Camel Sweat and Other Songs

Camel Sweat and Other Songs

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Lapsang Suchong satisfies me

In ways no other tea can. I pour

Boiling water onto the leaves

And comfort my face in steam.

Tea and memories swirl

When I allow the solitude.

I swallow the last sip.

Campfire smoke lingers

On my tongue.

When I cross the mountains

Going east, my heart sings.

I fell in love with my first husband

Because he smelled of saddle leather.

Pungent sagebrush in dry autumn

Evening makes me homesick

For the first good years we shared.

I stand beside my son’s grave,

Head raised into the prairie wind

Hoping it will carry off my sorrows.

But they return

Mixed with other tears

And blow into my face

When I walk barefoot

Across Pacific tide flats.

I return to my cabin, pour

Boiling water over tea leaves,

Burn sage I brought from home

And comfort myself.

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The Dress That Covered A Multitude of Never Minds

            The Dress That Covered A Multitude of Never Minds

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I wore that dress one time only

In my single-with-children days.

That dress was Me,

Reminiscent of a 1920’s Flapper,

With yards of fringe which covered

A multitude of . . . Never mind.

That red dress danced me

Around the ballroom,

Fringe in motion, exultant.

I dumped that dress,

Along with other gifts,

On that man’s doorstep.

Each item was marked

With a subtle price tag,

Hidden in his agenda.

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Stories

            Stories

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I grew up in isolated

North-eastern Montana.

Everybody knew your story.

I sneaked out of CYC and drove

Dad’s car, crammed with friends,

Up and down Main Street.

Somebody told my Dad,

Better keep a tight rein

On your filly there.

When my baby died,

Women from a hundred miles

Came to me, held me,

Cried with me, told me,

I lost a baby too.

Paradoxically,

In isolated communities.

There is no privacy.

Today I live in Mexico,

On the edge of a rural village.

I live by myself. In solitude

I find strength and beauty.  

Now and then, I feel lonely.

Nobody knows my stories

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We Six Women

            We Six Women

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I rage against

The man-god

Who would take all

And leave us dry

As old dry bones

With not even spit

In our mouths.

Gather together,

You old dry bones,

Gird your thighs with fire

And cross the line.

There’s more to this

Than the Blood of the Lamb.

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The Mountains of Chicago

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Chicago marked a low point

In my roller-coaster life,

So low I could not recognize

Who I had come to be.

We lived in a husk of house,

Back of a used-car lot.

The one saving grace of that house

Was a glassed-in second-story porch.

A place to escape, to write bad

Poetry. My lament; I missed

My mountains. From a deep place

That still held a breath of fire, I heard

A voice; make your own mountains.

It took me months before I learned

To climb into my mountains for rest.

From those mountains in Chicago

I learned beauty and courage.

From Chicago I returned to myself.

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Alders Rained

                Alders Rained

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Alders rained leaves

From the sky

Like tears rolling

Down my cheeks.

A leaf caught

In my eye, shattered

The morning with gold.

I love you,

I said aloud.

And the world

Bowed at my feet.

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Seeunsee

Seeunsee

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The ghosts on the highway

From Hays to Ft. Belknap

Still live. The creeks

Hold them, Three Mile,

Peoples Creek, Thirty Mile.

The fire lookout atop Three Buttes

Long-ago crumbled into the dust,

But the ghosts still roam

This land where stones starve.

Wild Horse holds whispers, listen.

Entire families afoot, in wagons,

Burned out husks of cars. Buffalo

Shadows run the windy grasses.

Bones rain down in circles.

Once you see them, you cannot

Un-see them. See. Un-see.

See. Unsee.  Seeunsee.

Seeunsee. A chant. A ceremony. 

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Sex

            Sex

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My first sex

Was ten years of Slam,

Bam, Thank you Ma’am.

He would ask

Did you come?

What the hell did that mean?

Instinctively, I knew

To answer, Yes.

One time

He started to do

Something Different.

I got excited.

He backed off.

Apologized.

Mumbled about

That was only for whores.

I wanted to be a whore.

Instead, I remained

The constant virgin.

One day Old Brian Stevens

Rode by looking for his

Fence-jumping bull.

I pulled a peach pie

Out of the oven.

The coffee pot was always on.

It’s the neighborly thing to do.

Pie and coffee at the kitchen table.

Old Brian was eighty-two.

I was nineteen and eight months pregnant.

When my husband got home

He interrogated me.

This happened nearly every day.

I got used to it.

I must have been

Some Hot Sex Pot

And didn’t even know it.

Or did he think if I’d give It to him,

I’d give It to anyone?

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Winged Horses

            Winged Horses

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I met a man.

Gentle, kind, a good man.

We walked in step,

Laughed at jokes

Only we understood.

He finished my sentence.

I completed his thought.

We loved good wine,

Better water, wet feet,

Casting for trout.

Lyrics were the best part

Of our song, the way words

Rolled off our tongues.

I could nestle into him like home.

When I relaxed into loving him,

He pulled the wings

Off my horses.

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Cut Asunder By the Strait

 Cut Asunder By the Strait

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Cut asunder by the strait.

First cousin to Victoria,

Port Angeles perches on the edge

            Of bluff outlook.

Fishing boats nudge creosote piers,

            Freighters from Japan gulp logs.

Across the salt sea sits the Queen;

            Anglophiles all, we love her.

The lighthouse blinks steady kisses.

Gulls scree into the all-around.

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Mama Doll

            Mama Doll

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She stood at the dining room window

Hank of hair wrapped around her fore-finger,

Thumb stroking the strands. Autumn rain

Drummed the roof, air damp of rotting leaves.

Where’s Mommy? Her arms wrapped around Daddy’s

Leg. Where’s Mommy? Daddy turned his face,

Made a noise in his throat, pushed

Her off his leg, rushed out into the wet, leaving

The kitchen door ajar. She watched out the window

Until dark joined the cold.

She stomped upstairs to her bedroom,

Took her dollies out of her old crib,

Where they lay all in a row. She clutched

Mama Doll to her chest and with blunt scissors,

Chopped off its hair.

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All my oceans lie westward

            All my oceans lie westward

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I am lost. On the Caribbean

My compass turned me upside down.

My friend points “We go north.”

My inner self screams, “You point south.”

The sea laps the wrong side of the beach.

My Pacific nature clogs with Sargassum,

Walks me in circles too large

For white sands and turquoise waters

To erase.

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