The Seam

Father, you are too close to the dead.

For you, the seam between this world

and the next is so thin you could

easily slip your hand between the threads

and understand eternity.

You surround yourself with people

who hold hands with death every day

and when he pulls them over you say

another gone to that country I know

and its siren quiet and calm.

Your gray blue eyes are always looking

at you from behind their faces

so you extend your hand to them and say,

welcome to the club sir. I see you are drowning

and want to catch a little breath.

Gift

You buy me a

sewing machine

for Christmas.

You think I

can learn by

myself using

a book.

I feel as if you

have handed me

a violin

and asked me

to learn to play

a concerto

without a teacher.

Still

So, there is still a part of me

you can touch

without being here

or even thinking of me.

I want everything to be

completely magical

without you.

That’s the only way I can

stand it, the weight

of all the years

we spent together.

So, I found someone

almost magical enough.

but you see.

There are still stains

on the carpet, and

nights spent

watching TV on the couch.

And that’s where you get me.

Still, still a year and a half

later the fleshy parts of me

are bruised.

And when I hear of you

I feel again the dull pain,

just a slip of the invisible hand.

The fingers plying at the places

you once touched

so often.

Collaging Experiment #2

Here is another one of my collage experiments. This one incorporates a card I got at a magic show, a piece of paper about a vinyl toy and a cut out from a London Fog ad (since my bf and I are leaving for London in mid-February).

My First Collage

Do you name collages? I thought this kina captured some of my everyday life, incorporating a fast pass from last year and a small rendering by local artist Ursula Young of SF victorians.

Découpage

I am tired again.
I have lists and lists
of things to do. I take up
the juvenile art of
collaging.

This helps my hands feel
as if they have produced
something. Perhaps
they will sleep at night
instead of strumming
with regret.

I cannot cut straight edges.
This requires a tool.
I am buying tools for
an art I performed in
elementary school.

The woman at the store asks me
if I’m working on decoupage, and
I don’t understand her, even
though I speak French.

But what have I saved up
all of these scraps of
fabric and paper and buttons for
if not this?

It’s true, I kept them
knowing there would be this
return, this curving to childhood
pastimes.

My grandmother tells me
she would collage anything
when she was a housewife.

Tired

I can’t see you
sitting in front of me
I’m blinded by your
dominating beam of light
that shoots straight through
my past.

Here is what happened
after seven years,
we were tired of trying
to maintain… we broke
away from each other,
I met someone new
you met someone new

she wasn’t so unlike me
but not so much like me either
you are moving in together

We both stop following our
delicate vegan regimes
because we are so tired

Tired of the carefully-
worded explanations, the
uncomfortable moment
when you refuse a seemingly
harmless dish and end up with
dry salad.

We were always prone
to giving up. Each night
when I got home from work
and you were on the couch
watching television, I knew
you had given up something.

These are just small things,
The deaths of animals,
the endings of relationships,
they are so tiny
on this planet
in this universe
it makes me tired
to think of it.