Seaside Hospice

When you go to take him in

embracing with your living limbs,

you will feel a rush of cool. No ice, not rough,

just shadowed quiet: the smooth, dark surface

of a stone. You’ll look into those pond-gray eyes,

dimly reflecting what he sees. Or smell the stale rot

of his breath, swelling in and out of teeth. You’ll listen to

the drained- dry voice. And maybe, fearing all these things,

you’ll pull away to wrestle with each knot that’s tied

between the years, you two. Everything that once

was woven. But maybe, before you are set free, you’ll look

and notice the tattooed years of folded flesh

he wears. They are like a proclamation: “This was me.”

And now he offers what he has: a map of charted courses.

Cafe Holiday (or a fluffy poem about candy based on an earlier entry)

The crusty cube is covered white with flakes A prickly, sweet and loosened coat which falls In pieces: messy, pale against dark wood. Biting in, taste buds find a very new And gooey sort of treat. Inside, The flavor’s nutty, amber-colored, rich. It makes me think of winter days when school Is out and kids escape to play in snow. Returning home at dusk, happy and cold, They peel off layers. Warmth is what they find, And dinner: day well-lived. But snowy-days End like café candy, melting away. One piece of hazelnut Turkish delight Can’t write a thesis, make decisions, fix An aching heart. Too much will only make You sick or poor or fat. But ten minutes Ago there was no end: now there has been.

Pancakes

Sunday morning pancake breakfast has long been a tradition for Johnson & sons. Long ago, Mama served them up hot from the skillet, poured over with thick and amber maple. For years and years they would sit at the small blue table in the kitchen and eat hurridly before the early service at First Baptist church, before hide and seek in the Fellowship Hall, and before Papa planned out what he would build, for who, that week. Now, if it's Sunday, you can walk between the aisles of booths at the MacDonalds in Meridian, Mississippi and see them sitting there. 11 o'clock and father and son are eating their thawed-out pancakes, slowly. They don't talk much and they don't seem to really notice what they're eating. They remember Mama's pancakes instead. The smell of hot oil unfreezing potatoes is fused with the odor of disinfectant spray that wets the plastic seats. Junior sits big and tall, his BP baseball hat almost hiding the sharp, watchful eyes that never leave his father. Senior sits across the booth, small and wrinkled in a faded pair of overalls. One strap has slipped off his shoulder. Neither notices.

So drained from aching, clutching, missing, a black and holy sense of gone. And waiting for sense of finding: of joy and longing to belong, Is trying to catch something like the sun while sitting in it all along. How does the empty not consume? How does the full not stretch apart? So full of dark and light and wonder, When will the ending seem to start?

The crusty cube is covered white with flakes.
It’s prickly, sweet and crumbling coat now falls
In small and messy pieces. Soon, as teeth
Encounter what’s inside, the tongue will find
A new and very gooey sort of treat:
An amber-colored, rich and nutty taste.
It makes me think of kids who played in snow
All day. Returning home, they were so cold.
They came inside and peeled off layers. Warmth
Is what they found, and dinner: a day well-lived.

I've never had Turkish Delight anywhere like I had at Pasha's one night. In fact, I'm not even sure that it can be called Turkish Delight, legitmitately. But it certainly did taste delightful.

Late at night

Late at night, and I feel -once again-like I'm waiting for something.
While I long to be contained, I also long to escape.
I feel like a lion that grew up in a zoo. There's a sharpness, a brightness that wants fly at the world. I don't want to put an apron on it. I don't want to hammer a degree to it. I would hate to smother it. What do I do with it?
Does this make any sense? Maybe it won't in the morning, but I know that these are things I feel late at night. Maybe my dream self figures it out better than I do.