Spirit Animal

I’m chewing through the men today Some are tasty Some get spit out Listening to American Idiot This Labor Day Knowing I am one for sure Not in Umbria, not in Rome In John or Gianluca’s bed In my own bed The one I made And make every day, David Like I did New Year’s with Nunzio I Just Can’t Get Enough playing now Maybe I’ve been Moloch this whole time Devouring, consuming Come get in this bed, you cowards Let yourself be eaten Then find yourself released

You are tall Young slender willows Leaves dancing And wonder about the stump among you Let the axe grind I have daughters Just like you Borne and raised off this back I envy no one No one their youth and beauty Life is hard, my willows If you can wander far and wide And end up back in the same spot Transformed yet still the same as ever This is all that can be asked of the wind Every leaf new in spring, gone by winter

I saw her in the clouds Driving down College Street in Fayetteville Top down on my new car I had been looking for her My spirit animal Maybe it was something I had read Or heard in conversation Some fad at the time Was mine a bear, mama those years A phoenix, a turtle, a rabbit, a deer I didn’t know I let the wind blow in my hair And headed toward the mall Her tail twitches Away the flies While she licks her paw Clean of blood The gold heat blends her coat To match the palette of the earth She is not hungry now Those around her are eating their fill Indolent mate, but still hers A few thorns around fable ready A mouse or two to ignore The cubs long gone into the wild Nothing left to do but bask in the sun

Today is Genevieve’s birthday My maid of honor At the wedding so long ago She’s gone now Part of the clouds Free, she told my sister Artist, mermaid, fairy queen The system used and broke her Destroyed the living magic The details are important But I won’t recount them here These words are for something different These words are to hold The beloved to the light This sunrise, this day Even though she is free now And probably has more fun than I do Setting up the sunrise For me.

The world is lying to you Just ask it You know that phrase If it is too good to be true It probably is The benefits of teamwork Stronger together Bullshit When the world force-feeds you doctrine Choke on it Spit it back out Because it’s lying, this world Not Mother Earth, no The world of men. One person Grounded in truth Resisting the lie Is stronger Than an army of automatons Human or otherwise Whether or not You are delivered from the fire Do not bow to the false gods Do not bend your knee To the tyrant Pretending to be A team player

Happens every year The mourning as summer ends Tears I don’t shed but carry inside It was, as usual, A glorious summer I don’t take them for granted anymore One will be my last One Christmas will be my last One spring So each one becomes more with its passing Knowing they are finite And complete I want to cry these tears Let the waters of September Pour forth And you know the Brazilian song That already says the same thing In a world upside down We are not the first nor the last To carry tears for this world And the seasons all pass All of our seasons

Once I asked Stan, “How do you do it? How do you know what to play?” He said, “Listen to the music. Add what is not there.” But I can’t sing like y’all do. I can’t get up in front of a crowd and hold them in the palm of my hand, As the voice goes up and down. All the notes that God has made, And you just transport them to a form of ecstasy and joy. That’s not my talent. Maybe this isn’t either. Maybe this is all bullshit, but if it’s anything, I will try. I will try to stand up at the microphone, in front of that group at Red’s tonight, and say to y’all... We live here in the palm of His hand that holds us. He writes the stars, He writes the lines on our palms and on our faces. All we gotta do is keep on going. Worry is the greatest sin, the one that blasphemes the Holy Spirit. So all I want you to do tonight is drink another beer, hold on tight, listen to the music, listen to the singers. Let their voices charm you and chime against the hour. Because we’re only here a few minutes, Let’s make them count. Let’s dance out our measure.

I gave you my best Flour yeast water salt oil And you gave back crumbs Little red hen knows it’s time She learns to do for herself.

“All black women Do not look the same.” She said that to me I really thought We had hung out But I guess I was wrong I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before And recently, like maybe Saturday At the Matchbox And maybe we didn’t hang out Maybe I just saw her And maybe she saw me, and doesn’t like me Burning a bridge While it’s being built Means it will never get done I ain’t gonna fix Mississippi But you sure ain’t either Not like that I’m pretty sure I did meet you, Casey Or see you somewhere. Now I’m pretty sure we did not hang out. I’m sorry if I offended you I don’t mind that you offended me It’s good to find the soft spots And yes it’s tender to the touch I am not black I am not white I am going gray, but that’s a different subject So maybe give an old gray woman a break And in my story here I will end on this: We can both be wrong We can both be right The main thing is we can both be And share the peace

7 o’clock in the morning And I was talking to the dog. “Julia,” I said, “Maybe I should write a poem about you. I don’t want to write anymore about me. Enough is enough.” Then I thought about some conversations I heard yesterday They were litanies of other people’s tragedies, and their own, like life is a series of events And we are here as passive receptors One tragedy after another And I don’t think that’s right. I think you gotta—what’s the phrase? Take the bull by the horns? But then another cliche came to mind The bull in a china shop. The bull started talking to me. “What the fuck am I doing in this china shop? I’m gonna break every piece of this china. I don’t give a fuck about china. I should be under the trees, smelling the flowers. Fucking all the cows.” So I don’t know if you’re the china shop, cataloging breakage or if you’re the bull. I don’t know if you’re the bullfighter or the bullshitter. But this poem didn’t turn out to be about the dog.

Feel like I’m in Meatballs Which you might not remember But if you do You’re a meatball too We knew the future was scary So we did the only brave thing— We lived.

Everything has been codified And categorized Except this— This nameless war No algorithm will tell you The truth No feed will nourish What can’t be consumed No flesh will please you No fantasy fulfill you Isolated from the one right next to you Scrolling along Games, gaming Blind in your helmet Gridiron, virtual Trusting the score is kept We spin and spin Disk-driven dervishes Minds and men on record Nothing lost, nothing gained The mosquitoes don’t ask questions They still come through the open window To bite us And drink our blood

Breath over water The first moment of creation Before the creation When time began A new time forms Hovering, formless What shape shall we give it? Fiat lux Motto to minds The name is the code word That spells out a meaning Cipher it and see No shadow— Projection We are all on cave walls Come into the light Come toward the sun Scire—conscire To know together Code, codex, caudex Trace to the root One, with meaning Only in relationship To one another —Maraventano

Someone gave her a bag of chickpeas. She let them sit around for a while, until one day she decided it was time to cook up every old thing in her kitchen, clean it out, then start over. She’d heard of aquafaba, the water from the chickpeas, and asked Claude what she could do with it. “It makes a good egg substitute,” he said. “You can freeze it in an ice cube tray. One cube is about one egg.” This was good news, because she was out of eggs and wanted to make pancakes. She whipped up the milk, flour, sugar, and salt. She put the frothed aquafaba in. But she also didn’t have baking powder since she’d quit baking so long ago. “Use baking soda and vinegar,” Claude told her. “Add the vinegar last for best rise.” So she made her unorthodox pancakes, one after the other. The first ones were a little burned; she had the pan too hot. But eventually, as the stack grew, the pancakes became perfect. The best pancakes in the world are made with bean juice and vinegar. And the fact that the world could still surprise her was delicious.

I had a friend with a brown door And no job She had looked and looked for a job And she had looked and looked at her door Which she wanted to be blue Things got pretty bad For a while there Hard choices, sacrifice No hot water But she kept going Kept looking, chin up One day, she went to the paint store And on this spring day Painted that damn brown door She’d never liked Parisian Patina I went over to her place To admire her door Even though I thought she might Be a little crazy But there she was in the April sunlight Happy with her blue door And I knew courage then. Of course, she got a job Soon after, back on her feet Which carried her far away from me And her newly painted door But whenever I’m blue I think of that day And get out my swatches Look for something to paint

One trick the magician Cannot learn How to put the cat Back in the bag At some point The cat herself Was tricked Into the bag In the first place But now she’s learned Our little pussycat Now she knows What teeth and claws are for

Happily ever after Is not written in fairy tales They don’t talk about waking up On a fall morning and making coffee Watching the pecan tree leaves drift down The monarch migration, the change in the weather Dog asleep under the table In the stories, the hero and heroine Ride off into the sunset and out of our sight We witness their story of coming together But have no interest in what happens next Happily ever after is different than I thought We can write it ourselves The adventures or routines that make us happy A time and place that gives both— Structure and freedom, peace and dancing This is mine, these days As the world winds down Or at least my world disappears Fading off into a sunset Me? I wait for the stars