the last time we talked?

we were doing the taxes
you were making it up
your mileage
but you didn't want to
just make it up
you wanted to look back
at the calendar
and calculate
just how many miles
you might have spent
traveling to the courthouse
and back
taking the back roads
like you liked to do
and we had worked
our way through April
and i couldn't stand it
anymore
the figuring
of taxes
without talking
about the refund
you were not going to be here
to receive
to put in 5% CDs
and save for the
retirement
you weren't agreeing to
me, wresting it from
your clinging hands.
and i started crying
just like a girl
and i stormed about
just like you taught me
and it shook you up
a minute
and we went to the living room
reserved for visitors
and sat down,
and you asked me
if i had any
questions...


was that the last time we talked?

what i'm doing here without you

it was the most honest
you could be
your angry "i don't know"
uttered in swear words,
in beer gulps,
expressed in cheap cigar
smoke.

you took your habits
outside when she
was diagnosed
bought garage sale
air purifiers and
littered them in
every room when
outside put you too far
from your locus of control
command center
under the yellowed lamp,
in the garage sale chair
your beer gut hanging out over boxers
you attention angled at the blue screen
of bloomberg every morning

in the end
it would be you to
die of the cancer
that tried to kill
her hust five years
earlier.

and as we bussed
the butts and crushed
the cans and filled
the dumpsters full
of your garage sale
mind there was nothing
we could say--
nothing we could do
with all you used to
hold off the swell
of i don't knows


###


dropping
down
into the
silence
of the
hum
of
breathers
breathing
in and out
the courage
contracts
expands
delighted
i cut off
from there
from then
i let it
fall--
all--
into nothing
again.


###


where is the center?
the breath breathing itself
in something
deeper
am i doing this
right?
where is it that
the line is
crossed
and i am deep
underwater
breathing in
and out
the stuff of
only my own
things
oh things--
yes
i do not
make
those.


###


hear in the long
since forgotten
woken with death
the trampling through
the late night
offer to walk
and discover
just what lay
there--gone--
without you
i wander--
should be
free of you
now
but you haunt me
or is it i,
keeping you
from some
prized
inner sanctum
in heaven
by my inability
to ever
really
let
loving you
go--


###


i don't love you.
i didn't love you.
i didn't believe
the things you
wouldn't sell
or trade on
scarcity and lies
to keep the
change beside
the cellophane
wrappers that
wouldn't seal
the stench
of yellow smoke
cheap cigars
you died from
bad lite beer
you died from
too much bloomberg
and not enough long
walks talking and
looking at the stars
and counting fireflies
you were every
strong thing
in this world
to me--
every false
belief about
poverty and
unworthiness
and without
you to push
against
i have
fallen in
to that
garage sale
chair
under the
yellow lamp
you could
never look up
from or
climb out
of --
except when
i came home
and you were
once again
alive.


###


did i kill you?
when i left?
or did you
start dying
before that?
with the first
born dead?
with the gunshot?
with the end
right there at
the very beginning
of things.
you prayed me
into being.
now--
i don't know
what i'm
doing here
without
you.

if i make a space

if i make a space
if i leave a path clear for you--or
even overgrown
if i sit, crazy in the emptiness of
without you or the full to overflowing
only you could get glose enough to give me
if i sit in the piece of now that's offered
quiet, silent, empty as the upright glass
and wait without waiting for you or
anything else--you or anyone--this
or anything--if i empty of self and
song and story and little pieces of sacred
paper or quiet words whispered to
the dead leaves in the ink that
flows when i hold the pen
is it you or me? left there as the
glass of emptiness? the vessel of
yes? the empty space of peace?
i am ready for emptiness--
i just can not bring myself to let go
when i go...
but i will go.

how long?

digging through the boxes
the bookshelves
the piles of paper,
fort like,
built up around you,
marking your territory,
with all the important things
you were always afraid to store
out of view
there was nothing from me
nothing from you
about anything
that wasn't work
or money
how long had you lived without love?

digging

deep
down
six feet
in the cold dark earth
the body of my father
lays
eyes forever closed
hands cold
fingernails growing

and i want to dig in the earth this spring
this california spring turning fast into summer
this good green earth browning fast
on all the dried out edges
of not enough rain

and i have not, yet
save for the accidental planting
with my baby girl
as we put her various pea plants
in pots
and watered
what did not sprout
in time for the science fair

but the bulbs we pushed into the ground
are cutting open the earth with their green swords
so anxious they are to grow tall
to grow open

and i am encouraged by their appearance
above the ground
i am encouraged by their sentry promise
six inches from each other in a long straight line
of warning
and i look to them, hoping
i look to them, hoping

and i remember when they sprout
my sister will come
and she'll be damn gladiola to see me
and together, maybe
i'll be brave enough
to again dig in this burial ground