In the spaces between words
there is a gulf
wide and deep,
broad waters
uncharted
where emotions
sink
and shiver.

What is the difference?
I mean
what does it matter?
What I say and what
I do
are the same thing.
Aren’t they?

There is a place
where I can float

(peacefully)

buoyed by
uncertainty
anchored by
questioning
waiting for
the one
answer.

Off track

At the trailhead
I pause
to examine two arrows
feebly nailed to an ancient post.

One points in the general direction of a roughish
path barely discernable
amongst the bramble

the other resolutely
precisely
angling
to the direction of a worn,
well-marked trail.

Instincts are silent.

I take the clear way, not wishing
for stickers in my
socks.

The walk is long
steep
wearing
despairing

there is no end

there is only dust
miles thick
from the shuffling
of feet before mine.

Rain falls in big weeping
drops

each falling into the thirsty dust
no trace of moisture left
they evaporate just as
they dent the surface.

I took the wrong path.
Unknowingly.
It is too far
to turn back
now.

Mute

When I open my mouth,
what do you hear?

Are my words as mangled and
torn

as the heart
from which they come?

Do they sound as distant and
shallow

as the soul
or the mind
or the senses

that project them?

Tell me,
is my sentiment as thin
as my translucent skin

as wavering
as my softened spine

can you even tell
that I am crying
out
below the surface
steeping my lungs
slipping into the murky
shadows
deep
beyond
reach?

Rim

How far?

How far is it to the top,
a small voice asked.

This canyon is deep, we have descended
as far as we can
go.

It is as far up as down,
the other voice answered.

But farther is the way you must go,
the closer is
unscalable.

Grief can not make you any lower

than lying down
flat.

I am prostrate in
the sand
the walls rise
above
stretching
craning
the edge out of my reach.

I do not want to climb.

Carry me out. Pour me down.
I am out of trying.

Time is the enemy.

deceitful
spiteful
teasing
callous

The lover waits patiently,
spends the hour
watching the shadows bend,
her paramour
comes late,
exalts her for
waiting.

My Beast

How do you not compare yourself to others?

In reading Shape of a Mother today, I found a recent entry from a woman at 37 weeks bearing her third child, from twelve pregnancies. Nine lost children. Nine. She certainly deserves a lot more pity than me. Yet I wanted to weep, and not for her.

Nine. I can barely handle three, and those weren't as bad as for my niece, who lost two, including a stillborn at 23 weeks and a molar pregnancy at 10 weeks. She nearly had to go through chemotherapy for the resulting tumor, but it resolved in time. She now has a two-year-old daughter and no more plans for children. She's not even thirty yet.

Since last August's miscarriage, two feelings compete within me about having another child--the desperate fear of another loss, and the desperate want of another pregnancy. The second has been winning, the voices inside saying, I need to grow another child. I need a homebirth, MY homebirth. My children NEED to number three. My girls need another sibling--one each is not enough.

I visited Jacksonville eleven years ago this month. I was treated to an expenses-paid trip for niche-market editors, by the Convention & Visitor's Bureau, to entice us to write about their destination in our publications. (We were publishing Latina Bride then.) They took us to a popular beach festival, Fiesta Playera. I paid a fortune-teller five bucks to read my palm. I sat in the white tent, nearly fainting in the heat, missing the girl's words (she couldn't have been older than 19) for trying to catch the breeze sneaking in through the flaps. What do I remember from that ten minutes? That I have a short life-line, broken and feathered, telling of future illness and early demise. And oh, "you will have three children, all girls."

I have lived my life since then all hung-up around those words. How silly of me.

Paranoia feeds on the littlest details. Big deals don't mean much--they are too obvious, too loud and verbose when speaking to dark minds. No--subtle trends, false starts, small aches, tiny incongruities, pale hunches, ignorant slights, these things are what feed the monster of the deep, the lurker in the dark, the hulking sulking waiting breed of fear that hides behind rational feelings with its mouth wide ready to devour them and leave just fear and the urge to flee in its place.

The easy way would be to say that I'm done. No more pregnancies. No more miscarriages. No more... tears... hope... butterflies... babies... children...

What would be left? Disappointment. Fear. Pain. Failure. Broken-ness. Regret.

So I pull together every ounce of resolve, apply a numbing salve, drop the trap over the cave, shush the voices and follow the path on my palm, to try again.


I beat my fist
on my chest

the hole made there
weeps
moans

a voice cries out through it
NO!
No more!

How could I feel my
stomach in my throat
when all inside
is empty?

Tick Tock

Mother's hands.
She always took good care of her hands.
Nails perfectly filed.
Smoothed by Yardley's,
Protected
from

dirt
grime
hard work
stubborn cans

these hands of hers never did more than
she would let them.

Shit! she cried.
I broke a nail, she
complained.
(She was standing next to me
washing a pot at the sink
in my sister's kitchen,
caressing it clean in her
compulsive way)

Do you have scissors? she inquired of
everyone at the party
To trim my nail?

My dad produced something to clip off the broken
bit.

OUCH! She screamed! You hurt me!

Pouting, she turned to
me.

Don't you have scissors?

Clippers yes, mom. I have clippers,
and I produced them.

But I need scissors!

What for? Can't you use clippers?

No, she responded
flatly
smallishly.
I've never used them. Only
scissors

(I remember her nail scissors,
I know where they lie in her
bathroom above
the toilet,
I used them yesterday to snip a tag off
a gift she gave her granddaughter,
my child.)

Here mom, let me.
I take her hand, turn it over, find the split.
Sternly I say
Now don't move!

And I trim her broken nail
in the same way
I trim my daughters',
she looks up at me,
gratitude in her eyes for the first
time
of my life and

time

moves
on.

Infectum Opus

A poem started,
rhythm considered,
rhyme pondered,
stanzas metered.

The play's first scene blocked out,
understudies rehearsed,
actors performed.

The novel's plot outlined,
the epilogue signed,
first chapter written.

A symphony's opening movement composed,
cymbals clashed,
trumpets shouted,
cellos moaned.

Then the poet rubs out the verse,
the playwright crumples the page,
the author puts down his pen,
the composer hears a different note,
leaves the work,
and starts over again.

Window

It took only a moment –
she had asked me to unplug
the clock to ignore the hours –
the look, the sway, a brief
shake of the head,
a deep breath.

Repeat.

Won’t it stop, she asked.
Soon, the midwife answered.

She sank into a curl,
molding herself around the baby belly.

Silently her womb squeezed and
she roared the baby out.

A deep breath,
A humbling cry.

We look for the blank clock
and note the timeless
child born
at the first breath
of the newest dawn.

Thirst

What if I could break the clock,
peel back the face of
time
let spill those moments
unseen
unheard

catch drops of an alternate past
and drink new memories from
my palm?
Could I quench my
wonder? Last

I tried, a friend I once thought
wise
said,

Only the bitterest are heavy enough to catch,

The sweetest, the lightest
floated
out
too quick
dissolved.

Helpless

Each bit of news is worse
than the last.

Lesion.Frontal lobe.Intubated.Surgery.

deeper
deeper

They say,
once you hit bottom
the only way is up.

bottomless

They say,
what doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger.
or something.

sinking

I hate those words, she says.
What words,
I ask.
All of them.

the sky
falls away

I want to tear
at my eyes
hair
clothes
bash my forehead
on the desk.

slipping

Don’t waste time with
stupid words
asking why
saying sorry
or something.

Sound doesn’t carry
that far

down.

Just a little bit... would be enough

Just for today, just a little bit of

quiet
patience
joy
time
accomplishment
thanks
pride
rest
congratulations

would be enough.