Waking Up, Victoria, B. C., 1966

Waking Up, Victoria, B. C., 1966

our toes in the wet sand
all sound above us
at our feet
and beyond into the sea
soft thunder splash of breakers
afternoon tide rolling in
already to our ankles and knees

the beach golden-light, breezy
hair strands
mixing with sand and clothes
no one around
but you, my musician friend
sound asleep too

we scurried to the street
to the apartment
back to the festival where you
were opening for the Dead
not much to carry
no beach ware or bottles of this
or that, no food but
what the Canadian host would give us
always we lived on trust
and the forward thrust of time

fifty years fly by

my sister grew breasts first, my Irish twin a year older
we’d been dressed alike until she went to the tuck-in
white blouse, loosely nipped into her slim waistline
I in the sixth grade Catholic jumper of blue navy wool
jealous of her and my cousin who
both tied elastic around rib cages
high up under fledgling breasts to imitate a bra
they practiced kissing each other and me
so we’d all be ready when a boy came along, lips,
bra straps, breasts
I was happy to be included
and then mine appeared like mushroom caps
one bigger than the other the summer
I was eleven, before my period
before any talk about anything but these boys
who would arrive, according to my sister
and my cousin
my breasts budded screaming as if
on fire, nipples bleeding from
rapid growth or shirts or swimsuit rubbing.
My mother leaned down like
a scientist and poked one nipple when I showed
her the pain and the blood and she said she’d get me
a bra, but she forgot. The babies, all of them and my
brother well, we just didn’t go shopping, so she took
me to her room, rummaged her chest of drawers and
out came a crinkly white thing, try this on, she said, this
might fit— Had she been saving it for one of us?
I bypassed A cup that day, straight to this raggedy
prize that made my sister jealous, yea—she’d be stuck in A’s for
quite a while—we could never trade or share our bras.
At 16 I gave up underwear, rubbery girdles, garter belts and nylons
hand-me-down or cheap and awkward things
my own revolt against the patriarchy; the public school principal
always a male, dictated from on high that girls
would wear skirts with nylons, garter belts or girdles, and bras
I challenged the stupid man with loose clothing, bare legs or tights
and never did get busted, honor student invisible—they let me walk the hall
—Let them suffer was my motto, upsetting men with my free breasts
as if my body were their business, let them be upset or just not look
and, oh, yes, they did arrive
the boys in cars, on bikes, on foot—nice ones, sweet idiots and geniuses
one madman who pulled me into the bushes, whispering
how dare you walk around without a bra? How dare you walk like that?

New B&B in Anton Chico (for Georgia)

wow— an arrow-slotted fortress
for Comanche attacks
we walk through plumbing parts
almost step on her old porch lantern
stacked doors lean, the floor a domestic dump
grandmothers stood on stools to level muskets
at natives shooting arrows
massacre, slaughter, death: the entire
town of Anton Chico twice leveled by
Comanche serious about staying in that
neck o’ the woods; can’t say I blame them
the invaders’ history lightly dusted
with cocoa powder earth in almost ruins
this garage holds boxes of old
glass like popsicles
deep cracked walls
mirror fissures on the land
a pastiche of plaster cracked
a reminder everywhere
of sharing blood

She, this village, howls witch winds through crazy teeth
pantomimes circles, spirals, vortices to an eye
I feel looking as we kick around in the dust
our feet like glass, our bones aging
crumbling walls smell of grandfathers under paternal stars
in the melting house she says, you know why this room has pink walls
my room as a kid, she smiles an old memory
bright sun, mother and father dancing figurines
peach walls like the rolling land speckled with ochre
agave blues and greens in mica-glitter slabs, black rock
we scramble all day, drinking water in her silver Nissan
the land grant rich with flagstone and occasional free-roaming cattle
red heads also, curious about why we visit the Pecos
their piece of heaven and sun meandering under curved-rock
shelves, layered like cakes, deep pools good as gold

On the porch, old stoves await re-installation to fire
up a generation molten with cedar and piñon
in the revitalized living room a snowy-haired ghost
gets impatient for Willie Nelson as
stars drip down to cover this million acre bowl
In the kitchen we play Scrabble and bake
blackberry pie, cook steaks on the wood stove firebox
Georgia awaits installation of the new
on-demand water heater for
second and third bathrooms
to give it all another go
new guest rooms for those who will paint and write
who will pay for lodging and wandering in
perfect piñon silence—who may be
driven around on the mesa, the hills, and to the Opera while
ghosts serve as gatekeepers to this hard won land
little dervishes of wind playing, just messing around

Grandpa Charlie

Grandpa Charlie

Charles Henry Leahy wanted his
Mission-style portico-ed fancy-swirled
trowel work 3-story house
not too far from dirt-scratch starvation
potato famine emigration
bootleg sweetened his candy & cigar biz
whiskey shipped in steamer trunks
by his cousin in kilts from the north
whiskey easier than kindness for a man with daughters
Grandpa’s house coffin tight in wrought iron balconies
arched windows to die for and his red tile roof

our mother too well-fed for her father’s brother’s uncle’s taste
lard ass and fatso spewed at her pretty, adolescent face
his liver-building scars made of sturdy
Scottish short bread and rage

she hustled at billiards with her brother’s handsome friend
a smart hand at bridge, to him she looked thin enough
a war bride, those winning shots at pool
brilliant auburn curls, Cupid’s bow smile
her psyche wasn’t blind to his aquiline nose
above Valentino lips
eyes the morning sea below clear skies

she could only acquiesce to his pedigreed desire
hooked him with her corner shot in cardigans and pearls
yet she, alas, humorless, Jack and Jim sequestered loves
closeted as nuns, a couple of beach bums for fun
she never gave them up or tendered her surrender
never whup a man at any game, she said to my surprise
we puzzled that, competitive as rams
too late for her, too late for us
she too had set her sights on a fine fine house
I wonder at my heritage of women selling out
such a cost? my buttery tastes? my fine fine house

Yet another cabin poem # z 1971

In the cabin that spring soon as I was pregnant
you took up with Light-haired Sandy—
the men started dropping by just to see
hoping I was loose since everyone knew
I was a fool not knowing you did
whatever you did with her—she, pretty
strawberry blonde all about her hair
creamy skin and tall flat-bellied body
brain-dead as a milk can but that didn’t stop you

When Denny showed up instead of you one night
I still didn’t get it—he asked if I was lonesome
hung around a bit, mentioned how with you
in town a lot—he’d been wondering
Light-haired’s step-brother-in-law
I had no desire for him or
a good dose of trouble with his gang-y girlfriend
Light-hair’s step-sister, Dark-haired Sandy
I may as well have fallen on my sword cuz she
sure enough would’ve cut me up like a carcass

Geronimo found reasons to check on his cows
milling around the valley, most of which was his
but me and him, no way possible—his 60 something
wife Amalia would’ve shot me through the eyes
had him bury me without a prayer or a single fare thee well
besides, he was laughably old—had me walk on ice with him
and I could see the plan, he grabbing my arm as I inevitably
slipped

Fermin, of course, had come calling before your indiscretion
telling me at the woodpile how much we’d need, how
winters in Vallecitos were nothing to make light of
He knew it was a no cuz I’d snubbed him every time
I had to pass his house for access to the gorge—
the back way to our place in the valley below
One sunny day after walking the high road in to check the mail
buy tortillas at Willy’s, say hi, maybe, to the Sandys
Fermin jumped out from behind a big boulder
along the deep gorge path. He held my arms and
shook me a little as if I were a piggy bank. “Oh for God’s
sake, Fermin,—stop it!” He asked me then, another tack
could he and a few of his cousins come down to the cabin
and rape me some night. “No,” I answered carefully
learning a shit load about his culture in that one question
“No, I wouldn’t like that” looking right at him, my eyes an open blade
He looked down since eye contact was verboten. “Ok,” he said
“I thought maybe you’d want us to do that. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I told him, as if he were a child, already summoning up
the teacher voice inside me; I could finally hear her
in the quiet of that canyon
Perhaps she had said yes lifetimes ago, to the wrong man
I getting the second chance she hadn’t been afforded

What I loved so much of you was when you smiled lying next to me
What I loved so much when alone were the rose hips
on that sunny trail, the creek, deep and cool, winding
around glorious boulders, leaves floating downstream
through Aspen groves, the fields between our tiny cabin
and the creek, the hill beside us
with the brown bear scrambling up at sunset
Jesus, even beavers at the meadow where we first landed
and men who took no for an answer—no one spoiled that place for me
I love that you gave me a sewing machine, a trunk, and my son
and how I learned through you to say no with authority

Facing the Doldrums

my marriage the differential of him over me
the cube roots of nothing makes sense—
two negatives multiplied worked for a while
throw in the curves of painted rooms
shopping trips, holding close then closer
tricky math doesn’t give a when or where—
I’m coming apart like a sweater, a season
snipped too close at the knot
a French seam carelessly bound

geometrically irregular, like cancer creeps
spilled jam, sticky fruit juice
I’m wasted to my day—useless to myself
celebrations made uneasy by missing the point
screwing up turns, mistaking stay for leave
and bring for take
I’m a machine-stitched hem gone crooked
something vertically unsaid

Penelope, unravel my brain, this damned carpet
hurts me; the pattern of scratchy rejection
lovers in cold constellations orbiting like dogs
Penelope, did he console you
beg you overlook his dalliance with sirens
bacchanalian guy stuff with grapes and gorgons
you tied his name into your weft as error
a prayer to your household Gods

my gods give me code
the square footage of plane wings
empty apartments, apart
I measure out string to weave
reweave to conceal imperfections
nod to the planetary bodies lying, barking
Penelope, you waited so nobly for word
any sign, as you stayed and stayed
wearing your crown in your castle

demons be gone—
if you are human be gone
only solitude is mine
this sitting at the loom
weaving choice and time

Two for sun 35

love with a twist of vengeance
by merimee

To be alone anywhere missing him
as if he were my body too and I a wind
flitting back and forth—
oh busy body woman me
I wonder when mother knew her second husband
was lousy —that soma
snoozed our father out her diluted heart
god damn bottles of booze
mixing confusion
with self and conscious
too strong on the rocks
for a girl lost to duty
cocktail glasses on apricot formica
their final dance—not much huzzah!
but hey, she
did not find him looking into her
or acceptable—the younger sibs
have it he slapped her & she
ran frightened from him
from tidal wave passion
no in-betweens when a storm ends
it’s alive or drowned
she half there, half lost in sand
dislike my man/dislike myself
I cannot indulge the dominance of
dull/depressed as
he reflects my shit right back, yet
a gift: the blues consolidate if
I allow myself, thank goddess, to skate on it
like glass or change the channel
and swim






#4
Girl kisses
by merimee

my poor health plagues like mosquitoes, an itch
good for squinting into the future
whining like an elephant
might as well use laugh therapy
get out of the house therapy
revere the act of cracking eggs, gratefully
stir melted chocolate and butter into agave
therapy
oat flour and walnuts. Healthy brownies
splat aches and pains: those damn mosquitoes
Daddy ended each letter with “enjoy your life”
and damn he meant it
look fierce into Despair’s pretty face
and kiss her full on