Learning to Fly

“The Road Not Taken” ~ Robert Frost, 1915
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy [...]

All good things must come to an end…

Early last January, I found myself with eight other grad students waiting for Frank X. Walker to introduce himself to his Advanced Poetry class. Within a few minutes, I found myself wondering what the hell I had just gotten myself into.
“This is a graduate-level poetry class. I assume you’re all advanced poets, and I expect nothing short [...]

An Ounce of Prevention (Salk’s Miracle)

I could have prevented the epidemic.
Now everyone knows someone
or knows someone who knows someone
who knows the loss of limbs or lungs.

I’ve never met those beneath sterile sheets
attended to by white-capped nurses
in beds adjacent to large rooms crowded
with angled missiles that power breath and life.

Parents gather around over-polished Zenith TVs
to watch Walter Cronkite report on [...]

Coffin Nails (10/10/35 – 5/4/04)

(a villanelle)
I step ouside and smoke a cigarette.
Your death’s the final verdict. I’m afraid,
and there’s nothing you can do about it.
 
I’d quit smoking last winter, but fuck it.
Addiction–no match for this bed God made.
I step outside and smoke a cigarette.
 
I thought your stroke punished you enough yet
your basal cells made other plans. I caved,
and there’s nothing [...]

Dora Salk’s Lament (NYC, 1916)

[During the summer of 1916, infantile paralysis--or polio--raged through New York, home to Jonas Salk, announcing its arrival in several homes where one morning, for no apparent reason, children awoke paralyzed. Befuddled city health officials blamed the outbreak on their usual suspects, immigrants, whose communities were overcrowded and assumed to be filthy.  The epidemic began [...]

Nigerian Independence Day (a tale of two African postcards)

 

Cast in metal, carved in stone–
fear painted on a cotton cloth–
he seeks comfort in his mother’s arms
amid swords and soldiers, a death on a cross.
 
His eyes find a window where
an Igbo child waves then performs
cartwheels and acrobatics choreographed
to the groove of an udu and an ogene.
 
Mom, he says, mind if I play with him?
Go ahead, she says, you need a break.
But don’t make us have to [...]

Tears for Jkay

Candles light again.
Virtual flames burn brightly.
Our Jkay is gone.
 
The puns, the laughter
We will never be the same.
Our Jkay is gone.
 
Go on now and rest.
Kisses for Jack-the-Juggler.
Our Jkay is gone.
 
Hours   minutes   days
you’ll find yourself in our hearts.
Our Jkay is gone.
 
Tonight, toward heaven
I will raise a toast to you.
My friend may be gone…
 
But you will live on.
As long [...]

Baby Book

Married six weeks, then
Aunt Flo forgets to show up.
The Pill’s not child proof.
“Choice” enters my mind
but only for a minute.
I smile. I’m a mom.
 
Out with our date nights.
In with a diaper bag and
a thrift store cradle.
 
We move south, ten miles
away from Cincinnati
to the Bluegrass state.
 
Into a duplex
we unload cats and boxes
dreams and baby things.
 
Empty home, [...]

Sex Ed

Italacized text from Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Cameroon
March 17, 2009
  
…one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS
 
 

only with money–   
though we’ve never known money
in Cameroon
where we once played with dolls
and pledged our virginity
which is important
to Catholics in Central Africa
but if there is
no one left to teach us our worth, our value—
no [...]

Ethiopian Madonna

Iconic black-eyed Mama
Your sacred heart soon to be pierced by sorrow
But for now, he runs to safety
In the hollows of your generous arm

Scarlet and Gray

I come from Buckeye Nation
From central Ohio, north of Columbus and the school of Woody Hayes
From Big 2, Little 8 and “three yards and a cloud of dust”
and Archie Griffin, Big Ten championships and disdain for That Team Up North
From Script Ohio, the dotting of the “I” and the Best Damn Band in the Land
and [...]

Raised By Woman

(Mirrored after Kelly Norman Ellis’ “Raised By Women“)
I was raised by
Gravy eating
Potato mashing
Chicken so good you want to lick
Your fingers frying
“Quit picking, fix yourself a plate”
Kind of Woman.
Some curly haired
Audrey Hepburn French-twist styling
“Sissy, hold still
and let me brush your bangs”
Sorta Woman
Some curvy legged
High heeled, pastel purple
Toe tapping
Mink coat wearing
Dangly earrings dangling
Sassy single
Swingin
“I clean up pretty [...]

Miranda’s Recipe for Interrogation

Ingredients:
2 cups of commotion
1 restaurant manager, defrosted
2 third-shift cops, drained
1 detective, unsweetened
1 teaspoon of false accusation
1 small jar of venom
2 tablespoons of indignation
A dash of disbelief
Directions:
Preheat your civil service to 375 degrees and grease your ineptitude with erroneous intuition. In a large bowl, sift the ingredients of your malignant mischaracterizations and toss the evidence. Mix [...]

Thanksgiving: A New Tradition

I’ve been doing this Thanksgiving thing a long time. Nothing extravagant, mind you. Just our tiny brood of four gathering around the dining room table (or couches and chairs in the living room) giving thanks for each other and that freaking beast of a turkey. All the same, it is still a Big Deal.
First, there’s [...]

Danny,

A week ago yesterday, we learned a stroke had kicked your ass into a coma. Tomorrow, we celebrate your life among friends and colleagues and memories and tears.
I remember liking you the first time we met and loving you the next. As a student, I sought you out and asked you to be my adviser.  [...]

Cheers!

Our European counterparts must be laughing hysterically at a new debate currently being waged in our country.  Recently, a group of university presidents has collectively decided it is time for our country to rethink its current 21-and-over drinking age law.  The Amethyst Initiative says it’s time to take college drinking out of the closet and [...]

And then you know

And you change into a pink hospital top, velcroed slit in the front, and wait for your turn.
And your girls are introduced to a radiographic garlic press, if you will, smiling pretty for the camera.
And you go home, and you wait, one to two business days.
And you’re waiting for a phone call, or better yet, [...]

Smoke

It is late-fall, and I am a junior in high school. Within the sanctuary of our small parochial school–and outside of it as well–Jeanette and I have built a friendship, a solid soul-sister bonding that has benefited from teacher tirades, swoony boy crushes and the lunch ladies’ no-bake cookies. We are constant companions, along with [...]

BSE

Blood courses cold through your veins while the air around you fills with electrical static, and you’re almost suffocating with the fear that has now captured your full attention.
Three fingers return to that place. They return over and over and a hundred times more. Two, three, four, five hundred times more, maybe. Arm up, arm [...]

My Huckleberry Friend

“We’re after the same rainbow’s end–
waiting ’round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.”
Happy Father’s Day.

Forty years

I can’t remember who, but someone had told me my father was dead.
My mother and brother and sister stood next to me while I bent down to kiss his embalmed cheek below eyes that no longer looked at me. His face felt cold and waxy, like lip balm. He didn’t tell me, “I love you.” [...]

The Bivouac of the Dead

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo’
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few;
On Fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
But Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
Theodore O’Hara, 1847

Emily Gould…exposing us all?

I admit, I had never heard of Emily Gould until yesterday evening. Alone and bored out of my skull, I perused NPR.org for the second time yesterday in case I’d missed something earlier in the day. Then I stumbled upon this story, which led to reading this (rather lengthy but very well-written) essay, which led [...]

Bodies…Banned? The saga continues

I first wrote about “Bodies: The Exhibit” a few months ago.  This morning, I am pleased to read this latest development.

Bill would ban ‘Bodies’ imports
The Cincinnati Enquirer

BY MALIA RULON | MRULON@ENQUIRER.COM
WASHINGTON — Protesters and critics of the Bodies exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center aren’t the only ones who think the preserved human remains on [...]

5/6/2004

Gone From My Sight
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is a n object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where [...]