods

truck bed rendezvous
skin rubbing skin—
mosquito’s feast

2 a.m. pep talk
she’s alone -- but not
lonely

across the Serengeti
where the lions roam
I silently wander

winter’s chill
my breath conveys
what I cannot

the broken limb
of the magnolia tree
my mother cries

climbing over
your empty words
to your core

cool breath of morning
rumples last night’s hair
walk of shame

truck dies at midnight
not close enough to
an exit ramp and orgasm

dark, large room
aglow with a screen
full of words

the street minstrel
with his accordion
and a few teeth

Every year the age-group State swimming competition was held at the natatorium at IUPUI. This aquatic center is one of the best pools in the nation. In fact, the Olympic Time Trials have been held there in years past. I liken this pool to the medieval town of George Swede’s haiku. In this place something extraordinary, something historical occurred. I swam down the lane as the author walked over those aged steps; conscious of their import and grandeur. The author realizes his/her insignificance as a mere tourist. Likewise, I felt dwarfed by the majesty of a pool swam in by Olympians. With each stroke, I could imagine the kick and pull of a professional athlete. I could note the disciplined gaze with which they regarded the pool as they crouched over the blocks.

small waves
lap     the gutters
I am ready

This woman is far away for a longer time span than a couple days or even a week. She is frustrated with traveling, packing, moving, and unpacking. She has been away from her lover for so long she doesn't even care about packing all of her things nicely and neatly. She doesn't even worry about how big of an odeal this situation is to her. She packs all of her things quickly, not caring that her bags are heavy and awkward. She is running down th stairs toward her unlocked, fully loaded down car. She throws her last bags in so she can get to her lover as quickly as possible. This lover of her's is not a new found treasure. This is an old, favorite type of love, a love that is so deep being away from that person makes one's heart ache.

laughing as
we do the dirty . . .
dishes

The summer air had been crackling with anticipation for hours. Storms always made Kat anxious. Not because she was afraid of them, but because they always seemed to remind her that she was incomplete. The electricity in the air seemed to fill the empty spaces of her heart, until she felt so alive that she knew she would burst. But she never did. The rain always came, and washed away the anticipation, until she was empty again. And all that remained was dissatisfaction and a longing to find the person who could fill the holes. Still, Kat loved thunderstorms. Storms reminded her that she has an incredible bond with a person she hasn’t yet met. Otherwise, how could the reminder of his existence be so agonizingly glorious?

wide awake again
I remember you—
the love I’ve yet to meet

Mercury awoke with a jolt! An alarm was growing louder and louder as she struggled to regain consciousness. Recognizing that her face bondage was merely her entangled bed sheets, and that her bomb scare was quickly sounding like Bon Jovi’s latest tune from her alarm clock radio, she took in a deep breath. Bad choice. Mercury let out a loud “gwaff” reflecting the smells from last night’s tantrum. She recounted how at three in the morning she had come home to stubbornly throw her body, black boots and all, onto her bed and wail. After two hours of a snot filled, mascara dripping, bullhorn cry she begrudgingly fixed two cheese and broccoli “Hot Pockets” which she consumed in her cave of sheets. The stench not only reeked of circus aroma, but more over, of self-pity.
Her first act on this steamy, Sunday morning was to be getting ready for church. However, due to recent sin filled events that option seemed to be rather burlesque and crawling to the bathroom was an up and coming favorite. A few minutes passed before Mercury slumped against the bathtub, staring at her reflection in the toilet water. It looked so clean and pure. The toilet water belonged in that pew at church, not her, she thought as she filled it with broccoli and cheese. Wiping her lips on the bed sheet that had attached to the heel of her boot, she smiled while holding her breath. The night might have gotten her loudest, most pathetic howls but the man, that man, had gotten the most hurtful.

late night cry
sunday morning
circus aroma

Ah, one of the best philosophical conversations I’ve ever had. My friends and I end up in at Denny’s after large-scale events like homecoming games, big dances, late-night movies, play practices, scholastic bowl tournaments and choir concerts. The amount of people can range from just two or three to dozens of people filling up an entire section of the restaurant! Aside from making lots of fun memories (like the time my friend Thane sent his tea back twice because it wasn’t prepared in the proper English fashion) and driving all the waitresses crazy, we usually end up in those late-night philosophical discussions that tend to pop up when people are tired or sleep-deprived. Sometimes we’ll sit in the restaurant long after we’ve finished eating (hours even), with just scraps left on the plate, talking for hours about religion, politics, and the meaning of life. The waitresses come around to refill our coffees and sodas, and occasionally ask if we want any pie. Eventually we’ll leave, but often it’s to go to someone’s house or to drive around so we can finish our conversation.

pancakes and pie
at midnight and after—
a philosophical quandary

full hair
and stage makeup
at the restaurant afterwards

steaming cups of coffee
discussing the world at large—
open 24 hours

My grandma keeps a picture of my late grandpa and uncle. She talks to them sometimes and looks to them always, as she struggles to adjust to a new life. Anymore, she’s unable to clean the house by herself, so occasionally family members go in to help her. We always make an extra effort on days that would be harder for her, birthdays and anniversaries. From this image, I am reminded of when she used to work in nursing homes and my brother and I would visit the patients with her. They would have pictures of husbands and wives who had died. Some were from their wedding day years ago, while others were more recent. It was a terribly lonely feeling, seeing them left behind and losing their identities. This haiku reminds me of them, every day being stuck in the nursing home and missing the people they loved most.

lost
in the hallway
by the hair salon

Frankenstein
yelling at me
to leave his room

last couple
beds side-by-side
holding hands

his breath
cold on my neck
window frost

the burning sun
brightens my cheeks
. . . or was it his hand

on my knees
silent teardrops pray
winter moonlight

she held me
as I sang a for her
the caged finch

humid night
you take my hand
off of your thigh

Monday morning test
the kid behind me
clicking his pen

I turn to the moon
for courage—
secrets crack open

I fall down,
but you pick me up—
the autumn wind blows

winter solstice—
our love falls
out of balance

I remember the feeling I got when I hit somebody in football, it was evil and ruthless, but there were no strings attached. The harder I hit someone, the more praise I received from either coaches or teammates. In football, at least on the defensive side of the ball anyway, there this thing that my coaches referred to as pursuit. Basically, the course of pursuit was the way in which a defensive player moved from a stationary position to the ball carrier to make a tackle. We had pursuit drills in practice, like angle tackling, for example, in which we were trained to estimate the amount of time it would take the ball carrier to get from point A to point B, and how long it would take us, the tackler, to go from point C to point B; the idea being that if we timed things just right, a tackle could reach point B at top speed and make a brutal tackle, thus causing the offence to gain the least amount of forward progress as possible.

I had an uncanny knack for pursuit. I mauled ball carriers in the open field. When running backs tried to juke or made other attempts at meaningless fancy footwork as a way of eluding me, it just made things worse for them; I always managed to catch them in mid-stride, blowing them yards from the point in which we left the ground and crashing back to earth with a crunch of helmet on helmet.

But regardless of how massive the hit was I laid on a guy, I always, always helped him back up to his feet. I was often times yelled at by referees as the though my genuinely apologetic gestures were a skewed and subtle form of gloating and further disgracing my opponent. And despite my efforts clear up my true persona for my teammates, they failed to realize at the end of the day that, it’s just a job.

Though I performed in the high school plays and joined the symphony, I was still referred to as that beast and animal that everyone seemed to see on the football field. I was secretary of the National Honor Society and a peer mediator, but I received more congratulatory pats on the back for the big game against Ridgewood.

My coach said in his speech as he presented me with the Defensive MVP award, that the other teams knew “… to look out for big number 68.” Why? Did they thing big number 68 went home at the end of the day to yoke himself to buses and take an uphill jog? It’s more likely I was vacuuming my room or playing piano. Who was honestly afraid? My girlfriend certainly didn’t fear big number 68. She happened to know that big number 68 was ticklish and had a certain soft spot for pecan pie.

People seem to forget the mortality of those they fear or idolize. The undertaker shouldn’t be seen as “out of context” because he enjoys a few z’s on the hammock. Undertaking is just a job, like being a mailman, or a doctor. At the end of the work day, we’re all pretty much the same: tired.

these fingers
stained with blood and rage
tinkle the ivories

The fog was particularly thick on the docks that night. Jimmy showed up late, drunk as usual, in his trademark black and white vertical striped it, the stains on his shirt would seem fitting of any merchant who had spent a rough afternoon working on the docks, but told more of inebriated bar room scuffles and spilt drinks. He approached me, almost translucent in the mist.

“Are you ready?” Jimmy slurred boisterously, stumbling on a knot in the peer. He quickly shook it off and took a deep swig on the bottle he kept wrapped in its brown paper casing.

“Yeah, but keep it the fuck down – you want every man on the harbor patrol out here?” I asked in what was intended to be a whisper, but came out as more of a loud, raspy squeal.

“The god damned Navy couldn’t find us in this shit.” He smiled, whirling up a tuft of fog with his free hand.

I tucked my hands back into my jacket before looking over my shoulder. Approaching Jimmy, I could smell the stink of stale whiskey and even staler whores on his breath. “So do you have it or don’t you?” I jabbed him hard with my elbow.

“Easy. Easy. I’ve got it.” He crinkled his nose, now red from either the cold or the whiskey… or both. Reaching into his back pocket he removed a deposit pouch and tossed it my direction. I caught it with one hand, never taking my eyes off Jimmy.

“Half expected you had spent it on booze” I said, Jimmy smiling as I balanced the bag in my hand, “Feels light.”

“Half now, half later.” His head tilted back as he wiped a line of drool from the corner of his mouth. I could hear him breathing – watching the mist filter in and out of his nostrils.

“That wasn’t the deal.” I slowly took a step towards Jimmy before I was halted by the removal of his revolver.
“New deal.” He growled, pulling back the hammer.

I stood for what seemed like hours staring down the barrel of Jimmy’s gun attempting to lift my arms in retreat but – too much in shock to lift them – left them limp at my sides, the half empty bag of money still in my hands.

I could feel the lump in my throat shift as he reached for another swig on his bottle. As he brought his whiskey to full tilt, the fog horn sounded. I sprawled to the pier at the shrieking blare as my spine turned to putty. Jimmy stepped back after I disappeared into the thickness of the ocean air, firing several shots into the night. The crack of the bullets rang out through the deadness as Jimmy took one step too far and walked clear off the end of the dock.

I crawled to the edged peeking over the edge. I watched him drown. I watched him for a full five minutes as he struggled, too drunk to swim, clinging to the last few moments of life.

I never told Sarah about that. I never told anyone about that.
I looked deep into her eyes, knowing full well how long I had lied to her – how long I was willing to keep lying to her. I could still hear Jimmy’s final screams muffled in the foggy ocean water as I held her hand in mine. “I do,” I replied.

wedding day
the muffled screams
of my dying friend

When I was about four years old, I absolutely loved the movie Cinderella. One of my favorite characters was Cinderella’s dog, Bruno. He was old and a bit goofy, but he seemed like the ideal “man’s best friend”. The dog that my family had at the time was an 11 year old basset hound named Cleo. She was a bit grumpier than Cinderella’s favorite canine, but considering that she was putting up with a four year old girl with no sense of dog etiquette terrorizing her, she was of decent temperament. I remember this one scene in the movie when Bruno is napping, dreaming of chasing the stepsisters’ snooty cat. He is huffing and grunting, and his legs begin to twitch as though he is trying to run but getting nowhere. When he awakes, Cinderella asks him if he was dreaming about chasing the cat; he sheepishly nods in affirmation. She gently scolds him for thinking bad thoughts about others, but then comforts him with some hearty behind-the-ear scratches. It was one of my favorite scenes from Cinderella, and I remember playing make-believe that Cleo was Bruno and I was Cinderella. Cleo would be taking one of her many—many—afternoon naps. First, you’d hear her collar start to clink against the kitchen floor as she began to twitch. Next comes a grunt here and there, accompanied by nose twitches and lip snarls. And then the paws would twitch—first just a little but, until finally she was in full gear, running around in her little canine mind. What could a dog be dreaming about? I hoped that Cleo was dreaming about chasing a cat, just like the snooty one in Cinderella. “Catch that cat, Cleo, catch it!” I would say. And when she awoke, I would pet her just like Cinderella would pet Bruno: scratching and rubbing just behind the ears. Cleo loved being petted the way so much, it became a sort of family joke—I told everyone I was giving her “Bruno rubs”; my parents assured me that no one in the family could give Cleo these signature pets as well as I could. Even though Cleo died when I was seven, and the years since then have been filled with memories of a new dog, “Bruno rubs” and dog-dreams will always be fond reminders of one of my best childhood friends.

feeding the birds . . .
out of the brush
leaps a hobo

It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining bright, promising a gorgeous summer day to follow. Anna had been awake for an hour or so, already, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper to catch up on all the latest news. That day she had plans to go over to her mother’s house to visit and help with her flower garden.

Anna went upstairs to the bedroom where her husband Charlie still lay in bed sleeping. She put on her gardening clothes, including a yellow hat with an extra-wide brim that her mother had given her the previous year. She whispered to Charlie that she was going to her mother’s house to help out for the day, and that she’d call before she made the trip back home that evening. Charlie opened his eyes and said goodbye, as Anna made her way outside, stopping momentarily to pick up some of her gardening tools lying outside.

She made her way across town to her mother’s house to find her mother waiting outside for her on the porch. When she walked up to the house, she kissed her and gave her a hug before beginning small talk and chatting about their friends and family members. The rest of the day, they gardened and talked and caught up with each other. What a lovely summer day this was turning out to be.

At the end of the day, Anna started to get ready to head back home, but forgot to call Charlie like she said she would. She remembered this as she drove home, but shrugged it off, thinking it wouldn’t be a big deal. Upon returning home, there was a car in the driveway that she did not recognize. She thought they must have company, and hurried inside to see who the visitor was. Walking into the house, she saw no one and all was quiet. She went up the stairs and opened the door to their bedroom, that wasn’t normally closed. There, she found the visitor.

She gasped with hurt and rage as she saw her husband in bed with that young woman. Both of them stopped dead in their tracks when Anna walked through the door, and as Charlie opened his mouth to explain, Anna let loose. She began yelling furiously at Charlie and his “whore” and informed them that if they did not leave her house at that very minute, she would kill them both with Charlie’s hunting gun that was leaning against the wall. Startled at such a threat, the two scrambled to their feet, throwing on clothes and quickly making their way to the door.

Anna watched as the young girl’s car pulled out of the driveway and down the street, with her husband in the driver’s seat. When it was out of sight, Anna sat down and wondered how something so repulsive could have happened on such a perfect summer day, when everything had seemed right. Not knowing what else to do, she put on her pajamas and settled into the guest bed down the hall from the master bedroom. That night she sobbed, alone in that house, pulling the sheets of the bed over her face as if to make it all simply disappear. She did not get a minute of sleep that night.

perfect summer day—
sunshine
hides the deceit

expected day starts
also it must to an end
cherry blossoms fall

the crowd cheers
yet I serenade
my ladybug

at the altar
side by side
light house view

deafening tick
the waiting room clock
no news

falling
leaves
surround
your gorgeous face

your love revealed
after so long
the first jonquils

nervous smile
new in-laws wait--
North Shore inquisition

I walk into the room where she once slept, it is cold and silent, looking out the window, I see the haze of winter in the air, floating, almost nonexistent and yet clear as day. As the mists was here presence in my life, it has been so long and the harsh cold of loneness had pecked away at the memories, and yet I know she was there as if it was yesterday. I feel a pressure that I know isn’t there on my arm, as if she was in my embrace. Like the mists of winter the thought of her taunts me, every time I try and focus on the memories, they become harder to see and it is the times I find myself thinking of her the least that I do the most. As I come to my senses I fell the harsh lonely sting of victory over one’s own emotions and a few words come to mind.

bitter cold
only embracing you--
brings warmth

It always bothers me when I’m at a wake and I look at the deceased lying in the coffin. It’s the last time you’re actually going to see their face aside from in picture, and it looks nothing like the person you knew and loved. I don’t really remember much about when I saw grandfather at his wake. I do remember that he didn’t really look like himself. It looked like there was a wax mask over his face. I do remember last year when I went to a wake for the husband of a family friend. His corpse looked nothing like he did when he was living. It really made me feel even sadder because it was like a lie. Like you could say goodbye but the body that you say goodbye to looks nothing like the person you knew.

thick white clouds
block out the sun
a patch of blue

Just past dusk. In the field, two foolish lovers are gallivanting about. On this cool summer night, they are alone, vulnerable to the great stars and galaxies overhead. Not looking up, they are unaware of just how small they are compared to the rest of the universe. The only thing that matters to them is each other. The entire solar system exists only in each others’ eyes. Throwing down the picnic basket (outdoor meals are always better at night, she says) he picks her up and tosses her around like a ship caught in a tide pool. He sets her down, words waiting on his lips like kids at the local diving board, waiting for their turn to jump but being stopped by the nervous kid in front. That nervous kid is the thing he’s wanted to say for a while, the key to his soul that he just can’t give away. He must want to be unlocked.

He sets her down, the long grass and cool night air giving her a chill up her spine. Still, she isn’t sure if it’s the night or his eyes that gives her the chill. He lays the blanket down on the ground and smoothes it out, not letting her sit on it until it’s absolutely perfect. Tonight, everything is going to be perfect, has to be perfect or everything will be ruined. She sits down as he opens the basket and offers her a gourmet dinner of cold cut sandwiches and frosty root beers. For candlelight, the fireflies dance around them. For music, the soft chirping of the crickets leads their dance. They eat silently, the food a buffer for how they really feel. For him, it’s just a way to keep the words in until he is ready to say them. For her, it is some way to keep her mind distracted while she waits—in aching anticipation. They finish eating. He lays her down next to him, their arms entwined and their eyes on the stars. “I love you,” he finally says.

“I love you too,” she says, her woman’s intuition satisfied. They continue to look up, as the fireflies flicker with the stars.

crickets chirp
a whispered phrase:
i love you

bedroom floor
covered with mom’s
threatening words

hating nature
I pitch the tent
loving my boy scout

after school
kissing the girl
I used to kind of sort of like a little bit

hidden between
the pines
a bed of needles

time to clean the windows—
as we wash
            we renew

summer spawn
the osprey
soaring overhead

My grandparents on my dad’s side have always been very active people, especially in the lives of their grandkids. They go bike riding, travel the country in their motor home, and even went to Europe last August for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Every day my grandpa walks his dog, Katie, at least one mile. This is a seventy-two year-old man, mind you. Needless to say, my grandparents are very active people.

However, my grandpa is still old. As time has gone by, his hearing has slowly diminished. He now wears his hearing aids all the time. When his hearing was just starting to fade, my grandparents would constantly bicker because Grandpa couldn’t hear what my Grandma was saying. She would get angry and say to him: “Dammit Howard, you can hear everyone but me!” Of course, we would just chuckle because we knew it was not true. It was later we learned of his hearing problems when he finally got hearing aids.

I have so many memories of my grandparents and this one could encompass them all. Whenever we have dinner with them (which is fairly often), we can always expect my grandma to put water on the stove for tea. Grandpa pulls out the cups and sugar to put on the table, and almost everyone has a cup whether they like it or not. After all, Grandma always says “a little taste won’t kill you,” whenever she wants you to try something new.

They bicker over trivial things like where Grandpa put the dog’s leash, how soon they should schedule their next eye appointments, or why my Grandpa can’t eat after six o’clock. But despite their arguments, they still really do love each other. Every time they fight I can see that, after fifty years, they do, and they laugh as Grandma pours tea into my Grandpa’s cup after dinner.

slathered in mud
up to my knees
from last night’s downpour

A few years ago, my parents’ relationship with each other was obviously deteriorating. Eventually, the inevitable occurred and a divorce was underway. I was the only kid living at home at this time, so I was in the middle of it all, dealing with things all on my own. While everything was going on, my mother and I were secretly getting a house on the other side of town ready to move into. It had to stay a secret because had my dad known what we were doing, he would have undoubtedly tried to stop us. Being in this new house was such an odd feeling to me. I had grown up in the same house for 17 long years, and I loved it. This new place did not feel like home, but I put up a good front for my mom. By this time, however, my real home didn’t feel like home either. Whenever I was there, my parents would just argue and yell about whatever they could. When I needed to get away from everything, but had nowhere else to turn, I would go down to a sidewalk that ran along the Kankakee River. Down there I could sit by myself and think things over with interruption. Sometimes I’d take a book or drawing pencils, or maybe some music. No matter what I did, this place down by the river became my safe haven during my parents’ divorce. I could always count on it. It was the consistency and stability I needed to feel in my life. This is the memory this haiku takes me to. I can picture myself, the daughter, driving again down to the river because I simply don’t know where else to go.

harsh words and
pointed fingers
            I       flee

impossibilities
I am just one of the
bumblebees

fog
rising from the lake
topwater fishing

under my stuffy comforter
spelunking at night
Johnny’s Got a Gun

When my brother, Chris, was a freshman in high school and I a senior, it was discovered that Chris had a pretty bad case of scholiasts. We didn’t notice it for a long time; Chris used to slouch a lot, and he wore baggy shirts. Even after he was diagnosed, you couldn’t tell when he sat or stood up. It was only when he bent over that he looked like Quasimodo. Who were we to know that under the slouch and the shirts lay a twisted spine?
When he was finally diagnosed, the severity of his case blew everyone’s minds. Curvature less severe than 45° negates the need for surgery; Chris’ spine curved at a 53° angle. It curved at the top and bottom to form an “s” shape. I saw the x-ray, and it looked like the stuff of science fiction.

Chris was admitted into an Ann Arbor hospital on January 8th, three days after his 15th birthday. The surgery took 8 hours. Basically, they went in and stretched his spine out. He instantly grew two inches as a result. They also inserted some kind of metal post in his back to keep the muscles surrounding the spine from re-curving it. Let’s just say it was some pretty intense surgery.

I didn’t get to see him that day, but the next day after dance class I drove up to see him. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. He wasn’t in any pain, persay; he was doped up to his eyeballs, he couldn’t feel a thing. But he couldn’t even roll over without help. The drugs made him pretty unintelligent, and he fell into fitful sleep every few minutes. It was so frustrating to watch him lie there in so much pain and not be able to do a damn thing about it. I couldn’t even really talk to him to make him feel better, since he was barely speaking in sentences. All I could do was site there and jump up every time he needed something.

It was also uncomfortable to see him so weak and helpless like that. My brother and I have a very…abrasively affectionate relationship. We like to banter and harass each other. To see my brother in such a helpless state was, well, scary.

Needless to say, ht surgery went fine. Chris was in the hospital five days, and back in school in only three weeks. Six weeks after he was practicing with the soccer team. He stands up so straight, and he loves the fact that he’s now about four inches taller than me. And he has a wicked scar running form the base of his neck to the small of his back. Life is good.

jealousy
I want a scar
like yours

The woman sat alone on the swings in the fog of the park, twirling a flower in her hand. It was the same place where they grew up. She used to push him, and then they’d have competitions to see who could go higher. At the top of their arcs, they could see the creek flowing quickly down into the woods. Maybe the time we had together was as insignificant as that creek against a river? Her mind wondered in and out of the moment. The man she grew up with and fought with, was gone. To her it was unfair that the last thing he saw was the ceiling of a hospital and not this park, not the sunrise that came and took him away. It was unfair that he died.

She could feel her passion rising, her anger becoming tears welled up in her eyes. They reminded her of holding his hand, sobbing at him “Don’t go on me, now.” His eyes met hers and she knew what he was thinking, that this was a path they both must travel and that he must keep walking. Death was something they knew all along was going to come; it’s a condition of humanity. He was just condemned before her. Why him? More tears built up. A quiver ran from her throat to her jaw and disrupted her breath.
Suddenly, fireworks blasted above the tree line in front of her. The woman stood and gasped. They weren’t in season. She couldn’t hold the tears anymore, as the blue and red lights exploded above her. Each explosion hit her and shook the tears from her face. Two blue fireworks, his eyes, showered down above her. She turned, so he wouldn’t see her cry. And as the ash fell around her, he put his arm around her. Don’t cry now, don’t cry. Dry your tears. She felt him and heard him.

holding the funeral flower,
she has nowhere to go,
so she goes nowhere

at my computer
missing you
February chill

grains of sand
slip through her fingers
only one true love—
melodrama

caught without an umbrella
our love evaporates
the sudden rain

between the pines
a cushion of needles
we lay together

beneath golden arches
her note says we’re cute
together

She sat down hard on the parlor sofa, the ends of her black crepe mourning dress floating down beside her. It just hadn’t felt right leaving him there in the cold ground, but it had begun to rain outside and the reverend had insisted – she would catch cold if she didn’t go home. The word home didn’t even mean the same thing anymore. Nothing was the same. She remembered his face as he left for war… warm, brave, so loving. In the coffin he had looked so sober, nothing like the man she loved. The rain stopped, and when the clouds cleared, the glow of the hazy sunset filled the sky.

It was dinnertime; she should have been in the kitchen, making his favorites. She remembered how, just months before, she would be waiting for him at the door in the green dress he loved so much to see her in. The smell of meatloaf would be slowly filling the house. They would have sat down together in the big soft chair next to the fireplace – he had loved it when she came and sat on his lap while he read the evening newspaper. That was all gone now. He was dead and buried and she was all alone. The house, which had seemed so small when they’d moved in after their honeymoon, seemed cavernous now that it was hers alone. There would be no dinner tonight; perhaps not for several nights.

She didn’t feel like eating. Instead, she went into the bedroom – her bedroom now – and opened the dresser drawer to take out a nightgown. She ran her fingertips over the beautiful silk things he had bought for her, for his eyes only. A tear ran down her cheek as she closed the drawer decidedly, and opened the one beneath it, taking a pair of striped cotton pajamas once worn by the man she loved. She stripped naked, put them on, and felt the cotton against her skin – the most familiar, safe feeling she could think of. She could smell him on them, even though they’d not been worn since before he’d left, two months before. Wrapped in his pajamas, she laid down in their bed – her bed – and drifted slowly to sleep.

the cold wind blows
over a King-sized bed—
one side empty

My boyfriend during senior year, Peter, lent me the book Johnny’s Got a Gun. I remember I was trying in vain to find some common ground we could have. He listened to the heaviest metal on the face of the earth, wore Hawaiian shirts and black hoodies, and lived an hour away in a small country town. Needless to say it was an “opposites attract” scenario. I had seen him reading the same book for the past couple of weeks and asked him about it. He told me that it was about a war and a soldier’s experience that took on the viewpoint that peace is the only true answer. Well, I hated war and loved peace so when I showed how “similar” our tastes were, he excitedly let me borrow it.

I remember it started out very harmless about him thinking about his family and lover, to seemingly out of nowhere depict the goriest possible image and situation in my head. In turn I could not stop reading this horribly depressing, and sadly, realistically possible literature. I was emotionally devastated and drained after reading this thick book for 2 days straight.

It was one of those books that traps me in my own little world, forgetting to eat, do homework, or feed the dog. I would late awake at night, reading until my flashlight batteries whimped out. Not only did the book shock me, but the very fact that Peter did not warn me of the content or understand that I get moved very easily, also had a similar effect. I remember calling him when I finished it and asking, “How could you let me read this? It literally made me so upset that I was getting sick.” He replied, “Yeah, but there were some funny parts.” Needless to say, I now realize I was dating a weird sicko. It took me longer to get over the book, than it did him!

hawaiin shirt suitor
    knocks on my door
        bouquet of poison ivy

dusty leaves
you sing to my
swollen heart

another phone call
again unanswered
obsession

blindfolded
and anxious
what is taking him so long?

Daddy’s moon boots
and mama’s fur coat
conceal me

a man in rags
spits phlegm
into his coin cup

old toilet
a turd falls in
water’s sound