gleaming above pavilion
and girdle the table of this diamond
displays a confusion of wallet and heart,
but facets
are cut by the truth
Month: April 2014
smoke rose shamelessly
from your fingertips your lips
as the fog swirled
in and over my reason
Beauty
Twisted in an infinite knot
the silk
scarf against your neck
so dark, elegant
and cold
Birthday
First thought this morning as I was feeding that cat: I have officially lived a greater number of days than my sister. My days have not been necessarily better that hers, or fuller. Nor have they contained more love and grace — I am simply noting that I have now lived more of them. She was the only daughter in a houseful of brothers for several years; she was favored in my parents’ behavior because of a chronic illness; and as is the wont in most family hierarchies, since she was an older sister, it fell to her to be second-in-command after my mother. Her shadow cast itself over my entire childhood and I admit that all this past year she has been in the back of my mind. She died when she was 58. Today I turn 59.
Allure
Red dresses or silk hose,
regardless of how pencil straight the seams
will never fit as well or last as long
as one true heart.
Afternoon Break
After six days alone
my frozen yogurt card brims
with free stamps, yet free
is nothing when there’s no one
to be free with
Trust
Your lithe arguments
wind from somewhere near to
but not of your heart, and twist
like spindles whirling silk
into thread
Commuter
morning sun shifts tiredly
across half turned faces
on the inbound train
Why OSCARS and EMMYS are rubbish sometimes
During the early 1990s, I worked as an employee liaison at a family owned manufacturing business outside of Detroit. One year the company decided to hold a coloring contest for employee’s children. The categories were divisions were age-related, so that 3 years old would be as competitive as 10 or 12 year olds, ensuring that all of the children would have an equal chance. The owner of the company…father to all the executive and founder of the business…was the judge. My role was to pulicize the event and announce the winners.
We taped the cute pictures to a wall along the main corridor of the large shop area without names being visible. After the display was up for a couple days, the owner and I went out one mid-afternoon and he reviewed the artwork. Three of them were far, far better with extras added such as glitter, feathers and the like. The contest judge picked the first two of these for the oldest and next oldest age groups and when I check my records for the children’s name, we learned that they were siblings. In light of that information, when it came to the youngest age group, he turned to me and said, “This is the best one here, but I’m not going to pick it because all the prizes would go to the same family.”
It didn’t matter that this picture was the best.
It didn’t matter than this child was, in fact, more talented than her siblings were because she was equally skilled at a younger age.
It didn’t matter that someone would have to explain to this young girl why her older siblings won and she didn’t even though her art was just as deserving.
What did matter was completely outside the rules of the contest and something that the contest participants could not control or influence.
My boss would not be dissuaded from putting politics first, and in addition as his employee, I was ordered to not discuss his decision making process with other employees.
Livestream
His smooth, honeyed words
sent from the other side of the world,
belied the breaking
crash of his heart
brief salvage 