writings

Half-finished and hungry

Most of life will feel unfinished,

as a dirty sock appears in the just-emptied laundry basket.

You empty the peach jam jar

just after arriving home with an armful of groceries.

The poems lie and wait in dusty corners

while bills get paid, and children forget

their school lunches on the hallway bench.

The day arrives when you look at Life and say,

throat raspy, but with conviction,

I’ll take it—take it all—

the heartbreak and the monotony,

the ripe passion fruit on the vine,

the tax returns and belly laughter,

a thousand moments spent waiting at red lights.

I will take every day, every single one,

even though most of them feel like

I do not do enough for the ones I love

and on whom my life depends.

I’ll take every loss–

the cancer diagnosis that comes too young,

the time spent trying to (yet again!) find my keys.

I will take the words, too blurred by tears,

to be read from my lover’s goodbye letter.

I’ll have the bagel with everything, the fries loaded,

the song for which I can only remember the chorus.

I will start reading the mystery novel

the author never finished.

I will greet the angels and demons and the guardians

of every realm of heaven and hell;

I will hold each one gently by the face and say:

Whatever you must teach me, I am here to learn.

I will take every breath and pick up every penny,

no matter how dusty.

I will take life half-finished and hungry

for more

and more.

Probably a buffalo

On a Tuesday

too slow to even be called

lazy,

a deep thud

on the street.

What was that

my son asks

leaning his sticky nose

against the window.

I don’t know, I say barely

looking up from my wrinkled novel.

Probably a buffalo

he says, matter-of-factly.

I laugh, and then I stop myself:

probably a buffalo.

I look at him and enter a world

where princesses wield

swords against fearful dragons.

Where rocket ships launch from

the armchair and float across the

vastness of space and time to

the fireplace mantel.

A world where rubber ducks

and spongy blue sharks

ride together in

the yellow submarine

stationed in the chipped

porcelain tub, where a soft floppy

brown bunny clutched tight against the chest

keeps away the dangers of the night.

I realize I don’t want to stop him

from listening for

buffalo on our hot city block

of crumbling Victorians

and thick, wide palm trees.

I don’t want him to stop believing

That the endangered

and the troubled

and the forgotten

and the old

and the young

are the central characters

In the story of the world.

I don’t want him to stop believing

That the lost

and the betrayed

and the sick

and the tired

and the hungry

are victorious

in the raging, epic struggle

between good and evil.

Yes, I nod, pulling

back the curtain peering

into the afternoon sun,

Probably a buffalo.