You almost decided not to have the abortion.

you remember looking at another model

in the dressing room in your medium-sized

town filled with girls with medium-sized dreams

who talked big; maybe one day

making it to New York City, seeing your face

on the cover of a magazine going to parties

where all the beautiful people went, where you would be

wearing a red dress and smiling in the corner watching

the people.  One girl was a tall blond, legs forever but a mediocre

face –or so the local photographer told her–

that she could never make it that she should stay where she was, where

she would always be.  You remember watching her as she leaned over

the make -up counter all her paraphernalia spread out before her: the bottles

and powders, the brushes, whatever magic could take her

where she wanted to go.  You almost decided then watching her

watching you in the reflection of the mirror, the bright lights

illuminating your face behind hers, holding you,

still as a picture.

 

So many years later

I don’t even remember his name, maybe

it was Nick or Brian or Sam.  Gin was involved.  I liked the way he looked at me

looking at him.  I liked opening myself to him,

how I spilled out my life to anyone

who pretended to listen, wanting what the boys always

wanted; a moment and gone.

We did it in the apartment I shared with my sister, where

the door always stuck and I could hear my small nephew’s cries

from the other room.  When I looked out my bedroom window

I could see his face pressed against the glass of the adjacent window

calling my name; my own response reverberating in the inky night.

Early in the still morning dark,  my mind a fog,

I heard my sister gather her things for the a.m. shift at the diner, calling

him names: You little shit! while I waited silent

behind my closed door.

I’m driving home distracted.

It’s December, but warm

and I don’t see the man on the bike

until I am halfway into the turn.  He could be anyone

to slam into on this warm December night.

 

At the end of the year the angry e-mails

arrive like clockwork, like the dreaded

Christmas letter about someone else’s life

written in the voice of a small child.

Except this voice, in this e-mail,

doesn’t even pretend

that the year was anything other

than what it was.  He’s a military man and he knows

what he wants and is ready

to go to battle, demanding a meeting, berating

the system, the school which failed

his son.  You were supposed to make him better

prepared for whatever else he might confront, a life

beyond this one screaming at you.

Any small thing you said or didn’t say will come back

to haunt you: your own messy words

scrawled across his blank life

thrown back in your face.  You can see this man, the boy’s

graded essays balled in his fists.  This father’s missive

is filled with declarations, anger punctuated

with exclamation points, bold-

faced and screaming from your computer screen.

My son entered this class with a love

of literature and poetry! he exclaims.  All you can see

is the blank-faced young man sitting in your classroom, eyes

like a dumb deer who doesn’t know

what is about to hit him.

 

 

All day long I stumble

through the dark

avoiding students who always seem to want

something I can never give.  They corner me

at the doorway to my room, demanding an explanation

for the essays in which they poured what remained

of their hearts.  Can I talk to you about. . .

But before she can get the words out of her mouth

you cut her off, locking the door, shutting that

and everything else, out.

joy feels out of reach as far away

as my daughter in Seattle. unmoored

dependent on artificial means of finding

whatever it is

I may be missing, stumbling

through my life accumulating

clutter and more

clutter, blocking my view leaving me blind.

I awake

feeling drugged and still

heavy with sleep, despite a night

of pills to aid a dreamless

sleep.   I am restless, admonishing students

for not caring, trying

to find a way to recover

my life, how to reach

people who don’t want

to be reached.  I wake up flailing

my arms in the dark, hands grasping at something

I can never hold onto, careening into

whatever might come next.

 

I remember him sitting at the kitchen table, cold

formica, looking as if he’d already made up his mind; his world

around him: stacks of old newspapers, crystal glass

ashtrays filled with tobacco ash; the old roll-top desk

he refinished years ago, covered with scraps of paper, things he knew

he couldn’t afford to lose; his city garden–the tomatoes,

and lettuce, cucumbers still dormant, waiting.  His almost-

grown children behind him just beyond his reach as they

always were.  He looked resigned, like he couldn’t see the point

of making his way through what had always been

right in front of him.

 

He stumbled the city block around our house, looking

for what he needed, or wanted, as if he could find

the day I ran off, my clothes packed.  Behind me

my father standing in the doorway

of my life, his bulky body blocking my way.

 

At the kitchen table he looked at me

with tired eyes, his voice a whisper in the dark.  I was indifferent,

taking what was mine, things I didn’t want

to leave behind.

 

 

.

 

 

 

It was easy to get caught up in them;

it felt like something I could control,

the heat of their bodies on mine.

 

That first kiss I knew

it was all over, whatever

resolve I might have had

 

went out the window.  I was already naked

sinking into the darkness

of them.

 

It didn’t matter if I knew

what was coming—the quick and hurried

goodbye, the phone call

that might never come.

 

All that mattered was the moment,

watching their faces, lost, in the pool

of me.

 

 

In our dreams our version of things

will always turn out right

like the classic Christmas movie

we never grow tired of.

Each year finds us on our worn-out couch

covered in blankets looking

just a bit more worse for the wear,

hunting through the DVDs for the film.

There is Jimmy Stewart, looking grim

but plugging his way through life.

You want to shout—

Way to go, brainless, don’t you know

that it will never turn out the way you’d like?

We know from our living room

far into the future, that it doesn’t matter,

even if your own mother answers the door

and doesn’t recognize you.  In this rendering it would be enough

to tie some string around your finger and hope for the best.

 

Every year finds you doing the same

tabulation of your life.  You try to imagine

which childhood friend you saved from harm

just as they were about to go cracking

through ice so black they could never

get back.  Some years it just doesn’t

add up: Mr. Gower in his drugstore

slumped in his chair, not caring; even young George

couldn’t bring his son to life.  Violet Bick is forever

the town whore no matter what version of the universe.  And Mary

alone on a cold Christmas night.

Despite this, on our shabby couch in our shabby

apartment, overrun with dreams

of getting so far away we would never look back;

despite this, we find ourselves

on our own version of that bridge on a snowy Christmas Eve,

whispering please God, let me live again, this time let me

recognize its worth.