Calla, From Ashes To Dust

everything between my teeth
is you, caught in a dark
curling retrospective.
the catalyst, a cognitive
perspective ushering arguments
in big words that unbolt
the door. I kneel
on the pointed cross-hairs.
eyes down, mouth clenched
for the slap delivered
openly from your palm
searing calla to ash,
intentions to dust.

Falling Out & Falling In

Falling out or falling
in doesn't seem to matter
much when the darkness is damp
and, in the silence,
there is no son.
After falling
out begins.

The Falling Out

My husband and I parted ways. Parted
checking accounts and mortgage payments
easily, like parting hair with a cheap,
nylon comb. All the edges flew up,
stuck to the teeth, and crackled blue sparks
into damp and blackened post-humus air.
Six months later; I opened the door

to silence cluttered by darkness. No son,
no sounds of sleep, no DT Rhetoric.
I opened the door and twenty minutes
later phones beeped, shrilled. Buzzed
me out of confusion into cold fusion. Sweat
with fists pounded threats. My ex-

husband hung himself on the beaded,
glittering end of something
like, "You'll never
see your son again."

And again over and over;
Over the shrill, over the gin clink
of glasses raised over again. And again,
more talk of planes and Vegas. More
talk of making book to the congo beat
of South and then SouthWest and

"You'll never see your son
again." and again,

I listened. Rushed to the possibilities
in truth fettered among lies spread
like cheese. He spread lies. I spread
panic

to the corroded Corgard edge, rambled
on the diastolic/systolic expressway
headed for the wall bricked by sleep.
Yes. Sleep.

Sleep fell in with the myopic pace
of something/20, something dark,
something that felt like falling.
Something

Falling In

Between the edges of blackened haze
and sleep; between the bright
red, shrilling thunder of ambulance
and para-medic codes, I opened eyes
to white lights, block walls, and
hard tubes fastened to veins
that never knew compression, never
felt the punctured pain or the lessons
to be learned in gastro-bleeding,
pumping pills from an empty coffer.

I never felt the sting. I listened
to the beep-beep-beep and yellow
lights that spoke of stop. Over 20.
It all ends here, blocked in a room
of white nurses, blue gowns and blood
black, coagulated in the basin.

Over 30. Isolation. Isolation
in ICU, probed and prodded to spill
the charcoal laden wallet of pain
and promise to never do this again.
Again. Promise. I promised.

Over 40. They collected the son
beneath judicial sleeves. Held him
in the court as it pleased the court,
I promised to never do this again.
Again. Promise. I Promised. No more

falling in.

~haze CopyRight 2000 Excepted From "Marital Rites Under Marital Law"