Daily Poems: 20 - 23 April 2013

23 April 2013
Git ‘Er Done

Don’t want to come to
The pages today
Need some time off
Need to refuel
Need to recharge the batteries

But skipping work ain’t an option
No matter your excuse, your mood
Y’gotta punch in
Y’gotta put in the hours
Y’gotta be present to win

So what if you’re behind on sleep
If the player’s cued to Friday Night Lights
The call is the purpose to your life
The call has to be answered
The call can’t be sent to voicemail

Put your tokus in the chair
Pen the words as they come
This day is the day to continue on
This day requires persistence because it’s hard
This day—do you stay or do you go

22 April 2013
Lookit You

Shakily, uncertainly, virgin brow
scrunched on the inside I stand
before me the open expanse of
living room, Mommy ahead
initial step, my legs buckle
up again, down again
once more, once more too
frustrated tears flooding my face
as in her arms I rise,
Lookit you—walking already!

Less than half a week until
second grade begins and only
last week with my water wings
finally off have I been allowed
outside the kiddies’ wading pool
water to my chest I surge forward
Becky Hatcher just past my fingertips
kicking an thrashing I inch closer
but she persists in her backing away
when I go down for the last time
coughing and everything spent
she takes me up, letting me hang
on the concrete lip, catching my breath
Lookit you—from three feet to five;
you’re almost over my head!

Back from spring break, there she is again
Cheryl Lynnette Howard
walking to class with our star quarterback
still she gives me her smile her wink
the wave of her week-in-Aruba hand
in the dinner serving line, with her
hair cascading down, wearing her
sleeveless white dress it makes me
fumble my courage, still when she stops
in front of me, after the passing the dish
of cottage cheese, I also give her
the brown envelope which covers her tray
inside, my pencil portrait of her and
a letter asking her to a movie
it’s the letter she and quarterback see first
he laughs glances at me and laughs moreso
next morning we pass again, this time
she comes to me, lifting my chin with her hand
Lookit you—a freshman and a townie
yet all but taking my heart!

The results come back, Katie is fertile whereas
I’m as sterile as the lab that tested us
early on she made it clear she wanted a boy
to spoil rotten and a daughter for me to guard
she had the names, Aaron Donovan and Bethany Michelle
but now all she’ll be able to have, because of me
is just the names and the empty ache
so I help her fill the adoption papers out
in time, in time piled upon time, a child arrives
her first night, nothing Katie tries settles
little Heather Rue down, ceases her crying
until I take her in my own arms, where
she coughs then coos
Lookit you—such a daughter’s daddy!

Lookit you—are you seeing?

21 April 2013
Trading Up

For years, for forever it seems
I’ve sat in the cheap seats
Watching you from afar
Believing that distance separated us.

I collected your collections
Rejoiced when seeing new works
In The New Yorker, O, Crazy Horse
Yearning someday, please, to be there too.

Years worked their sorcery and magick
I too became both bound and monthly’d
Yet I continued with my persistence
Of keeping you at the very same distance.

I stood you upon a pedestal high above me
The gold lettering on the enplaqued terrazzo
Listing the awards and the citations which
More than the velvet ropes separated us.

Now this morning, face-to-face, hug-in-hug
I’m seeing no pedestal, flat-footed you stand
And jiminy you’re even a bit shorter than me
From my false idol’s shell is emerging my friend.

20 April 2013
That's Amore

"when the moon hits your eye
like a big piece of pie,
that's amore!"

sometimes i misheard
what i heard, but then
a pizza and a pie are not
anywhere near
the same thing

and weren't all three of
those stooges hitting
each other with pies
and right in the eyes?
those wiseguys!

but now i'm older
sometimes wiser
been around a few blocks
so i know what it's like
being moonstruck, moon-eyed

i've howled at the moon
prayed to the moon
danced under the moon
namaste'd the moon
waxed and waned alongside it

and when you're green
your attempts at love
can indeed be cheesy
or come back atcha
like a pie in the face

but whether thin and crispy
or thick and chewy
one hopes to never grow
too crusty for love
no matter how you slice it.