What about the fourteenth?

Since I get requests for the text of this piece at least three times a month (and where it was posted once before, way back when, is now bye-bye) I will paste it here and include a photo from the day this poem was based on (above.)

Central Park, Mother’s Day

My son comes to me, holding

thirteen severed tulip heads.
A present he’s made, just for me.

I knock the flowers from his hands,
grab him by the arm, move quickly
from the crime scene.

I explain: the lake, the trees, flowers, birds—
do not belong to us.

I watch something bright and alive
go pale. His head lowers like those stems,
their broken necks.
Chin against his knees, he stares
into the grass. Does not speak again.

A mama forgets what her weapons can do.
Can't know which of her failures
will be what does it.
Tommy’s turn with the belt, in fifteen years,
becomes Meaghan’s throbbing black eye.

Christina’s twisted arm becomes

suicide without a note.

Kevin's scolding at open house becomes

only girls when they're upside-down.

This morning, I found thirteen tulips
waiting nervous at the foot of my bed.
I gathered them in a blanket,
kissed each tiny face. Gave them names.

One is The Crumpled Photograph I'll Find

of Myself in the Garbage. Two, The Dog
Smacked with a Tire Iron. Three,

The First Time He Says “Fuck you”
and Means It.

Four, The Heavy Girl He Can’t
Bring Himself to Love. Five, My Empty Wallet.

Six, Hardened Piss and Vomit on the Carpet,
seven, A Lock on the Bedroom Door,
eight, The Word "Faggot" Scratched
Across a Face in the Yearbook.

Nine, The Eighth Time He Says “Fuck You”
and Means It. Ten, Silence at Christmas,
eleven, The Shared Needle. Twelve,
Drunk at His Father's Funeral,

and thirteen, I have to press it against my ear

its voice is so thin. Thirteen is, Mom,

Do You Remember That Day at the Park?

It Was Your Birthday, I Think. Do You Remember?

How Small I Was, How You

Didn't Even Say “Thank you?”

It's like a laser light show. Without lasers.

For those of you who don't know, I have, on occasion, been known to read a poem or two in Public. Which is always interesting, because at actual "readings," I tend to read poems that are nothing like the poems I was undoubtedly booked from. Sorry guys. "After School, Special" is dunzo. Gidoverit.

I have several audio/video poems up in a couple places:

Two poems, "Drift (sonnet for Laci Peterson)" & "For April, Who is Bold" are up at The Pedestal Magazine.

And a feature I had at Hampshire College (back when I had a 9 month old and was simultaneously, miraculously with child) that they recorded and, bless their asses, have posted on YouTube. I haven't listened to them all (i hate my speaking voice) but I do love that this is a pantoum I am reading while little Calamity Clem is riding my hip like a crazed cowgirl.

Oh, and if you haven't read the biography that took a hundred years (pun intended) of research to write: "Gabriel García Márquez: A Life", you are not a complete human being yet. If ever EVER I could be somebody's mattress or saddle, it would be his.

Writing Exercise #14

Remember the day you were born? Which person in that room did you trust? Which person had the coldest hands? What secrets did the machines pass to you? Who held you as if you might not come back? What lover's name came riding out on your first breath? Where did everyone go when you slept? What soothed your hunger? What stories came from the spilled blood? Whose face/voice/legs/eyes did you borrow before you learned your own?

- - - -

(With love and great thanks to the remarkably phenomenal heart and eye of Diane Arbus.)

Writing Exercise #13

The ghost line is:

There was an ocean where her voice had been.

_________________

Lolita's Kitchen, 4 a.m.

Bite-sized men rose to the surface,
banging against an iceberg of dirty dishes.
One of the men let out a salted rasp before he sank
like a heavy jewel. Another, buoyed on a baby bottle,
pointed a wrinkled finger at her apron
hanging from a meat hook.
A third, straddling a wooden spoon,
pointed to a plate of sugar cubes
on the counter.
"Look," he cried to the others, "land."

- - - -

(This ghost line belongs to Fritz Ward's "Love Letter with Tsunami Diorama.")

Writing Exercise #12

Let's use a "ghost line," shall we?

"There is a winged-woman kneeling in the corner of the room."

________________________

The Patient

Her face is a jittery hare torn out of its fur.

The bottom of her dress is pinned beneath

one of the machines, but she does not seem to care.

We sit in the blue room together. The news anchor

is done up in lipstick and crime as the roses are dying of thirst.

There is a baby screaming down the hall,

and my old body hears her.

My breasts sulk in the trash can, shriveled

like tongues.

- - -

(From an image by the artist, Snik.)

Popping up for some air

This is me attempting to be social. Hi. I'm Rachel. How are you? You look real good. I like your face.

I have been running around like a crazed Price is Right contestant. I haven't enough hips for all these kids! Nor enough fingers to type out all the things happening these days. I can, however, give you the lowdown on a few of them:

1) My first full-length book, Pink Elephant, is going to drop on Halloween. Because the universe is always such a sweet little schemer like that. The cover design is by one of my most favorite artists, Mike Stilkey. How I made that happen is beyond me. But I am SO effing excited, I might need to borrow a diaper about it.

2) I will be featuring three times in Ohio next month. I am fascilitating writing workshops at the first annual Hope Springs Womens' Poetry and Performance retreat (for more deets, go here ) I will teach a workshop in the morning, then drive up to Columbus for a feature at the First Draft poetry series (where I will read all new or never before read work.) And, because I am bananas, I will drive up again to feature (with a different set, as well as a small workshop beforehand) the next night at the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam. The next day, I will close out with a feature (again) in Columbus along with the other fasciliators/features from Hope Springs.

3) In August, I will have friends and family visit and will be the first time in nine years that I will not be attending the National Poetry Slam. I do, however, encourage everyone else to check it out. It's in Florida. Sizzling! Still, it is weird for me to not be attending. The closest possible slam team is (I think) Syracuse and/or Buffalo, so that's a wrap for me. Folks keep asking if I plan on starting a slam here in Rochester, and the answer is a consistent "Nuh-uh." I coached my ass off for the past four years, and I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a new team with fresher voices, etc., but it isn't going to happen this year. I will miss all my poetry peeps at NPS, though, even if I did always hide out in my hotel room most days/nights.

4) In September, I will be reading at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. It is their 30th anniversary, and boy have they created a stellar line-up. The inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander, was recently added to the roster, (as if I didn't already feel like a party crasher enough) so, of course, I will undoubtedly embarrass myself in front of her. Under pressure, I fold like a housewife. What can I say?

Okay. That's it for now. I have to go clean the spit-up off my ankles. I wish that was a metaphor.