Evening in North Beach

Cool angles line my Genoa Place hill
A Fitty Fatty thick-tailed gray cat stops in mid-run
Eyes me from its crouch on the step
I feel my legs still strong after the climb
Somewhere a stereo plays Pet Shop Boys and a nearby
Window wafts children’s tantrums and promise of late dinner.

North Beach pioneers come and go
From ships that used our sea side for ballast
To aging, dusty landlords holding the
Neighborhood of anonymous shoes and plastic bag shuffle
Banging, restless clean kids of unforgiving weekends
Eat pizza and lean on forever parking meters
Piss in doorways and watch the dreamy,
wispy soft haired girl just waiting to happen.
in bingy-bangy pasta, jook and fried bread
In howling, hairy, wink-wonking dancers
In three piece suits and toothless fresh from jail
In the sweet grass of Washington Square
a breeze whispers echoes and sometimes’
madness floats the god blue sky and all Zen is OOPS.

Who’ll go out in the wildly sweaty bearded night?
Who’ll go on stage to waste the fool’s spoon?
Who’ll read all night, the poems coming faster?
While naked, naked, naked shouts from the raw end North Beach
Of crab shelled tables, empty wine bottles,
cigarette butts and a World’s chatter.

The Fitty, Fatty, thick tailed cat cocks an ear
Where hips grind beneath the clucking Lattes
Chronicles mumble political rollovers, dead poets
And drowning physicists, the dope’s lawyers and
Sad, sexed-out smiles of old shoes and yesterday’s
Baseball games scatter amid the blown out bar droop
Ever hungry homeless going nowhere while

Shadows close in and the delicious sun hugs the Golden Gate
Soon the new voices will pull up in dangling Suzuki’s
Wanting parking, empty storefronts, some limey sauce
Of sorts, to cover up the fishiness of this unusual situation
at Grant and Green and a hundred wars that tear
the children from our hearts and this magnificent cat
Half-slinks, watches and waits for me to catch my breath
Waits to see what I will do with this long, steep evening.

Tomales-November 1938

Excerpt from Flight to Point Reyes


Pasquale Pannini was looking for dogs not airplanes. He stood at the southwest corner of his two hundred acre farm peering into the starless night. For a few seconds, he thought he heard an airplane, but the drone seemed to be fading.


Earlier that evening a pack of dogs tore into the field and killed nine sheep. He counted the ewes, lying dead in the dark, the red B brand almost invisible with winter wool, blood splattered at the throats in the senseless slaying fashion of mad dogs and human beings.


Never mind that he had lain two miles of new fence with three runs of barb. In hindsight, he thought he should had have added a fourth run along the ground.


Pannini was furious. If he saw one dog, any dog, he’d kill it. The dogs had to have come from town, but how and why? Everyone knew better than to leave their dogs out untied. They’d pack up and the next thing you know, they’d start killing sheep. He’d kill any dog that ventured within a mile of his sheep.


He wasn’t the one staying up nights. Farmers from Tomales to Salinas searched for ways to stay put, stay solvent, and maybe as Old Man Lawson at Dillon Beach said, “Stay sane”. Even the McClures and the Pierce brothers at Point Reyes, who had a big stake in butter, were staring down the rooster’s throat.


Northern Marin County was changing. Watch your back. That was the word. The speculators would slip in and before he could say, have two shakes of a lamb’s tail; they’d take the open range and he wasn’t sure what they’d do with it, but it wouldn’t be fallow for anything except coastal deer and jack rabbits. He cocked an ear to see if the dogs were back. Just the thought of their barking echo tore a pit in his stomach.


Now a plane approached. Looking through a cluster of Eucalyptus to the corner of the field, he followed the drone up the slope towards the curve in the road a half a mile west where the town of Tomales slept. He thought about his wife, Angela and the light in the window on the other side of the knoll. She had patience when other folks seemed to be moving somewhere, anywhere.


The drone grew louder, rolling like far off thunder and continuing out to his right. Pannini still couldn’t see anything.


Good not to think about sheep for a second, nor dwell on the fate of his three girls, one after another, two, four and five and a half. He had no illusions about their being interested in sheep when they got older. His grip on the shotgun stock lightened, the smell of oil and sweat wafted on the slight breeze slipping down along the grass towards the house. He felt a chill enter his clothes. He did see something.


It flew towards the Bay at almost tree level. A red light blinked on the left wing. The drone rose in pitch and he heard two drones, one somewhat more distant, but very close together. Far behind him, a small dog began yipping and he recognized it as his own tied by the little shingled doghouse next to the kitchen window. The dog, Lulu Bird, named by the three girls, stopped abruptly. The plane was almost out of earshot and he thought it must be headed towards Tomales Point some three miles away. Why would an airplane head out this way?


It brought back memories of Chet McKenna drowned five years ago trying to bring his sixteen footer through the sneaker waves on a stormy afternoon. Nobody but a damn fool would take a chance run out of Tomales Bay on a day like that. But Chet had to have his halibut and Pannini guessed the sharks had to have Chet. He sighed and the pit returned to his stomach.


Again, the sound of snarling dogs ran through his imagination. The dumb sheep stood waiting to die in the moonless night. Angela was pregnant again. They’d name this one Surprise. During the evening, Angela sat at the kitchen table sewing and waiting. His brother Jake out at the Coast Guard Station would tell him about the airplane.


Pannini stood by the fence for another twenty minutes. The dampness had set in and he began walking. No dogs. He knew he’d never find them unless he stood watch. They could be, and probably were local dogs that packed up at night. He’d pull the dead sheep out at dawn.


The weather in Northern California had turned cold and damp. Pannini shivered. These dogs were not sheep dogs. He wished it was spring. His wife, Angela loved the Spring in Tomales and she was right.


The protein in the grass fattened the livestock. She’d stand on the porch by the pine tree and talk about the broccoli she’d grow. She had a little New Zeland wild spinach growing by the porch. Greens did well and with the a long damp spring maybe cabbage. With the help of compost from the mushroom farm in Petaluma, perhaps broccoli and cauliflower.


She pointed out the birds. House finches, Brewers blackbirds, yellow crested and white crested sparrows, red winged blackbirds flitted off by the tool shed. Just last March the two of them stood on the porch and watched a male house finch picking out nesting spots for his mate. The two finches flitted around the yard for twenty minutes or so. The male hovered over a crotch in the pine tree by the corner of the house. The female chirped, ‘No soap’. He ran the female out to a line of pine by the front gate. They were in and out. The house finch, cap up, redder than Christmas flew off to the left and she followed. They flew back and off behind the house to the right.


A little more sun on the back field and they’d grow tomatoes. A few more months of cold and rain. The Coastal deer would chew up everything in sight if you didn’t fence the garden. He built an eight foot driftwood fence around the house that summer. He hoped he enough money for another fence beyond that. The house finches didn’t nest close by, but Pannini saw them perched on the driftwood fence on and off for the rest of the summer.


Fishing. He’d go tomorrow. Pelicans. Brown pelicans. He’d climb down the banks where the poppies grew in May and the ice plant and the wild Iris, or maybe he’d walk out to the point at Dillon or back to the estuary where the sea lions sunned in semi-circles. They’d eat the fish. Pests. He could watch them for hours if he had time, but he had so little time and if he fished and a sea lion swam past, the fishing was over at the spot.


He brought home some nice two pound ocean perch. Beautiful fish. Turquoise and red with a small rainbow along the sides. Fresh fish. Everything a family needed. Feed all five of them. His oldest, Marcia, liked the baked perch. Esther and Bernice not so much. Horse mussels bigger than your fist.


Angela boiled them. She chopped garlic. She heated butter from the Creamery in Point Reyes Station. She placed an enormous bowl of mussels in the middle of the table and she poured the butter and garlic over them. They ate mussels with both hands. They used one half of the shell to scoop the entire mussels from the other. They left the shells on the table. Everyone picked up afterward.


You took mussels at low tide. The last time out he had just shingled the back shed and he was whipped. He shouldn’t have gone out. The tide was changing. The tide rose to his chest while he was slicing mussels off the rock. He remembered the sheer power of the sea sucking him out and the realization that he had no control. His legs slipped beneath him. The bucket half bucket of mussels filled with water. In a brief catch of luck, he yanked himself off the current and pulled himself ashore with the bucket of mussels. He didn't tell his wife how he got soaked. Tomales meant work. Hard work.


He heard the airplane in the distance. It sounded like it was turning back, then it sounded close. It dipped to silence.


Yes, spring and salmon fishing with herring runs up the Bay. The kids would get sick of crab. He never got sick of crab. He could eat two crabs without butter. There would be hummingbirds on the porch in late spring. His wife, Angela would see to it. He didn’t hear Flight 6 again.

Say the Moon

The year 2012
Your kids can go.
Too crowded here.
Not enough fast food
or rice for that matter.
It stinks, the air does.
No one walks without crutches
or a little cart that
scoots the forever aisles
in search of owner.
So why not the moon?
A station to STOP
Take care of the body business.
Johnny on the Moon Spot.
We can call it that.
Proceed to Mars later on.
Use caution.
Leave germs at home.
It’s for sale.
But watch the red sand.
It might be Communist or worse.
Why wait?
Sign up now.

Oysters

Excerpt from House in the Attic

No place makes me want to eat more oysters than I can eat than Dobyn's Oyster House. The original wooden bar, all gnarled, warped fits maybe nine or ten stools. A sea of ice and oysters spread right in front of me.

I scarfed a dozen and a half, washed them down with clam chowder and three beers and wiped out a dozen quahogs to finish off the hour. Barney Hogan, working on a day-old growth of beard and his twenty-fifth year at the oyster bar slipped me a couple of extras now and then.

Barney always remembered a face, even if he couldn't put a story with it. His partner Ted Norris, looked sixty, hair gone white with a curl coming off the middle of his mottled forehead. Liver spots on the back of his big tough hands. A driver's license said he was seventy-four. He shucked oysters and quahogs while I ate. Barney and Ted worked the afternoon shift and it seemed like they'd be there forever, but I knew the place was changing. The neighborhood had changed. Oyster bars had sprung up all over everywhere. I knew if I came back at six, the oysters would be pre-shucked and stacked on plates by bright-eyed boys in white shirts and flashy teeth. Ted Norris grinned like he knew just about everything there was to know.

"Why don't you take a break before your hernia pops into the ice," Barney Hogan said in his always-soft wry voice.

"Good idea," Ted said, setting the oyster knife on the edge of the bar and wiping his hands on his apron. "You might as well earn your keep for a change."

"Some kind a guy," Barney said, giving his big nose a pinch and a shake. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stared off toward the stairs leading to the upstairs dining room. "Some kind of guy."

Mid-afternoon and business was slow, so Ted came around and sat at the stool next to me.

"Beer?" I offered.

"No thanks," he said, clasping his hands together and propping both elbows on the old wooden bar. "Never get through the night."

Barney chuckled under his breath and leaned over the bar. "He'll catch up later."

"Listen to him." Ted pointed one finger at his partner without unclasping his hands. "Listen to him," he said. They both laughed quietly.

"Where you from?" Ted wanted to know.

"I'm from Massachusetts, but I live in San Francisco. Staying with my brother up in Marlboro."

This was the fourth time I'd had this conversation in Dobyn's Oyster House, the third time with Barney. Frankly, I felt at odds because I never had the same address twice. I kept thinking they'd put it all together and decide I was a flake. One week he's a tour guide, the next time he comes back he owns a movie house.. Here comes that nut case again. I just didn't have a permanent address. Not the makings of a good New Englander.

"I grew up in Richland," I said.

"Never been that far west," Barney said with a straight face. He slipped me a small Blue Point. "You like it out there in San Francisco?"

"It's home base for the moment," I said. "I run a movie theater Cinema, if you like that. The Richmond Cinema. It's in the book "

Barney's oyster knife met the shell cupped tightly in his left hand. He probed for a weak spot, slipped inside like a traveling salesman and with a turn of his thick wrist, sliced the muscle and the Blue Point gave up. He cut the meat free from the top, tossed the top half aside, flecked some shell bits off the meat with the tip of the knife, and ran the knife underneath for insurance and the set the oyster aside in a dish of its own making. This was one fresh oyster, with a clear white center sitting all puffed and proud. The edge had the magnificent sheen of blue all around. Cool, clear, juicy liquid. I could tell by looking at it, that not a taste had been lost between the time that oyster had left the sea and arrived in Barney's hands. This oyster hadn't sat anywhere it wasn't supposed to. It had been iced properly. This oyster was clean. Barney had already set another one next to it while I was thinking about it.

"Sounds good to me," Ted said good-naturedly.

"It has its drawbacks," I said.

I could feel Ted shift his weight on the barstool next to me. "I guess you won't be going to the Gulf," he said tongue in cheek.

"Not hardly," I said. "That's all wrapped up. They had it all handpicked back in September. Just like a convention. They plan it a year or so in advance."

"Naw, they don't," Ted said with smirky disbelief. "How many oysters did you eat? Barney, how many oysters did he eat? They're getting to him."

"Must have been the clam chowder," Barney said.

Ted and I watched a woman in a black trench coat with red hair tied in a bun ran by. I eyed the door, thinking she'd come in, but Ted shook his head. "She doesn't like oysters."

"Ted knows them all," Barney confided.

"Barney likes the octogenarians," Ted said. "He likes to hear the creak in their bones."

"You live here all your life?" I asked Ted.

"Not yet," he said with a great big smile full of thick yellow teeth.

I ate another oyster and the three of us just sat in the sweet moment of three minutes after three in the afternoon and moving.

"Say, how cold does it get in San Francisco?" Barney asked.

"Maybe 38 degrees Fahrenheit," I said. "Celsius, I haven't the foggiest.
57, 58 degree average temperature. We have some hot days here and there. Damp cold. Always wear a jacket. We mean it. Afternoon wind will blow you to hell. Along about twenty after two, bingo. In it comes."

"Beats shoveling snow," Barney said.

"You bet," I said, tasting the cold oyster turning warm on it's way down. "How about a half dozen more?

"You got it," Barney said.

I said, "When I was a kid and I got tired, I went in and somebody else finished shoveling." I realized I was in a little deep water so I qualified myself. "Up to the age of eight anyway."

If you grow up in New England, you learn to watch how you couch these little remarks. I was going to say, "If I lived here now, I'd have to get out there and shovel it myself." Saying things like that can come back to haunt you thirty years later. Somebody, and you can bet on it, somebody will remember that Harry Bickham said it was OK to shovel snow when he was a kid, because he could always get his folks to finish it. NOW LOOK AT HIM! I know he's on assignment. But he should have shoveled that walk. Not him. He's waiting for somebody else to do it. What does he THINK? This is California? He's just like the rest of those Bickhams. Never did fit in. His mother isn't even from here. His old man met her in New York somewhere. He went out of town to find her. Probably met her at a dance hall. Probably drunk when he met her. Drunk the rest of the time. Why would he go over there and find somebody? So there you are. She doesn’t look like she ever shoveled a walk either. I wonder what he was really doing in California? Doesn't seem to be married.

"I hate snow," Barney said.

"My son comes over and shovels mine," Ted said proudly.

I finished off the oysters and drank another beer. I realized I felt a little boxed. My left hand dropped instinctively to the bottom of my rib cage. No liver sticking out. Time to quit the booze. And I didn't want to blow the afternoon with Barney and Ted. I didn't want to get flip-stupid. I have the old New England hypocrisy that says you should always look good. No falling down. No pissing in your shoes, or somebody else's. Even if you're dying inside.

And I value the way Barney and Ted cultivate customers. It's classy. None of this, “Just because I wait on you, I deserve 20%." Barney and Ted cultivate you, make you part of the process, your life becomes fuller because of oysters, and the shucking of oysters and people who make sure oysters are served right, so that when you eat the oysters, they are the best high you can imagine. You appreciate the people who bring the oysters on the truck from the boats and you appreciate the cold tough hands that catch the oysters and sort the oysters and you appreciate the ice the oysters sit in and the cool lemon slices and the tangy red sauce and the talk around oysters, the world and snow and life. Barney and Ted make you a part of their life; they make you want to come back. They toss in a free one now and then and they get it all back. Everybody makes money and everybody's happy. The Barneys and the Teds are damn precious in my life and I want them around forever. I left ten bucks on the counter and took my check to the register.

September 11, 2009-Anniversary of 9/11-A Covey of Ducks

I read recently about an 18 year old who stabbed a duck in front of Benihana’s because he hates ducks. What makes one do such a thing? Why a duck? Is this just one more kink in the great swing of the 21st Century, where everything is fair game, in the grab, keep and kill of whatever shows up on the screen next time?

I try to think of this duck as a threat, something to hate and I am reminded of a few years ago when I lived in Pompano Beach, Florida. Each day I walked past a canal at the corners of Atlantic Boulevard and South Cypress Creek Road. I often stopped at the stone bridge and gazed east to watch the wildlife, the turtles frozen on rocks, fish zipping in shadows below, the iguanas, not indigenous, some up to four feet long waiting in the grasses to my left and ducks, mostly Muscoveys, a large heavy South American breed that multiplied triple fold over the years in suburban and urban landscapes. Red-beaked, black, green feathered, some white and black, some patched, some all white, they lope and waddle all over South Florida.

This day, a single female, young and sleek swam my way hugging the left shore. Behind her in blips and kicks, thirteen dark, little duckies swimming in her seamless wake. I watched them for a very long time until it seemed the day had wandered on without me.

Over the next few weeks I saw Mother Duck again and again, but with fewer ducklings in tow, until one day I discovered her swimming alone. What could it be? Rats seemed obvious. Rats cling to shorelines and prey on such young. Foxes, possibly? Iguanas? Probably not. What else? And what could Mother Duck be thinking if she could think?

Months later I walked by the stream. Something moved. I waited. A nudge, a shadow, a beak along the shoreline. Then more. Mother Duck swam toward me with a string of duckies edging alongside. I counted. Eleven duckies.

Today I think, what grace in this cynical world of bombs, gadgets, toys, murders, lies and duck stabbings. Mother Duck seemed thankfully oblivious to anything less beautiful than her ducklings swimming and dipping their beaks, flapping their untried wings and their instincts into ever, hopeful tomorrows.

THE LAST DAY OF WORK

Excerpt from Mohawk Electric

At four-thirty P.M. the workers file out of the Mohawk Electric for the last time. A few men holler, a few men curse. Some raise fists. A man in a red plaid shirt is stoic. Another man's half smile bears a trace of doubt. Women appear as lifetimes washed away. They stream toward their cars lining the three block parking lot to the East. They stop suddenly. Their shouts fall off in the afternoon. They seem to hear something. It appears to be getting cold. Now the men and women look around at each other. They gaze upon the long brick buildings. They see the wires and the transistors whirring through the years. They see capacitors and radio tubes and ohm meters and scraps of metal and brooms and an ever ending whirr, now silent. They listen. They stand for a long time listening; they stand for such a longtime they begin to feel uneasy.

Now they shake each other's hands. The women hug each other and begin to cry. Some are big women in slacks, other's short with close cropped hair and glasses. Sometimes it's hard to tell the men from the women. Before long the men and women set down their lunch pails, stick car keys back in pants or purses. They hug, they kiss, they begin to tell each other how they'll miss each other after all these years. We'll see each other all the time someone laughs within a cry.

At the North end of the lot, behind the small cyclone fence, George Lassiter emerges from the little white door laid back in brick. He walks swiftly to his car looking neither right nor left. He gets in the black Chrysler Imperial and closes the door. He hears nothing. His face appears rested, as if experiencing some sort of awakening; as if a million racing thoughts run on behind. He starts the car and inches forward. For a second he feels nervous, wondering if he can get through. When he reaches the gate, he sees clearly through the tinted glass. No one looks at him. They're all shaking hands and hugging. As he noses the big car out, they part. They let the car run right up to their thighs. Lassiter can't really tell if he's brushed anyone or not. He feels closed in, claustrophobic, inching the car out through the jam of workers. Lassiter feels strange pushing the workers without them acknowledging his presence. He's known them for years. My God what will they do? Toward the end of the lot, the thought leaves him. Lassiter hears himself sigh. The car dips at the curb. Lassiter drives south.

The workers remain in the parking lot for hours. Along about six forty-two at night, Perch Watson drives north on Beldon Street and he is amazed to see the workers standing in the dark. They hold hands. He blinks. Yes, he sees they're holding hands and swaying, swaying so imperceptivity he has to stop the blue cruiser and roll the window down. He feels the cool September wind rush in. It smells like cold and it smells like the Richland 's bubbling stink running behind the plant. A faint heated odor emanates from the men and women holding hands. It smells like old blood and tree bark. It smells like elm and falling leaves and cool sweat. The smell sways gently and the dark figures in the parking lot turn purple and chalky and brown. They seem to begin to possess a dotted orange caste to the purple that Perch can't fathom. They hold hands.

Officer Perch Watson sits in his baby blue cruiser across the street in front of Zukor's Variety. He thinks he hears a Spanish accent. He listens. He can't locate it. He rolls the car windows down. Finally he sees Mario Perez talking to Wingo inside Zukor's Variety Store. Even in the evening murmur of the closing factory workers He hears Wingo grunt. He smiles. He's a cop. He knows things. He hears things. He squints across the seat and down the aisle inside, past the Wonder Bread and Twinkees and donuts on the left and the soft drinks and chips on the right, to the pinball machine. Wingo leans in. The machine bangs and bells and bonks. Perch sees Wingo has balanced the back legs of the machine on his loafers. Perch shakes his head thinking Wingo is a hopeless loser. Mario Perez stands next to Wingo waiting to play. Mario is the same height as Wingo, but he is younger so he doesn't look as squat.

Perch remembers Wingo used to look like a round bullet blasting off tackle. He saw Wingo's skin through the thin black crewcut back in high school. Now he sees a black curly mop Wingo reportedly bought somewhere near Boston. It's rumored Wingo has a whole set of wigs, but no one can prove it. His wife Candy doesn't socialize much. Candy is a strange woman. Wingo bangs the pinball machine.

Mario Perez, the last person hired by Richland Electric, is the first person to be let go and the first, and only Cuban, to ever work for George Lassiter. Mario Perez rocks back and forth on his heels. His head seems to follow the steel ball under the glass, bonking here, banking, flipped up, shot down, across, back along the side. Perch Watson cannot see the ball from the street. He imagines the ball whacking off a light and disappearing down the hole.

Mario seems to be getting the hang of it. He seems to know what the ball feels like. His body rocks a beat, maybe a half beat ahead of Wingo. Perch thinks Mario Perez is singing or humming or something and he hopes it doesn't set Wingo off, but Wingo is intent. Wingo leans over the pinball machine and now he has the whole front end wrapped inside his short arms. For a second it seems like the pinball machine is growing out of Wingo's belly and that Wingo is wrestling it to the ground.
Perch dismisses the image and turns his attention to the parking lot. The workers sway in the September wind. It is dark now. Perch worries. What if they don't go home? He tries to imagine what they will do if they don't go home.

She Married Him

Once they were alone, she was alone
All day she wandered the house looking for herself
Then she made supper for him and the two boys
Sometimes he arrived mad
Sometimes as if he owned her
Sometimes as if he loved her
Sometimes he took the meatloaf and scraped it into the garbage
The two boys sat across from each other
Sometimes he stared at the plate in rage
Sometimes he said the milk in the coffee tasted sour
The two boys sat across from each other
Then he read his book
And she sat in the chair next to him and read her book
It was the same book
A mystery about finding the killer
The one who did it
The one who always did it
Somewhere between pages he’d go outside
At first she wondered where he went
Maybe it was the stars or the moon
But when he came back he looked wild-eyed
And she didn’t dare talk to him
Sometimes she let the kids eat before he got home
Sometimes they ate in the kitchen
Sometimes no one spoke
Sometime he screamed at night
And she knew banshees lived in the attic
One night he crawled down the hall on all fours howling
One night after the kids went to bed
She said she knew
He said what do you know
She said she knew he was drinking
And he threw the ashtray with his cigar still in it
And it broke the lamp and she tried to run
And he twisted her arm and pushed it through the living room window
And the glass cut her wrist and he tossed furniture everywhere
He called her a bitch
He called her a bitch
Didn’t she know?
Didn’t he give her THIS house, this LIFE?
Then he stormed into Winter night
She called the police and she knew
She knew it could be the end, that they might not believe
She called them anyway, anyway, anyway
And they stepped into the house and looked at the broken room
One of them held up her wrist
One of them bandaged her wrist
And then HE leaped into the room
It was his house and they better get
the God damned hell out of his house
He lashed at them with a broom handle
and they wrestled him to the floor
The lights next door snapped on and they dragged him out
and yanked him through the snow, twisting and cursing and shouting
And he was gone and she was alone with a bleeding wrist
Two children and she did not know who to call
She did not know what to say and she did not know where to go
Then it was dawn, then morning and the two boys
came down and saw the broken room
And they didn’t know what it was
And they didn’t know why
And she couldn’t really tell them
So she held up her wrist and she made breakfast
She saw that they washed their faces
She saw that their socks were clean, their coats
were buttoned and their hats squared
She cupped her hands around each boy’s face
She kissed their foreheads and sent
them off to school with strange looks in their eyes
Then she cleaned up the living room, taped the window
And threw out the broken glass
But she needed to change her bandage and throw the bloody one away
But he had the money, and she didn’t drive
Then it was quiet, so quiet she could hear her heart beat
Then she sat in her chair with an empty coffee cup in her hand
She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise about her face and hair
She waited and she waited and she waited
She married him