Memorial Day, 2007 has been captured in my memory
as the expenditure of light as it bounced and dappled
across the platform at Waukegan station. It was Monday
and we had an all-weekend pass that had been the same
price as a one-day fare. My friend gave his unused ticket
to a vet at the station. I kept mine, and it comes up occasionally
worn, and superfluous; forever linty and stuck
between punch cards and metro stubs.
Took the northerly route as it passes Kenosha county line
into Wisconsin, the real province of milk and honey bees,
of Holstein, hops, corn on the cob and men on lawn mowers:
an abundant population of white, male homeowners,
some of whom scoffed as we rode through their back yards,
where the trail runs aft of Wal-Marts and strip malls,
between wheat fields and suburban outcroppings.
Milwaukee is a long, girthy settlement. We tripped
on its outskirts just before night and so lay our things
down in the dark part of a city park on its edge;
still forested, but with a cap of high-rises in the distance
and slept in fits, listening to the confusion of wilderness
or the footing of night watchmen, who are hungry to evict.
Before sunup we were gone, and we sat atop Calvary to see
a magnificent sunrise; the city gleaming at dawn and embanked
by the shores of Lake Michigan. That afternoon we
caught sleep in down and dandelion
dander, and lay under a cover of sycamore boughs
and sweet gums. Lulled to the murmur of
sailboats strapped to the docks on the harbor
on a grassy knoll by some school we surveyed
the verge of summer where a track field had gone vacant,
already weedy and the yard, empty. I let dust particles settle
on my skin. It was too bright, almost, to breathe.

Since it’s indisputibly cold anywhere in the country after October, and I won’t be in school until January, I’ve begun to look at the cost of plane tickets to Rome and Paris.  It will be less expensive since this is the “Off” season; and I’ve some hope still that Jessi will be accepted to a teaching program in Paris and I will get a free ride. Otherwise, my reasons for being in Europe are as follows: I’ve recently been in contact with family in Ljubljana and can live there free of rent; it is the capital of Slovenia, and there is a writer’s programme there that is relatively cheap, and appealing, since I have been studying the language and my cousin recently sent me a package of her deceased mothers’ poetry journals from the old country, which has sparked my interest in nesting there over winter and doing what I love best.  Secondly, I want to take my father with me, something that I have been promising for a long time. Third, I keep running into nuances of Prague in literature; just today someone mentioned the sparrows in China, and subsiquently I found a journal on Poetry.com entitled ‘Leaving Prague’ that dealt with the declining sparrow population in the Czech republic and also the entangling romanticism of that city…hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Never thought I’d want to go back to Europe. *shrugs*

The Sappho of Frisco

the damsel of Tartine

dances the disco down in Castro

on the balls of flat feet.

Lustrous and lean,

translucently clean as

clotted-Crème de la Mer;

she sweeps to the side

her torrents of hair.

She is a landslide

slipping, tiptoeing past casitas

tumbling along the bare backs

of breast-like hills,

down through the fingers that delve

in the bay, between bodies

of dark, oceanic granite and lays

rippling currents ’round inlets.

She toothed on tubes of

chocolate ganache,

milk-weaned herself

on Grand Marnier,

twirls vignettes from

the dough of sour baguettes,  

leaves girls to swoon

at the sweet of her sweat

and the twist of her spoon.

She’s the

small earthquake that shook  

bullying butches to mourn

like sad cats and lust after

her looks; caused cascades of

flour to fall from the hands of bakers

and sent trembles through the city

with the clutch of her laughter.

these bones just want to die in peace.

I wouldn’t normally post a personal note, but I feel this has expressed my intentions most plainly and it gives me a sense of utmost calm:

I’m not sure if email is the proper medium for this, but I feel as though it’s non-intrusive and straight forward. Recently, I have felt drawn to contacting you in the gesture of extending a peace offering. There is no way to tell if this is an appropriate time; I am open and understanding to whatever response it may bring, even silence. If there is a need to forgive, then I forgive you; if there is a need to be humble, then I am humble and open to listening to how I have brought you harm. I want to express to you that I am only concerned with the past as it effects the present; that is, if you are still expiriencing pain or if your thoughts are troubled, I would like for those memories to cease and I am open to hearing your grievances. I see the past as an old skin of actions and a set of circumstances that are no longer pretinent or useful to me. I would like to extend this peace offering to you as an activist; as a fellow human who is fallible, and constantly stumbling, but trying to learn from those errs. I recognize that the process and struggle of relationships is a vein that runs through all of us, and it is either beautiful or detrimental, depending how it may be viewed. I wish to heal through an honest and open dialogue with our community. I feel unsettled when I consider a vibrant and ever-growing project being built over a still-open wound, ignoring that you were an integral part of its foundation. I do not want to exclude you from it. I feel that poor communication brought this end, and I feel that without tender and constructive communication, a community cannot begin to survive again. I hope that these words may find you in peace. With humility and care.

memorial day

I stepped off a train in Waukeegan and

gave my all weekend pass to the vet at the station

took the trail up north to

down and dandelion

dander,  lay under cover of

sycamore boughs and sweetgum

that afternoon on Lakeshore

by the art museum I fell

asleep to the murmer of

sailboats strapped to the harbor

on a grassy knole on the verge of summer

the track field gone vacant and weedy

nothing to do but let dust particles settle

too bright almost to breathe

this is the point of disembarking

and I ask if I’ll be lonely and you say

yes it will be lonely but what else

do we know already