Category: Poetry

I must confess
I painted the green table
and the yellow chairs,
the ones
we bought when we were first married
fifteen years ago
when my stomach was flat
and we didn’t shy from starting movies
(and other things) after 11.
When sleep was commonplace, like mis-
matched socks,
and silence was everywhere in the house
so thick you could trip on it
or get lost in it.

Of course,
you asked me to paint the table
and the chairs
but I didn’t
think it would take so many coats to cover
all the gashes
and scars
left by a thousand Scrabble games
hot pans of Rice Crispy Treats
four years in storage while we lived
in England
unsecured trips in moving vans
then teething children gnawing and racing
their matchbox cars past bowls
of cereal that left little pale rings
like the wispy ones that circle planets.
And then there were the permanent markers
that bleed through sheets
of multi-colored paper
or the demanding bang of miniature
forks and spoons chipping away.

But the new red paint will never cover
over the way we sat on those chairs,
elbows on the table,
and cried
after two miscarriages. Or the lost
friends. Or the pain
and joy
of moving on
to new places.

There are some things paint cannot cover.

Like conversations unfolding from
“Now
what do we do?”
or
“How could you say that?”
or
“I’m not doing well.
Not well at all.”
But also
“I’m pregnant,”
or
“I got the contract,”
or
“I couldn’t do this without you.”

Someone already scratched the table
despite my many warnings of the incredible
wrath that would fall from this
August sky
but when I saw in the middle of the new
scratch that the original dark green
was still there
under the red paint
all those years
just a thin skin away
I must confess.
I was relieved.

Because these years of ours
may look like a pock-marked tabletop
scarred and scraped,
but they can never be covered over.
And that is one thing in this world
that is exactly as it should be.

* * * * *
Did you know I have a book of poems you can get in an ebook for free? It’s called We Might Never Die, and it’s a free download over at Noisetrade.

There is something
no one tells you
while the guests are still there,
while the cake watches,
uncut,
while the rings still feel
unfamiliar,
slippery,
like something stuck between
your teeth.

What that thing is,
what no one tells you,
(during the toasts or the speeches
or the dancing)
is that you will need to
say those two words
again
and again

and again.

The preacher makes it sound
like it’s once-and-done,
but it’s
not.

After the first fight,
for example,
the one that catches you
off guard,
you will have to say those two words,
and again after the twenty-seventh
argument about the same thing,
your tone, maybe,
or the smallest rolling
of the eyes.

And again
after the one hundred
and fifth
disappointment.
Or
when you’re sitting on the floor
of your office
in despair
and she is in the room
fuming,
or despairing, too,
over things you cannot name
and never could have foreseen.

And again
this time gladly
on nights when your hands
touch
under the covers, live wires,
or when your child leaves
the room, and you
smile at each other with joy
because
there goes the two of you
and so much more
in one body.

Or when the little strip just won’t
turn. And the months pass
marked by what arrives
and what does not.

Until sickness and health
are behind you
and death has parted you.
One hundred
thousand
million
times
in every little way and every big way
in every glance and every sigh.

I do.

You know,
I say those words
every day, every minute.
I peek into the room and see
you sitting in the sunshine,
eyes closed, tired from every little thing,
and I whisper it to myself, though no
one else is there
to witness it.

No one else,
still,
I do.

* * * * *

Did you know I have a book of poems you can get in an ebook for free? It’s called We Might Never Die, and it’s a free download over at Noisetrade. Go get it, as a Valentine’s Day gift from me. Or to me. Or another reason, if either of those seem weird.

Can it really have taken me
sixteen years to realize you can
live in the same house with someone
and still lose track of them?

It’s true.

We occasionally lose
each other, somewhere among
discarded Legos and Everest piles
of laundry, too many words to be written
or deciding the best way to teach
dangling participles, the size of the solar system. Our words cross and
mismatch and fall, seeds
on parched August ground, hard
as pavement. Is
there a more complicated maze
than the everyday household routine?
Is there anywhere easier to lose someone
than in the daily humdrum of a life?

The two of us
we go from found to lost
in the time it takes to zombie-walk
to the baby’s bed at 2am and fall
asleep on the scratchy carpet, in the time
it takes to nurse a child’s hurt feelings on
the third floor, coming back to bed
only to find the
other has already fallen asleep.

Maybe the key to this thing called
marriage
isn’t remaining in love
(Lord knows I love you)
or sticking to those vows
(rules parch and crack and can’t
keep a meaningful thing together)
but maybe
the key is finding the energy
or the courage
to keep finding each other again
and again.

They leave us after dinner, all
five children, and we’re staring
the vast distance from one end of the table
to the other, because a family this size
requires a large table, and the distance
from one end to the other
can feel like the span of the Sahara. Lost
and found.

But then one of us moves closer
and we talk quietly while the sound
of their steps rains down from above.
Or we walk this city in which I love you,
holding hands
breathing in the lights
remembering the sweet feeling
that casual ecstasy
of being found again
by someone you have loved for so long.

Maybe the key to finding each other
is discovering ways
every day
that we can get lost
together
all over again. Maybe the seeds
that fall on pavement can still
find the winding crack
burrow deep
and sprout green life
in this city.

You can get my ebook of poems for FREE today: We Might Never Die.

There is something
no one tells you
while the guests are still there,
while the cake watches,
uncut,
while the rings still feel
unfamiliar,
slippery,
like something stuck between
your teeth.

What that thing is,
what no one tells you,
(during the toasts or the speeches
or the dancing)
is that you will need to
say those two words
again
and again

and again.

The preacher makes it sound
like it’s once-and-done,
but it’s
not.

After the first fight,
for example,
the one that catches you
off guard,
you will have to say those two words,
and again after the twenty-seventh
argument about the same thing,
your tone, maybe,
or the smallest rolling
of the eyes.

And again
after the one hundred
and fifth
disappointment.
Or
when you’re sitting on the floor
of your office
in despair
and she is in the room
fuming,
or despairing, too,
over things you cannot name
and never could have foreseen.

And again
this time gladly
on nights when your hands
touch
under the covers, live wires,
or when your child leaves
the room, and you
smile at each other with joy
because
there goes the two of you
and so much more
in one body.

Or when the little strip just won’t
turn. And the months pass
marked by what arrives
and what does not.

Until sickness and health
are behind you
and death has parted you.
One hundred
thousand
million
times
in every little way and every big way
in every glance and every sigh.

I do.

You know,
I say those words
every day, every minute.
I peek into the room and see
you sitting in the sunshine,
eyes closed, tired from every little thing,
and I whisper it to myself, though no
one else is there
to witness it.

No one else,
still,
I do.

You can get my ebook of poems for FREE today: We Might Never Die.