Mom grows stalagmites.
They’re made of toothpaste.
Drips from her cavern each morning
landing not quite into the bowl.
The basin isn’t out of reach,
but she’s forgotten to extend.
Or to spit. Just drip.
Mom used to be the neat one.
I was the messy one.
The eggshell stalagmite
matches the eggshell counter,
her myopic eyes seldom notices
the heightening mound.
It repulses my senses.
I don’t rush its removal
knowing it’ll eventually be missed.
– Dara Kalima…
...continue reading
My mother died in the early minutes of March 21, 2012, just as spring was coming to its fullest expression in Birmingham, Alabama, the city where she was born, married, and had her children, and where she had lived her entire life. The foliage was a promising shade of bright green. The suburban lawns were visions lined with banks of azaleas in full bloom. The year was still young; as yet, the sun’s heat had no weight to it.
On March 9, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. How long she had had the bone cancer, her doctor would not suppose. What was known was that the bone cancer was a metastasis from breast cancer she had survived fourteen years ago. For the past twelve years, she had been cancer-free, but, as it was explained, breast cancer is sneaky and insidious and doesn’t give up easily.…
...continue reading
A title:
when it comes
the poem will come too.
Where does he look?
Inside?
Outside?
All the world around?
Searching
for a title,
for a theme.
Desire is present
but no direction.
A poet in search of a title
is a sad, pathetic thing.
Does he search
through ancient tomes?
Or current fads?
Or some time in between?
dlh…
– Duane L. Herrmann…
...continue reading
We funneled independently through the horde of mouth-breathers, school bell releasing us from monotonous lessons we’d mastered before the classes even began. Like a well-tuned machine we threaded expediently and stepped lightly, dodging shoulder throwing jocks and snickering goths and jazz handing theater kids. Our destination awaited us, a physical and mental safe haven: Mr. Pruitt’s classroom. Chess club.
We arrived within seconds of each other, chemistry posters on the wall welcoming us and promising a mental workout. After the day we’d all had, like every other day in public school, it was a relief. Immediately we got to work setting up the game. Kevin tossed three vinyl chessboards on the tables, unrolling them and checking for wrinkles. Ian laid out the clocks. David dropped bags of white and black pieces on each board.…
...continue reading
Doorbell. Chimes came from two long brass tubes. Partially enclosed in an arched wall area, they looked pretty even when silent. A salesman was welcomed inside; he was offering sets of either Encyclopedia Britannica or Comptons. My mother invited him into the dining room, then poured coffee into a China cup she placed on a saucer. He sipped as I looked at the two ‘samples’ and knew which was the one I’d actually use: Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia. Britannica was first issued in 1768 so definitely stood the ‘test of time’, as some teachers often expressed, the Compton’s, which debuted in 1922, got ordered. The salesman put the top back on his liquid ink pen, and handed my mother an invoice explaining when my complete set would be delivered.…
...continue reading
Morning practices were always hard to stomach. Somewhat slowly, I made my way up to the big field at Parson’s. The sun, weak and silver, seemed to have gotten stuck about a quarter of the way up the flypaper sky. I’d left my hat in Hutch’s dad’s Cherokee, so I borrowed a back-up from the bin—a big rubber tub Hollings set outside his office—a tub that, along with extra hats, held practice jerseys, belts, and even one or two pairs of socks for those of us that, as Hollings said, might forget our hands if they weren’t attached to our wrists.
I always remembered my hands, but I grabbed a back-up this or that from the bin more often than I cared to admit.
As I approached the diamond, I noticed Hollings was already there busily arranging tees against the fence that ran from the end of the first-base dugout to the right-field corner.…
...continue reading
A diorama of function, all clockwork and organ.
……………Transparency means the light is bending.
Damn this gravity. Suspension is spirit’s legless shadow,
……………At least here in this hall. A woman, remembering
Something she cannot name, wanders as of seeking
……………Light. This is how shadow destroys itself.
Through an open window. As she falls, a silver spoon
……………Spins a web of light from her pocket. The trees
Do not understand this broken kite. This bitter copper
……………Water. Since the first time she fell, I have taken
The dead inside of me nightly. Spoken the transposed
……………Tongue of mirrors. She is not the first
Of the living to disappear. The first of my children, now
……………A blur of movement under water
Where there is no water.…
...continue reading