31 Years Later

    I was devastated when John Lennon died. For weeks, I went around in a fog of grief. I will never forget visiting my mom in Mexico about a month after Lennon's murder, with my then-boyfriend Phil Kinsey, and going out drinking at a local watering hole. We were all pretty inebriated, and my mom got into an argument with some tourists about seats--they claimed to be saving seats for their friends, who were in the bathroom. My mom loudly replied that there would be no saving of seats, we were going to  sit in them, and we did. It was a long table, capable of accommodating at least forty people. An argument broke out, and my mom scathingly referred to our adversaries as "plastic people." I was shitfaced drunk on tequila, and, thinking I was being hilarious, I said--"No, they're not plastic--they're cardboard. No, not cardboard--I know what they are--they're PLEXIGLASS!" The tourists were not amused at all, and one of them swung a beer bottle at my head--fortunately, she missed. I was oblivious to what had just happened, until my mother started shrieking, "No one swings a beer bottle at my daughter's head! NO ONE!" Phil, for once, was the most sober person in the room. He wisely decided that it was a good time to steer us out of the bar towards home, and softly kept repeating, "Leah and Polly--it's time to go..." as he pushed us toward the door. I could not bear the injustice of it all, the pettiness of the whole incident, and, at the exact same time that everyone else in the room fell silent, I yelled, "John Lennon is DEAD, and you people are fighting over chairs--you stupid fucking assholes!" My mom said that people talked about this for years afterward.

Security Guard

It's impossible to tell the whole story

so I'll mention the parts I think are true

though I know you have forgotten

since you weren't actually there.

But there was a figure clad in a dirty suit jacket

that I thought was you, although

you may have sent an imposter, once or twice.

There was never a way to avoid the train,

I lay on the tracks

daring you to run over me again and again

and you loved it, and so did I.

Sometimes I barely made it to the track on time

and you had to wait, but you were always there

idling with the force of your tiny engine

while I settled down and closed my eyes.

You stopped guarding the train,

and became the train instead.

But that's not truth. The truth is this:

I drove myself from Chicago to Michigan,

my stomach like rancid citrus as exit signs flew by

through Kalamazoo and then Jackson,

fearing the green overhead sign that named your town,

but the town always swallowed me uncomplaining.

I climbed the high stairs to your apartment

past the door that swung inward to a wall,

I could never move forward, only left or right.

It never changed, those gems arranged like ants

on your bathroom windowsill, your guitars and banjo

perched on floor stands, your futon, your stereo.

Afterward, I couldn't sleep, but you had no trouble.

You slept with your head on a mound of blankets,

with lumpy cotton blankets underneath your body, facing the wall.

I never understood your denial of comfort,

you who called me mama, and then

unplugged yourself, turned away from me

and lost consciousness immediately.

In the morning you began a series of rituals,

shaved your face quickly, talked to yourself in the shower

and then dressed for work in layers of polyester

and a clownish striped tie, for your job

guarding the grass for a monolithic building

whose name I refused to learn.

I grew to hate that uniform, not for its ugliness

but for what it meant: you were leaving

and you didn't care,

but I would have the long drive home.

I knew I would make the drive again

as soon as you asked, and you always did,

until the one day you stopped asking,

padlocked the doors, and retreated inside.

Now you crouch behind the glass

and have the nerve to ignore me

while I throw myself in your direction

and thrash my fists wildly in the air--

as if my knuckles could make a dent,

as if I actually knew how to hurt you.

Pest

When thoughts of you come
I wave them away like gnats
until they are almost gone
Still, when I drink my coffee
one or two of them emerge from the kitchen
attracted to the sweetness that remains
around the edge of the cup.
There still is an odor
from that last pool of stale liquid
but I can no longer taste it.
Once there were many, swarms that buzzed
whenever I entered a room
that had been left unoccupied
for more than a minute.
I fired the exterminator
when the gnats returned one day
because I left the light on by accident.
Although I poured poison down the drain, repeatedly,
you wouldn't let me relax
even when I was asleep.
Soon, they will all be dead,
and so will you.
you will breathe in a place where you can't touch me,
you will be someone else's infestation.