In Cases Such As These, a Good Memory Is Unpardonable

Gloria scootches closer to the television to hear Colin Firth,
("He's so handsome,")
For the umpteenth time pronouncing Elizabeth tolerable
But not handsome enough to tempt him.

They tell me she may have to be put away soon.
Put away, like clean dishes into cabinets
Or put away like old toys into the attic?
She can't see anymore,
So she listens to salacious books on tape,
And every week awaits the snarky denunciation
Of the petticoats, six inches deep in mud
("That awful woman, she'll get hers!")

Gloria, in excelsis, must secretly be seething
Because her son and daughter-in-law
Have to clean her up now almost every night.
It is not just.
She was a woman, a Sicilian matriarch,
But now must assent to other people's hands
On her private parts, and cannot be allowed
Her indignity because it reads as ingratitude.

Gloria says a rosary.
She hums something Sinatra sang.
She says only that her bones hurt
And asks again for Colin Firth.
("Oh yes, he's proud. But just you wait.")

This Butterfly Business

"You leave us crying over postcards from Mexico. Baby, you're never far enough away."

"I take a breath. Take a breath with me, blow by blow. I take a break, take a break from you. You are here to stay. I take my heart out of my chest. I just don't need it anymore."


This Butterfly Business

Remember that time I made some discoveries, which were
somewhat painful but resulted in Personal Growth?
Remember those teachable moments
when I got thoroughly teach-ed?

To get through those times
I carried around a tried-and-true sort of metaphor.

I thought, "I will go through this time of Darkness
And emerge colorful,
with byzantine scars like delicate patterns
on my florid wings.
I will manifest with lepidopteran grace."

But then it so happened that
I cocooned and when I finished cocooning
I emerged, and yes, I was stronger and more
composed and might have been called a butterfly.
But I screwed up again. In almost no time
I was back in Darkness.
I have to say, in none of my elementary school
life science classes did my teacher say, "And then
the butterfly goes back into her cocoon."

At this juncture, there are only two options.

Either I am still a caterpillar, with no
idea about the true magnitude of the trials
I have thus far faced on account of caterpillars
have poor eyesight so maybe I just really
over-dramatized whatever I was going through, and
the real time of darkness is yet to come and
it is probably going to blow my mind when it does,

Or I need to find a new metaphor.

Orzo and Equanimity

Tell me things
Like why there are so many different kinds of rice.

Coax me out of these foxholes I've made,
Crumb by crumb,
And laugh at me in the helpful way.

Always, part of me does not consent.
Bring me back some Riesling
And have it with strawberries.

We can dance when you come here.
We can revel in food and in iambs.
We can pretend and pretend and pretend.

Tell me I am beautiful and absurd.
Tell me Plato. Tell me we are
Philosopher kings, you and I.
Tell me you and I.