Tuesday, September 29, 2015

All the Time in the World

You going anywhere
Or should I stay here?

Ten minutes ago
Dinosaurs were roaming the earth

Who knows where I am now
Or where I'll be by the time you leave

At one point, you touched me
And I saw Galileo

You kissed my neck
And there was Marie Antoinette

We finished and I saw time jump in front of me
Running ahead like a scared rabbit

Lock your fingers into mine
And don't unlock them

Let's tangle up our legs
And our arms

Stare at me
Just stare at me

I want to see if I can keep you here
Or at least be able to say I tried

Have your noticed that your ceiling
Has planets on it now

Moons and meteors
And things that orbit other things

The walls are painted by Michelangelo
The floors are ocean, the bed's a boat

We sail the world when we make love
Finding new places, covering new corners

The watch on your nightstand starts and stops
The alarm clock becomes a campfire

I trace my finger up your legs
And flags of great nations appear

A kiss on your stomach becomes an icy pond
And young couples skate on it in circles and squares

You've already moved on
But I'm still here, keeping a ghost warm

This was too much, too soon, not enough, and plenty
This was one night and all the nights from now, from then, for us, for everyone

This was all the time in the world
And I got to count it

I got to count it up
I got to have it

With you

Saturday, September 12, 2015

A Portrait of My Dead Mother-in-Law

And this is a portrait
Of my dead mother-in-law

She had it done right before she died
Literally, minutes before
That’s why she only looks half-alive in it

The painter managed to get the eyes and the nose done
Before she expired
But she was already dead for a few hours
By the time he finished the rest of her
So she has this weird in-and-out thing going on
That I find really artistically interesting

My mother-in-law was a very
Neither here nor there kind of woman
Very whatever you say
Very so-this-and-that

I don’t know
I don’t know what to make of her

I never actually met her

She died young
Very young
My husband was only one

He was playing on the floor of his mother’s bedroom
As the artist painted
Rolling a toy truck
Back and forth
Along the grooves in the wood

The only thing he has of her
Is this portrait
And stories people tell him

Imagine having to build your mother
With nothing but stories
And a half-alive portrait

Just a half-built boy
With only his father’s side
To give him history

And his father wasn’t much help
In that area

He was a man who sat in a chair
And waited for life
To decide something for him
And then one day
Life decided a heart attack
And he was gone

My husband was nineteen
Away at college
He came home
Took the portrait of his mother
Out of the attic
And left everything else where it was

Two days later a fire
Took the whole house
And everything in it
Into the air

Things happen
Tragedies
Accidents

A woman sits up in her deathbed
Wondering why she’s so sick
But so young
With a child
And so much she has to do

She forces herself to keep her eyes open
So that at least she’ll look alert
In the portrait

So that her son can see the blue specks
In the brown circles
And the suggestion
That maybe things need to be done
Questions need to be asked
A child should try to hang onto
His curiosity

And battle against things inside him
His inheritance
That can get passed down
Without him even realizing it

This is the portrait of my mother-in-law
I’m having my own done
Next week
And there’s a tickle in my throat

Funny, isn’t it?

The way she looks I mean
That half-and-half sense
Of here and gone

It’s like she’s trying to say something
Don’t you think?

Last words
Or a warning

But to who?
And about what?

Oh well

The thing about art
Is that you have to bring yourself to it
It so rarely
Comes to you