Tonya

My art gift was a long white paper light shade. I think about light a lot, like what cities have the best light, how to write about light, and mostly how to find it. Several years ago I moved from a very bright place (Arizona) to a dark one (Oregon) so naturally this is on my mind a lot.

These poems came from my search for light and the passing of David Foster Wallace.



The Late Great You

They gave us tea and kind words and let us go.

A squeaky door filled in the rest.

I was on loan and thumbing it through, like fruit

we were blemished and sunstruck and feeling good.

Maps would be culled and footnoted then spread out again.

There was holding and all manner of trips to the back forty.

Verily, and pow!

You said I’ll never do that again but really

it’s just that there is so much green and the problem of light.

It took years to find the great whoosh.

You had to brave it and calm it and keep it from picking fights.

It might hang with five people but where would you be?

Fruit stand, itinerant, hands up -- “However”

one must have oranges and grievances and plein.



I Like Your Footnotes Best

Truth is fence or lawn chair, folding fondly on itself where grasses hide Lynch’s fake ear.

It’s that scary. I can’t tell you how I know this

or why I came back for the lumbering that goes on.

I think it’s the cardigans (not the band) that keep me going but not the ones

you have to dryclean that’s a bitch, dealing with chemicals and daily upkeep.

Let’s say there are trivia tidbits and we harass our mates to tell the godawful truth.

Essays! Arguments! There’s a page somewhere hemmed in by it.

My pad was lush and spotless and I chose my words carefully.

Invitations to a TV sit-com poured forth.

Lights on, hair done up all sexy-librarian I am pre-hip and perfect.

Our eyes cannot be shut now.



Finding a Home for It

Whirrboy gets the action going playing bit parts in a beach house gone rad.

He is not scarred up like her nor trapped by the wifey ones.

He is all kickstand, synapse and fray.

We’d invited the neighbors and the “Can’t stop me from plunging into your yellowed mane -- ”

mind you there were 2 bunk beds and Kay.

They’d been up all night. It was like that other time when we got pinned down by

someone else’s day job and learned to shift through all speeds.

I could master the thing but not the stairs.

They said I was nonplussed but really

I was waiting for stuff to kick in.

Getting toned and learn a new language.

Maybe re-do the floors and get a dog. You were like that, I think.

In winter we had furred collars and holidays and passed-down plates.

The sky turned and everything was possible.