Crying Mary

She’s a no good harlot!

She’s possessed with evil intent.

She paints her face and wears improper clothes.

But, the winds scream Mary.

Why is she this way?

No one but she and her God know what happened to her.

One act of kindness from the Right Person-

She is healed.

And, the wind whispered Mary

My Catholic named is Mary Magdalene.

I know her pain and see through the lies.

Her invisible scars speak to me.

And, I cry MARY!

*giant nod to Jimi

Smoke on the Horizon

Curling my fingers around you like a Twizzler in my hand,

Chewing off the top and bottom carefully as not to be noticed.

A deep inhale brings a sigh of relief and a pang of worry.

You infiltrating my lungs as if long lost friends,

Sighing out the vapor is bittersweet-I don’t want to say goodbye but I want to say hello again and again and again…

How will I stop;

When will it end?

My Mother the Sea Skirting Nymph

Long before she lost her leg,

before five-year-old me scratched her cornea,

before she had her cancerous breast removed,

Mom was a water ballerina.

When our family went on vacation to Sanibel- back before it became trashy and shark ridden,

Mom would put on her simple bathing suit from last year and the one before that and the one before that and so on.

Next, she would put in her weighted fake boob and something was lost from her sparkle.

Then, unable to swim because of all of these stupid things,

she would walk miles up and down the beach collecting sea shells.

As a child, I thought it was her passion.

A shell hard to be unique and lovely in any form to go in Mom’s bucket.

So, day by day, morn til you couldn’t see your hand it was so dark, Mom would trudge the beach always looking out for jellyfish though I am sure dad would have urinated on her.

Mom , barefoot, would dance with the ocean.

Sometimes, a cha cha…other times a fox trot,

but they all seemed a lustful waltz to an 8 year-old me.

Later, in the condo, the two of us would go through her finds!

I loved the spiral ones, because I could hear the ocean I had been swimming in all day.

Mom listened to all of the sea shells

I tried it, too, but heard nothing.

I told Mom she was being silly with me, but she swore she wasn’t.

She’ll after shell, she laid back and listened to her lover’s call.

But, I heard nothing at all.

The Heart of the Matter

Lust begins in the eye of the storm.,

Love in the heart of the matter.

Lust is hot and physical to boot.

Love is a steady eddie.

Lust could become love but more likely not even friendship.

Love begins with friendship and attraction, like lust follows.

Lust gets up and leaves when sex is over.

Love holds you dearly after love making.

Give me love any old day.

Lust, after all, is a Queen’s gambit.

Heart Ache

As popcorn birthing

My eye is popping, hurting

I can feel the vein

Thumping its way to oblivion

I grab my medicine bag

And produce a green and yellow capsule

Pop it in my mouth and flounce to the floor

Am I having a heart attack?

Should I have taken aspirin, too?

No, there’s some in the med.

I begin to meditate…my emergency meditations

The yogi asks if I responded or reacted

I did both, you fool

The reaction was my response

Did my heart attack me ?

I will never know

Has time passed, no

though the clock says so

I sneeze and, for a millisecond

My heart stops again.

The weird thing is I am in the exact same position as before

Only my chest aches on this stark, old, wooden floor.