The Case of Two Brains

    In the courtroom, a man sits on the witness stand, the man innocent of killing his boss, his mailman, his fiancé, his . . . better half, or at least the attempt of killing his better half.
    The prosecuting attorney approaches Mr. Kim.  “So, Mr. Kim, isn’t it true that no one saw you at Toe Joe’s Jam & Celery the morning of April 15th, where you said you were grocery shopping for exotic foods needed for that nights business party, the same morning your boss came up missing, the same morning your fiancé was found drowned in your pool, the same morning the mailman crashed right after delivery your mail?”
    “Yes.  I mean no.  I mean—”
    “Which is it Mr. Kim?”
    The docile, quiet, wringing hands, mild manner clerk breathes deep.  The man whom broke into tears when nervous or under a great deal of pressure loses his composer, coming out booming; booming like a gorilla poked in his cage: “MR. CROMBAG, YOU’LL NOT ADDRESS MY BROTHER AS SUCH!”
    Mr. Crombag backs off, but not before the face of the defendant plunges into Mr. Crombag’s nose, blinding him with close proximity.  He looks at the demeanor of the man sitting on the witness stand.  Mr. Kim is different.  His face scowls; frightening to look at.  The scowl has a knowingly smile behind it.  His posture is now straight, not slumped, a confident person full of sureness, strength, and power.  The man who now sits on the witness stand isn’t Mr. Kim but a person who takes Mr. Kim’s body at will.
    Mr. Crombag has heard of things like this before when a calm, normal man just goes wacko.  “Who are you?” he squints his eyes and dares to near the new witness.
    The voice is rough, a gargling sound, gruff like a dog growling through a bark: “The man who protects my brother.”
    “Do you have a name?”
    “YOU’LL ADDRESS ME AS SIR!”
    The judge pounds his gavel.  “Mr. Kim, you’ll not be hostile towards Mr. Crombag.”
    The unknown looks at the judge, calmly, and with the same voice speaks softly: “I am not Mr. Kim, Your Honor.  I will,” the word is backed by gritted teeth, “be addressed with respect if,” his eyebrows raise and a finger points up, “you want answers.”  And quickly he adds, pointing his finger towards Mr. Crombag, “You no longer attack my brother.”
    The judge glares at the character before him.  They stare.  The message is clear: This is my court, you’ll not dictate.
    “Of course, Your Honor, I apologize for my temper.  Just don’t attack my brother,” he glares at Mr. Crombag with a heavier warning. The eyes speak Death.
    “Carry on, Mr. Crombag.”
    Mr. Crombag nods to the judge.  “Thank you, Your Honor.”
    “I will ask again,” with a look from the unknown, and a low growl, from the witness stand, “. . . sir,” Mr. Crombag heavily sighs, “what are you named?”
    “My name is Trent.”
    “Trent, will you allow Mr. Kim to return?”
    “No.  My brother need not deal with you any further.  You will be dealing with me.  Is that clear?”
    Very clear.  Mr. Crombag has to think quickly about his next move. This was unexpected.  He paces a bit before Trent, tapping his fingers upon his leg.  What does he know about dual personalities?  Nothing.  He would have to play this out by instinct.  I just hope it doesn’t get me murdered.  And then he looks over to the District Attorney.  He is making no move to ask for a recess.  In fact, the man looks like he is in serious shock, still.  Mr. Crombag looks at the judge.  His expression isn’t identifiable—is it shock like the rest of us?  This is a judge that doesn’t rattle; this is why he chose him; better chance of getting something done.
    “Trent, why does Mr. Kim need your protection?”
    “Because of people like you.  He’ll say anything to keep conflict out of his life, just like that dumb bitch that was making him dress like she wanted.”
    “Who is this dumb bitch?”
    “Toto May.”
    “Trent, sir, did you kill Toto May?”
    “Not actually.  As Kim Kim turned away frustrated after trying to say he didn’t like the outfit she wanted him to wear that night for best appearance with the boss, I stuck out my foot so she’d fall into the pool while jerking the chair from out under her as she stood up to follow him.  She hit her head on the way down, made no noise.  Kim Kim kept on going, knowing nothing.  I wasn’t going to tell him.”
    “And the mailman, Jarmen King?”
    Trent sits silently.
    “Answer the man,” the judge leans over, as if to whisper into the defendant’s ear.
    No attempt is made by Trent to open his mouth.
    The judge keeps his eyes upon the Mr. Kim. “This is my court, and respect is two ways, not one way; thus, you will answer the man Mr. Kim. Do not intimidate me.”
    Trent stares out into the court room. Growling.
    “Bailiff!” the Judge calls.
    The answer comes immediately, “I didn’t do that one.”
    “You mean Mr. Kim did?”
    “No.  We would be dead if Mr. King hadn’t been there before us.  Mr. King was a good man. The letter wasn’t supposed to blow up until I called mom. The letter was programmed to Robin’s signal coming through, no one else's.”
    “Who wrote the letter?  Sir?”
    “Kim Kim did most of it.  But I had to tell mom I was still alive. I knew she would get the letter in two days; I would give her a day to think, in which she would call Dr. Handable to get rid of me. I know she wouldn’t let the letter out of sight.”
    Still alive?
    Even the judge straightens in his seat.
    “So Mr. King was inadvertently killed. You didn’t get the signal set quite right, the mini bomb exploding when his phone went off?”
    “I supposed so. I felt badly about that.”
   
    “So, there are people who know about you? Does Mr. Kim?”
    “They did; they do.  But I was weak for a long time after mom sent us here for surgery.  Something was wrong with Kim Kim.”
    “Where is here?”
    Trent doesn’t reply. Mr. Crombag doesn’t pursue. He then looks back at the District Attorney, Antonio Biggs.  He shrugs his shoulders.
    “Trent, sir, may I speak to Mr. Kim?  I promise to not attack him.”
    “No.  Lawyers lie.”  Trent crinkles his eyes right at Mr. Biggs.  Biggs isn’t watching his client because he is too busy writing on his tablet.
    Very well.  No one is objecting to this, I’m going to go on full blast.
    “Trent.  Why do you think Mr. Kim had surgery?”
    “Something wrong with his head.”
    “How old were you when this surgery took place?”
    Trent puckers his lips in and then speaks thoughtfully.  “About two.  We hadn’t been toilet trained for long.”
    He actually wants me to believe he can remember that far back? A handful of people may remember when they are two.
    “What happened after the surgery?”
    “Kim Kim was able to move but I couldn’t.  I could sense all Kim Kim did; could see and hear some things, but limitedly; could feel Kim Kim was a little lost, too, so I vowed to get better, for him.  It was difficult.”
    Mr. Crombag comes closer to the body of Mr. Kim and stares into those eyes glazed by contempt.  “You keep calling Mr. Kim, Kim Kim.  How come, sir?”
    “That was his name.  Not this Robin name.  Mom wanted him to sound more United States of American.”
    “How is it you chose the name Trent?  It is a European name, sir.”
    Trent became tense, his face narrowing along with his eyes.  Aha!  He had hit a nerve.  He didn’t like his name.
    “I don’t remember any names from our home country.  I couldn’t call myself Kim, could I?”  Trent snorts, as if he had won a battle.
    “No.  I guess you couldn’t.”
    “Besides,” Trent continues, “Trent is a strong name.  Is there something wrong with it?”
    Perfect.  Strike now.  “Yes.  It doesn’t mean Victory, as my name Victor.”
    “HOW DARE YOU!  I’M GREAT!”  Trent stands and lifts his fist in the air, roaring, bringing them down onto the banister.
    “MR. KIM,” Judge Be Leigh pounds his gavel, “You.  Will.  Sit.  Down.  No More Outbreaks!”
    Trent sits.  Mr. Kim’s face puffs and reddens, his hands clutch the banister.
    “Mr. Kim,” Mr. Crombag changes strategies, “have you ever known of Trent?”
    “I Am Trent!”
    “Mr. Kim, why is it that your brother defends you?”
    “He doesn’t know I’m alive!”
    “How can Trent be in your brain without your knowledge, and yet he knows all about you?”
    “I shut off the memory when I do the work.”
    “Mr. Kim, why do you allow another to do your dirty work?”
    “HE DOESN’T!”
    The guards are right there before Mr. Kim’s body lifts over the banister to strike at Mr. Crombag.
    Quickly, Mr. Crombag goes to the judge.  Mr. King joins him.  “We’ve gone this far.  Restrain him.  I want to finish this.  This can’t be real; the mandatory psychological testing done every month by his company couldn’t miss this.”
    “If Mr. King approves.”
    “Very much.  This will put in a plea of insanity.”
    Mr. Crombag smiles brilliantly.  There isn’t going to be a new trial for an insanity plea.  It is ending here.  He goes back to the defendant.  He looks at the body of Mr. Kim as they restrain him.
    “Whom am I addressing?”
    Mr. Kim jerks at the cuffs placed on his arms and legs.  Obviously it is Trent.  His confinement takes away some of his fight as the realization that he is going to harm no one comes to him.
    “Your name is Robin Kim.  You are named after the bird with a red breast to show off.  They fly away.”
    “My name is Trent!”
    “Trent is nothing.  Trent deceives his brother.  Trent lies to his brother.  Trent hurts his brother.”
    The man growls and jerks, again, the muscles bulge from his forearms.
    “Trent is imaginary.  Trent doesn’t exist.  Trent is an excuse to destroy because Robin can’t, just like the bird, because Robin can’t accept his weakness.”
    Mr. Kim’s face is nearly purple.  The man is holding his breath, and covering his ears best he can between his upraised arms.
    “Trent is a coward, makes Robin a coward because he hides in Robin as Robin hides in Trent.  Robin is afraid of Trent.”
    Mr. Kim keeps his hands up with his body bent forward, allowing him to plug his ears. He doesn’t move from this position.
    “I will win because I have the strong name and your real name is weak.  I’m Victor, victorious; you’re Robin, the bird that flies away.”
    Mr. Kim straightens, struggling for breath, his eyes rolling up into his head.  The whites are clearly visible.  His face is purple and red; his throat instinctively grasps for air that just isn’t there, clutching for air in a the space filled with tense aspiration of a crowd, a crowd that swallows the air for their own lungs.  The body collapses to the floor, banging into the banister before rolling down the two steps on the side, flopping wildly.  A medic is called.  An observer from the courtroom comes forward as the words ring out, “Call 911.  He’s seizing.”
    One second passes, then two, and before the third second strikes, Mr. Kim is sitting up looking dazed and confused, but also spouting words in a calm voice: “You will not have control of me Trent; you were erased because you could not function; I was saved to be complete, to be whole; you will not take this away; I will not be weak; You will not make me do what I do not want; I will tell them the truth; I will admit to what has been done through my body by your brain, the brain that I will rid myself of; do you hear me Trent; do you understand me Trent; I am no longer a patsy to you, to anyone; I was a fool; I have found the way to stand up for me; I never needed you; don’t use me as an excuse to do as you please; you were never suited for society, you are not suited for society; I am done with your presence; you will no longer force me into darkness; I will no longer hide from you to do what is right; do you hear me Robin; do you?”
    “Order, order,” the Judge pounds his gavel hard and in rhythm with the breaths of the crowd “oh”ing as if watching a magician do a trick.
    “Yes, sir,” Mr. Kim stands slowly after spewing his intentions. “Trent will no longer interfere, you have my word.”
    “Is this some game, Mr. Kim?”
    “No Your Honor. Please call me Mr. Kim, or Trent.” Mr. Kim takes the witness seat. As he sits, a man from the back of the court runs forward, the doors to the court room booming against the wall as they strike, the man waving a paper, yelling, “Please, sir, allow me to come forward, allow me to speak!”
    The judge, wanting some clarity, demands to know who this man is, demands to know if either lawyers know about this paper, if someone is attempting to make a circus out of his court, spurting everything that comes to mind. After some time, Judge Be Leigh calms into his finals words, “Will this paper give evidence to Mr. Kim’s well-being, seeing you are the doctor, one of several doctors, who performed the initial surgery that Mr. Kim mentioned.”
    “Yes, Your Honor, this paper will. I even brought in my hard drive to prove that it wasn’t fabricated.”
    “Hard drive?”
    “This is a message to me via email, coming late in the night about a week ago. Thought it was some prank until I heard about Mr. Kim’s trial.”
    Dr. Handable is sworn in. Mr. Kim is removed from the witnessed. He sits along side his attorney, Antonio Biggs, waiting for what is to follow. He leans over to Mr. Biggs, informing him how he used the computer in his office to send this message to the doctor. “You understand, I couldn’t tell you because information must be shared with the prosecutor for preparation to dispute. Trent was napping. I had worn him down by forcing him to let me be me.” Antonio Biggs looks at the man he thought he knew, a man that didn’t scheme, didn’t lie, didn’t do anything to harm a fly. Nothing ever suggested something like this. All of this must be an act!
    Dr. Handable’s voice is loud, taking over any other though now in Mr. Biggs mind. “By the time this email is read, it is my hope that the secret past of Robin Kim is now public.  I had a twin at birth, an incomplete twin physically attached to me with its own brain intertwined with mine.  The doctors couldn’t take all of the second brain out. Doing so would have destroyed the whole being of the body you see me present in today. Thus, the doctors did their best in killing off the extra brain, realizing the second brain interfered with motor functions of the my complete brain. All that could be disconnected and destroyed was.  The altar ego, the other brain, learned to compensate and renew some of the damage, and retained knowledge and memories!  Thus, two brains in one body. The man who, hopefully, ran into the court room is one of the original doctors that helped in the surgery. I, Robin Kim, was able to contact Dr. Handable, without the knowledge of Trent Kim. I, Robin Kim knew when Trent slept, taking advantage of those times. A week after the death of my wife, and others, I came to realize what my blackouts were. Knowing what I was facing as I watched from a distance as Trent took over more and more each day, I knew keeping myself unbeknownst to him was best until I had the willpower to take my life back, regardless if I did jail time or not. I also knew my best time to strike was during the trial because of Trent’s hatred from lawyers. Dr. Handable can now explain anything you need to know about my twin, known as Trent currently, but was once called Kong. But before he faces such questions, I must ask you, the jury, the listeners in the courtroom, all officials, 'Whoever said Two Heads Are Better Than One?'”

“my rainbow died”

Published 12/20/2013 on Cliterature.

http://www.cliteraturejournal.com/dawncunninghammotherho.html

for Kyla

the pretty blurred colors
rain through the glass
make an unwashable spot
                                                 on a little girl’s toe

                                                 she dances with the colors
                                                 while a fist attempts
                                 
                to grasp the aired colors
                                 
                lifting her shirt to have
                                 
                a rainbow smile
                                                 smudged across her belly
                                                
 filling the buttonhole with laughter

today a wave
yesterday a wiggle
tomorrow . . .
                                               “my rainbow died”
                                               she begs papa to bring it back
                                               at ten a.m.
                                               on the hardwood floor

That's Why I Hate White People

(
This poem I am sharing with you is based on an incident that occurred while I worked as a bus assistant.)

she spoke with the bobbing-sway
of the head from side to side, the chin
jetting out as a chicken’s strut just at the end
of the line, while a small blonde girl
ran from her door

to get on the bus.  The next day the same:
         That’s why I hate white people,
as her eyes rolled, the corns

in her hair flopped about when the blonde
wore the same shirt as yesterday, ran out

of the house without her coat

on, with socks and shoes in hand.
         That’s why I hate white people,
I heard her say

again, the grin gritty on filed teeth
as another said “don’t they clean

the yard, wash their windows, put
their bikes in the garage;” the blonde’s tummy

growled ferociously; “didn’t
your mother fix you breakfast?”
         That’s why I hate white people,
escaped those lips a last time, before seeing
administration when the blonde

girl tripped and put a hole in the knee
         That’s why I hate. . . .

4 Ways to Die

1.
In the basement
the gulley     of the hospital
a corner           is tucked

Nuclear Medicine
Hidden away          deep in

to protect the masses
unlike me and those few others who happen to wander
down the wrong

hall of the building

Once trapped no one escapes
without a poke

without a puncture

without being injected              It is said

the amount is small
so small that it can’t harm you  Then why
all the cross bones
and skulls

People walk with IVs

dripping from arms

taped to a wrist  Mine
covered by a stretch cloth
           so as not to make me queasy when seeing  Isotopes run
rapid

through my liver       into my gallbladder
slowly to my intestines  An hour
of pictures and asking

what cells am I losing Is my brain being damaged This stuff can’t be directed
to follow one
path

One way in and nowhere
out       my body absorbing
it slowly  I hear a machine
pumping
like a well
like a heart  while I wonder

who’s trapped in there

2.
Few learn silence
           Through the trap of thorax before sea level;
                 all too many know

silence
           like an inescapable scream.
                                                       Have you kept
silence to
                eat the intestines, the liver,

                           the bronchiole tubes; have you buried

silence in a casket with a face full of fist to be reborn
                  again and again?


3.
Remembering
giant flakes that fall under
a black sky of sparkles

where the moon was blotted

and snowflakes absorbed light

like speckles of aluminous paint
that falls from a wall
the way nature does it            the only way
the way the mind sees
the path from the dog’s chain

to the back door in snow’s dark, and all the while,

while writing this, being buried in the downfall
—the bright                pains my eyes.


4.
a. A thing that he says disturbs me,

churns my insides.
“I’d rather be cleaning stalls,”
as he walks from the kitchen;
“No one cleans up after themselves.”  He told me
when he quit work

everything would change.  Children

would obey and clean.

b. There’s noise coming

from two bedrooms, a living room,
and the dining room—t.v.

or radio, or yelling; children
picking at an arm, a leg,
two dogs nibbling, gnawing, fighting
to be alpha,
a head and my gut talking to me,
but I don’t understand it; often

I can’t hear it—even in quiet.

c. Barium gets stuck

in my chest, and there is no gag
bag, only this cup of thick white
and an aroma lurking of rotten

raspberry, or. . . something; I can’t finish
and they say must.

d. Two grown women

in the same house don’t fit,

and neither do niece and aunt
only a few years apart.  My mouth

agape hearing
“I hate you;”

“You’re ugly,” sharing

dining room, kitchen,

and living room.

Sixth Symphony

I.
Unrest;
the breast aches; the fist clutches
a heart stroked with
music:             behind the ear; behind the skull;
                                   behind the spine washing
music        with more music,
squeezing the heart,

            squeezing passion,

            squeezing tears between
Fingers, which linger—on

            chest,

            lips,

            cheek;
     behind the ear;

deep breath

             and no breath
                         Breathes music’s fluidity.

Unrest;
the breast aches; the ribs express pain;
the mind in images
         
    of a time like . . .

             like a river trickling tickling music upon the ankle:
            so distant         so near
            so inequitable finding eyes

                                    to take

                                    in a breath.

II.
                         Young girl
                              in

                       Old woman
       Director directs emotion
       makes evening flowers
                   morning glories

                        yellow
                       orange

new blossom          lavender
        to dance the clouds
        with a painted young lad
        on a story book cover
              sword bearer

                   fingertip caresser

                   sagest respecter

              tongue torturer
  

         his thunder    remembered
    of him
    of him
        Under her bosoms

III.
fingers ache.

                    to touch.

                                  and caress form.
make music.

                    expand words with beat.
                                           with thrum.
                                           with blood:
ahhh—swell the brow.


IV.
Dark.
Close blinds.
Crawl in bed.
Breathe once.
Breathe twice.
Close eyes.
Tighter.
Breathe deeper.
Exhale slowly.
Smell music in dark.
Hear music rise from lungs.
Taste music bleed over tongue.
Allow music’s caress.
Stretch through arm,
             through leg,
             through fingers, toes.
Sense music’s image.
            Play on iris.
Roll right.
Roll left.
Music’s embrace.
    Crawling
    in.
                 Breathe.
                 Breathe.
Rise.
Awake.
Darkness
           Only in music

V.
Hard breath
           taken
on the breast
Hard breast
in sobs            in memories

           of knowledge      found through fantasy
The joy

of knowing    sorrow
of now
of flesh          Hard breath
                                  taken

sucked          grabbed
trapped

trudged through

broken breast

VI.
I feel a hand

lift my chin
his parted lips cover mine

the music filling
I drop my guard
      
    emotions run
         free    giddy
          a school girl again    always
the body’s reply

It isn’t just physical
       
    my stomach stirs
      
    anticipation grows
the ease to move to him

to want him

music fulfilling
He leads me
into the cradle of his arm
his tongue deep within my body
into my veins
        
    slowly
his hand slides into my hair

over my ear
down my neck

into the valley of my breasts

the music of the body
Lips part and gather skin

his thumb smoothes my lips
his other my hip
his chest presses into mine

my chin lifts to him
his tongue sucks my jaw
my neck

my shoulder
his hand in the middle of my back
                               
                       pressing and pressing

my grip upon his neck
                      
             pulling and pulling
now his tongue traveling up from the valley
my hips rise

A Woman Addresses her Unborn Child

 after Chitra Divakaruni

I lie about you.
Under my naked breast

you breathe liquid.  I am filled
with eyes, waiting

for your cry:
they believe you are his.

I lie about you.
In milky ink, shriveled
with tithing of pen

strangling my throat;
your chosen name, Jadon,

points, seeps the echo

of sin from my body.

I lie about you,

wanting for you to be,

wishing for us to be

his.


*Jadon—Hebrew name meaning, “he will judge.”

A Tin Lily

(as sculpted by Ginet Luebke)

Let material you wrap


around grill bars


or cover dish


take form, grow


to its crunched state


of blossoms thumbed—


a flourishing fluidity


crushed and pressed.
Let it flare into bloom around


an inner rod,    solid,    stiff


with an expression in flex.

The bloom in flight


beckons the honey bee,


but the bee cannot smell


from the glare that rises—


as it flutters above


humming a bloom with no nectar


crunched and crushed


into clover.
Confusion,


mystification,


uncertainty


closer


and closer,


then


Crushed.

time equated by "do not enter"

i wonder at the moon

               in all its dimples
               the war it could not defend itself from

               —is it a place we cannot enter

               creviced too deep

               a concept that will never be realized—

               —is it a hypothesis

               a theory

               to be wiped from a slate

               laughed at or forgotten

               a place to hide and make wonderment of past

               of future
               of the unknown—

               —is it an object to speak to (about pain)
               to wish to (when a star doesn’t answer)
               to study (when tears begin to fall
               or love has began or ended)
               and hope for the secret

i remember movie man in the moon
               first step for mankind
               first artificial heart

               first space shuttle flight

               and watching an uncle leave on a plane
              when i didn’t know the difference between

               Vietnam       VD        or D-day

so       i guess         time can’t be entered

               when leaving this Earth brings you back
               right here in this
 
      space

Re Re-statement of Romance

after Wallace Stevens

On that which I disagree of night knowing nothing of romance:
it is true I am what I am, and the night belongs to the soul


and in perceiving this the night is more than background.

Two, only two can interchange the physical-ness, it is true,
to create One, but night penetrates between and inside,


the night becomes part of the One

The night and I, and night and you, I and you and night are alone.
So much of you and I above . . . never, the night knows much of us


deeply, just as it does of others; oh! so far beyond the romance we know.

The night surrounds and encompasses, engulfs our One self


supremely in all of night that travels and gathers


before the pale light where we three will be seen as three.

I Heard

after James Wright

Just off the highway to Amishville, Ohio
twilight glitters off the morning dew.
And the eyes of two lost cows
Darkened with no hope
Cross the path of my BMW.
As I hasten my foot to break,
One cow stops to relieve itself.
Anger within swells,
As the urine splashes upon my ornament.
I rev the engine,
I honk the horn,
Their stock bodies stare me down.
They both give an exhausting moo,
While I fling a word or two.
I back up and turn away;
And as I go I hear one cow exclaim:
“That’s right; no city wench wanted here.”
The second adds: “The stench is more than I can bare.”
Quiet and puzzled,
With confusion I drive,
Away from the rank oddity of Amishville, Ohio.

Dennis Cunningham, / in freehand, / drawing Battle Star Galactica

(October 06, 1963 to June 21, 1982)

 

 
perfection


without a ruler


blinds


a 1910 school desk

an unskeptical hand


lines


the galactic war


papered by a flood light


of a 14 year old


where lies


cannot be drawn

time equated by ‘do not enter’

 



he is lost, now,


and then to the cosmos


what he imagined to be

 



pictures behind doors,


where black cannot fade


lines left by the hand


of a 6 foot 3 inch boy

crossing

 after Lucille Clifton

anywhere on the known planet
a white iris
crosses a road
between cars, dump trucks, busses.

on this place
a crossing guard stops traffic.
the red power
blocks mechanical business.  white words
halting flows into lined ants.

on the known planet
an iris
is hit by a Chevrolet
because mechanic’s will is driven
by madness
or by cell phone
or this shall be the day i . . . .

how does the day end?
    do the other passengers stop?
    did the crossing guard’s power stop?
do the roads intersect into tears
    or is the silent sirens to answer?

Above the Porch of the Black Moon

    1.
Across the midnight is the moon, our eyes white,
match the snow laid from Warsaw to Decatur;
we strain in our window pane, cowl
over the porch.  This night –
I       and my siblings should sleep –        we stay to see
the moon’s dimples.

    2.
We are five.
Father, our growling bear,
Mother, the mighty pen, the stronghold.
Mother wanted to be a Solid Gold Dancer instead.
We know that.  She jazzes the kitchen with her ballad hips.

Myself: I turn to my bike mechanics,
become scavenger of lug nuts, break pads
that survived the winter.  I remold carport loft;
lift from grandfather's furniture
store to put in light fixture.

    3.
Before shadow’s evening I notice raccoons.
They wash hands like me,
cautious to keep unwanted visitors away: masked
for the knight's work.  Mother says
raccoons mean more chores.

    4.
In Indiana,
in the winter,
opossums steal the dog bowl every night.
Mother says they are lazy,
teach their children to steal.
“. . . leave their families with no
integrity.”

She hates the ways of opossums,
thieves in the night
hanging
under porch,


until she unbolts bolt.

(She believes in God and heart.
She trusts only her spirit
found written in God’s book.)

    5.
she built the family disillusioned on words, after living
twenty-one years with a man changing his father’s ways.

Mother, from summit of Erie Canal chose to stay.
I would wake at midnight to rummage Frigidaire
to see her write mystical lines to blood moon.
hair half combed,
lingering about shoulders and pen,
helping to spell out words.

Father said, “It’s a disease,
stealing from the night.”

cataract    she is cataract

    6.
in the morning we hear lions
calling us with leather snaps
swords painted on my dream
from her thorax         a tempered steal stare
as it enters our room in Goliath
steady steps      hovering over our beds
our names       socks    shirt    shoes
outside a 7 A.M. fog
thick
as my mother’s slurred tiredness
back to bed    pull up the covers    turn off the lights
father, if she doesn’t stop
i’ll live in the garage

    7.
“You don’t know it all . . . never will.
Let the sun block out the weak light.
Honey, watch for the black moon.”
My mother’s wisdom in metaphor.
I’ll never change,
grow more vigilante, un-compliant.

The moon is crossed out.  It’s spring now.  At night
I sneak to my loft,
chatter with raccoons,
plan that future bike shop below,
write out schematics,
and trust only voices
of the Good Book: Psalms.
David.

4 Corners

    On this Corner

  Gawking    at this house
       my glasses catch
    the reflection of passing vehicles
      just long enough to blot
         out a window
      or a door
      or a porch railing
   even the squirrel hanging
        on the gutter.

All of it
    actually
       is unimportant
  it doesn’t matter
    if this house is blue
    or         yellow
       it’s only a speck
          in a life         passing by

What if the corner house was gone tomorrow?
    Would it matter

          if that house changed
       colors—orange to teal, added
       a door
       or a window
       or a room        even
           walled-up every knob
              and screen
     but the back door?


    Across from the Dying Pine

The sidewalks are silent.
A single bird chirps
in the dying pine     across the road.

Over a rooftop, the sun
can be seen, and so can the moon.
The sidewalks are silent

before the wind and smoking chimneys.
I come here every morning,
across from the dying pine,

to sit and capture blackberries and squirrels in my mind
before they are lost
to the pounded sidewalks.

Why does this day need to be broken with rain?
Why not enjoy
the dying pine across the road? while
the sidewalks are silent.


    The Stop Sign

In front of me
   are four letters
   that command
   wanting me to obey
But often
   I snub the octagon
   brush the red
   from my sight
A four letter word
   so pounding      how
   can I ignore
        but I do
        and so do others
I command you
to
STOP        this poem


    Up To the Large Metal Z On the Chimney

a siren stops
right at this corner
below the Z attached to the chimney
the echo cutting my ears

my eyes    my fingertips    shoved
in my ears
blocking the emergency

from my mind
my brain stares
up to the large metal
Z    grasping onto the chimney

an ambulance loads
with gurney        medical box
pulling technician’s arm longer
to reach up and yank
that Z down        to tell me
the meaning
how the woman        belongs to the Z

and they attach it
to her snoring heart
wrapping the body silently

the siren stops

I am Night

I have become night
my mind alive under the moon
under a sky not yet black enough
to blind all eyes
Who shall answer me
when I have a request:
             an owl raiding the barn shackles scaled from my eyes
             a opossum burrowing his nose into my abandoned skin
             a cat's eye sneaking through my tooth
I have become night
to watch the snore roll up the stars
ward off the sunrise of less inspiration

A night clouded and a nova morning mourned before death
awakes and crawls over and into my bones
the images of navigation left to fingers and hand

I am night

I am blackness

I am images of starless
             of clouded moonshine
             of nine p.m.
I am REM's squandering memory of wakefulness with colorful air above my head

awaiting to be     thought     seen     heard     smelled     touched
                                                                                                                   and written

I have to get it out of my chest

It is stuck
In my throat
It swells
Like a sponge
It buries itself in the crevice of my bosom
Languishing as a sea captain drowning in his ship

It is stuck
In my throat
Choking my words
Like a tarantula that crawls down in my sleep
Waking my mind to asphyxiation

It is stuck
In my throat
That which I cannot name
Encasing itself behind my ribs in its own coffin

I am just sitting as I am

I am random. Randomness is me. I am the woods and I am the pastor. I am the tree and I am the granite. I am the stillness and I am the aggravation. I am all and I am none. I am random when life is the most stressful, my mind fused and chipped into phrases that fall like fall leaves: my selfhood attempting to survive with multi-personalities finding themselves on my tongue; telling myself to shut up when one decides to speak, and usually when it isn't the time or place: I can't have someone hear my inner-beings struggling. I am an ocean roaring inside the I am the river flowing outside; I am who I do not appear to be; I am exactly as I appear to be; I am as I am as you are and are not: I am every letter in every alphabet without escape to speak. I am just sitting as I am: don't answer who I am.

Stripped, Searched on Her Front Porch

for Hayden

Stripped, searched by shot gun, after being locked out of my house:
First the shirt son, hand it through the door.

Her daddy wadding it up like an empty box of shells,
tossing it back into my face, as my bare chest absorbs
the fall cold mist: Don’t wancha chatchen cold.

Stripped, searched by shot gun, on her front porch:
Now undo the belt, let the drawers drop
right where you stand; step out slowly and kick
them to the door.

The cold fall air riding up my boxers; any ideas have left
my head for the warmth of britches. He shakes everything from the pockets:
my keys, my change, a few loose bills, and a condom; he smiles,
throws the britches over his shoulder like a sack of grain,
opens the door wide: Come on in, son; don't
forget your keys and the little change you have.

Stripped, searched by shot gun, after locking my self out:
The wife will bring you jogging bottoms, two wool blankets,
with a pillow; the cot in my room is yours. Don’t let the dog
bite you when you enter the room.

Stripped, searched by shot gun, on her front porch.

Retelling Gran'ma's Stories in the Right Position

Disregard, all is correct now. (Note: If you begin reading this before I have finished putting in the proper spacing for the poetry, the poems may not bring the intended meaning. All poems in this piece have some sort of spacing. Please give me time to work through the spacing. Also, in the copying and pasting, some other transition issues have taken place. This will also take time to find and correct. Within three weeks of this posting, all should be correct. Thank you.)

for Virginia

    Gran’ma sits at the round kitchen table in the rec-room that was once a garage.  Some of the garage is still visible--the door, and a small deck area for storage covered by drapes.  The real reason I’m here is to listen to gran’ma stories, which is why I always come--the chores are worth doing to hear her.
    “Didjya get the table cleaned off?”
    “Yes, gran’ma.”
    “What’cha do with the crumbs?”
    She already knows.  I look down.
    “Get the sweeper.”
    I know I’m supposed to sweep the crumbs into my hands, then throw them into the trash can under the sink.  I quickly pull the sweeper out, struggling with it massive weight to clean the freckled floor of bread crumbs from our made-together cheese toasties with pickles and onions done in the toaster oven--the best way to make cheese toasties.  I must do it quickly, but not so fast a to miss a spot.
    “Good.  I’ll get it later.”
    Gran’ma sits in one of the bucket chairs, and I pull up another on the other side of the round table.  Elbows and chin are always needed for gran’ma’ stories.
    “Here, when your dad was small, we bought the first television.  All the neighbor kids would come watch the television in the evening.  The living room would be full.  I remember Bud’s friend, Butch, whose family thought they controlled everything.  He thought him and Bud were in charge.  Your dad and his friends would watch Howdy Doody.  Butch thought he’d watch. . . .”
    I’m sorry to say, I can’t remember what the name of the other show is.
    Anyway. . . .
    “He turned the channel.  I wasn’t having it.  I grabbed his ear.”
    The ear is gran’ma’s favorite body part when he gets mad at you.  I’ve seen Tom’ ear dragged a few times to his bedroom.
    “I didn’t care who his parents were.  They could buy a television of their own to watch, by the Almighty.  They weren’t going to rule my house.
    “Your dad and his friends went back to Howdy Doody.  I made Bud watch the show too.  Just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean you do whatjya want.
    “Pete, Jack’s friend--your dad’s friend--laughed so hard he threw up his supper.  His poor mother was worried sick after I called her.  Thought he caught something.  He wasn’t allowed back for a few weeks.
    “Every week the same group of kids came.  I didn’t mind the kids.  Preferred it.
    “One evening, Jack--your dad, . . . .”
My gran’ma has a habit of doing that.  Like I would forget who my father is.
    “. . . wanted to play ball instead of watching Howdy Doody.  He refused to watch the show.  We all had a good time.”
    It’s hard for me to imagine my dad missing a show.  My dad wanting to play ball!  If he thinks he won’t be home for a show, he sets the tape recorder.  Before electronic smarts, he bought the tape with the longest recording hours.  Mom would have to start the recorder before we left to pick him up at work, so when we returned from the baseball diamond--he coached baseball--he could watch all those shows he missed.
    “The television wasn’t very large.  I don’t know how all those kids could see the screen.  The box was so large, it made the screen look like a square plate.  Brown wood encased all the gadgets in the back; gadgets that took up more room than the screen.  The television always went off after Howdy Doody.”
    This isn’t my favorite story, but my dad is in it.  It’s hard to imagine this house without the three back rooms, and the bathroom.  If I heard gran’ma right, when she told this story before, they were the first with indoor plumbing--a bathroom!
    Gran’ma begins another story; this time it’s about Bud.
    “I got a call fro Butch’s mom.  She didn’t like what I had to say.  Always running around, making me have to chase Bud down.  If all beat! he crawled into Bud’s window, woke up the other boys, trying to get Bud to take a joy ride in his parents’ new car.  I called them up.  ‘No, no, our son's in bed.’
    “I walked him home.  Bud didn’t see the light for days, and stayed in my room on the floor.”
    I wondered how gran’ma knew if he stayed there.  No reason to ask.  Gran’ma knows everything.
    “Always knew what Bud was up to.  Neighbor’s kept me informed.  Even knew he broke into the school to steal a test before the principle called.”
_________________

    I love stories, and write them down the only way I know how: mostly with squiggly lines because my vocabulary isn’t large enough yet.  And I want to write the fancy way.  Gran’ma listens to my stories, asks questions, and I explain.  I feel very big.  I can tell a story as good as gran’ma’s!
    My favorite stories are about Betty.  She’s my aunt, but I can’t see her.  There’s the story of the Fortune Teller, and the story of dad playing jacks with her.  Both are creepy, and always give me goose bumps.
    “Down in Converse, when you dad used to sit on grandma Cunningham’s stairs, and played jacks, he would sometimes talk to himself.  He was about four when he started.  Grandma would listen to him a lot.  She finally told me to pay attention.  One morning, Jack--your father--took his jacks to the stairwell.  He would close the door at the foot of the stairwell.  After listening through the door some, I decided a chair would be handy.  I can be sneaky.  I oiled the hinges and knob so I could prop the door open to hear.  Grandma was usually upstairs for a nap when she heard Jack.
    “That morning, Jack--your dad--sat at about the third step up.  He started playing jacks.  About the fourth bounce he started talking.  ‘It’s your turn now.’  I heard the ball bounce some more.  ‘Hah!  My turn.’ Then he’d ask questions, ‘Whenya comin’ home?’ ‘Why can’t you?’  This went on for a long time.  I was concerned.  The doctor said he’d grow out of it in time.  I listened whenever I could.
    “I was at the top of the stairwell one day.  I didn’t bother him.  He started playing jacks, and if that ball and jacks didn’t move on their own!”
    I could see my father sitting on the steps at Grandma Rose’s.  It wasn’t hard to see him as a little boy.  Gran’ma had plenty of pictures.  I shivered.  Every time gran’ma tells the story, I shiver.
__________________

    I write in cursive now.  Gran’ma reds the stories.  Still, she prefers I read them to her as she does her chores.  I follow her round the house, scurrying behind her.  At times, she’s at the sink, and I talk to her as she mumbles approval, or asks questions: why, who’s that?  Occasionally she nods her head.  There are two comments she always makes to me: “You should be a writer.  You and Mark [my cousin, the master of philosophy, the poet, the calligrapher] have beautiful penmanship.”  I know that writing and penmanship are two different things.  I want to know why I get ‘C’s for handwriting if what gran’ma says is true.  Comparing me to my cousin makes me special--he’s smart!
________________

    High school is here.  I still listen to the stories, I still write my own, but not as often.  But I start to ask questions.
    I ask dad about the stairs, about the jacks, about Betty.  He doesn’t say much the first time.
    Dad finally talks to me, just a little.  “I use to talk to Betty on the stairs all the time.  We’d play jacks when she stayed home.”
    He interjects his feelings about government interfering.  This was a time when a doctor and the state could force a family to send a child to an institution for retardation.
    “That was our secret place.  We’d talk about everything.  She hated that place.”
    This is all I received for a while.  I let it go, and wait.
    A few weeks later, maybe a month, he opens up some more.
    “I would talk to her.  I kept begging her to stay.  I was only four.  Children at that age are still connected to the spirit world.”
    Dad doesn’t go to church anymore, but he still believes.  He believes in ghost, he believes in aliens, he believes in the unusual.  No more is said.  I wait again.  There’s something that isn’t being said, something that my gran’ma always hints at; I’ll wait until dad is ready to tell me.
    “Gran’ma calls the doctor.  He tells her I made up an imaginary friend to replace Betty.  Betty wasn’t imaginary.  That ball, and those jacks, moved on their own.”
    I go back to gran’ma’s story in my mind.  I write it out.  I put dad’s words into the story.  What is being said?  I don’t know what to do with this information.  I begin to ask my father more questions, then ask my uncles.  Much more begins to make sense, but a I begin to tell the stories, something is wrong.  Where’s Grandma Rose?  Where’s gran’ma?  Does dad know they are there?  Why can’t I get this story, or any of the other stories, to come out right?
________________

    I have three children.  My oldest, Jessica, listens to gran’ma’s stories.  David is beginning to know the stories, too.  I write the stories down into my journals, or on papers that I put into large three ring binders, which I keep in a certain order on a book shelf.  I change the stories every time I write, especially when I retrieve new information.  Today I will tell a story orally.
    “When your Grandpa Jack was little, he used to play jacks.  Remember the house you saw when we went down to Converse?  He would sit in the stairwell.  Ya know how Grandma Luebke’s stairs lead to the upstairs?  The stairs looked something like that, with the door at the bottom, just like Grandma Luebke’s.  Grandpa would sit on about the fourth step up, and play jacks.  One day, your grandpa’s grandma, Grandma Rose, heard him talking.  She was upstairs taking a nap when she heard voices.  Gran’ma Ginny was usually in the kitchen, or out in the garden, like she does now.  Grandpa would play jacks, talking to himself, or so his Grandma Rose thought.  He would asks questions, such as, ‘When ya coming home?’  After a while, his Grandma Rose became concerned, telling his mom--Gran’ma Ginny.  One day, Gran’ma Ginny sat and listened, but since she couldn’t hear well enough through the door closed, she decided to crack the door open a bit.  The door squeaked; grandpa stopped playing his jacks.  Every time Gran’ma Ginny tried to catch him talking to himself, grandpa would stop.  She kept asking Gran’pa Chick to oil the hinges and door, telling him the door was getting hard to open.  Grandpa Chick wouldn’t do it if she told him the real reason; he would have told her to leave the boy alone.  Finally, she oiled the door one day, after jumping on Gran’pa Chick too many times, who never got around to it--not uncommon for Gran’pa Chick.
    “The next time she had a chance to listen to him, she pulled a chair up close, cracked the door--no squeak.  Grandma Rose was upstairs.  Gran’ma Ginny listened every day.  So did Grandma Rose.  Gran’ma Ginny, and Granma Rose, would talk about what grandpa did, and what he said.  They started to believe that grandpa was seeing Betty’s ghost.  Uncle Bud heard Grandma Rose say she saw things when Jack--your grandpa--was on those stairs.
    “Grandpa would say, ‘It’s your turn now’; ‘You missed that jack’; ‘Why don’t you come home anymore?’
    “Gran’ma Ginny called the doctor.  The doctor told her he had an imaginary friend to replace Betty.  Gran’ma Ginny didn’t believe the doctor; she though grandpa was talking to Betty, that grandpa could see Betty.  Gran’ma Ginny wanted to see Betty, too.
    “Finally, one day, Gran’ma Ginny was upstairs before grandpa came to play jacks (because his grandma was sick).  Gran’ma Ginny watched him quietly, and listened intently.  She saw the ball bounce by itself, and the jacks move into the air, as if someone was playing jacks with grandpa.  Betty was playing jacks with grandpa; Gran’ma Ginny is sure of this.
    “Gran’ma Ginny kept listening, and one day, she finally heard the other voice.  It was Betty.  She swears she saw the ball and jacks move by themselves more than once, and heard Betty’s voice a few times.  Funny thing is, Gran’ma Ginny could only hear Betty’s voice when she wasn’t looking.  I remember Grandma Rose talking about this to Gran’ma Ginny when I had the mumps, and had to stay at gran’ma’s house until I was better.”
    Telling gran’ma’s story to my children is much more complicated than the way gran’ma tells the story.  I realize that gran’ma’s stories are separated, that certain subjects cannot be crossed, but the stories can be changed: two or three stories happen within one day of her history, but none of them can be told together.  There is never “While this was happening, so and so was doing this.”  This makes it difficult for me to write the stories as I see them happening--as a movie; I want to connect them into a clock-like time line.  When I write these stories a continuous flow, I ruin the momentum, I ruin the imagery, I ruin the stories.  Orally, I don’t do much better.
    I complicate the simple.  I am in both worlds now--the stories of my gran’ma’s, and the stories from those who are in her stories.  Which is the writer?  Which is the penmanship?
_________________________

    I hear gran’ma’s stories from the grave: all of her stories; even her stories of complaints.  Sometimes they haunt me.  I see, now, how she lived: black ‘n’ white.
    “Dawn, God does punish you.  I did something wrong.  That’s why Billy is like he is; that’s why Betty died--I went to see the gypsy.  I should’ov never seen the gypsy in town.  I never went back.”
    The fortuneteller story.  I was always confused as a child to why she though God punished her when I was taught in Sunday school that God no longer brings His wrath upon our heads.  Now, as I look over her grave, I see the separations in her stories from her life.  I begin to realize the times I told my stories as she ran from place to place doing chores was her kind way of showing interests without reinforcing an illusion of publishing.  “You should be a writer.”  Somewhere inside her she wanted me to tell the stories.  I believe this because she always bought those nonfiction stories for me to red fro Reader’s Digest.  When she told her stories, we were sitting down; when I told my stories, I was following her around.  When I responded to the stories in Reader’s Digest, when we discussed the stories we sat down at the kitchen table.
    Storytelling is for the imagination; penmanship is for the living: “You should be a writer, you have beautiful penmanship like Mark.”
    But gran’ma had beautiful handwriting--I loved watching her write on Birthday and Christmas cards; I still look at them today.  Penmanship is a job; writing (storytelling is a pastime.  Penmanship like Mark’s was to keep me from being her.
    I remember gran’ma telling me that she learned to be a nurse’s aid because she didn’t want to be a sale’s clerk, a receptionist, or a secretary.  She also said she didn’t want to be a nurse; she didn’t wast the responsibility.  Then, I remember her babbling on to Farmer one evening; she was irked about giving “shots” to patients.  For years the nurses assigned her to give shots, even after the law said, “No.”  When gran’ma found out that the law said, “No,” that she would be held liable, she fought, nearly losing her job.  In fact, all the aids fought--gran’ma put it together.  I remember the week where the nursing aids “went on strike.”  Gran’ma didn’t talk about it much.  She also told me how she hated to write up reports.  That wasn’t her job either.  She hadn’t gone to school to be a nurse.
    At gran’ma’s funeral, a very dear friend of hers approached me.
    “Are you Virginia’s oldest granddaughter?”
    “Yes,” not thinking about Beth, who lived in Denver.
    “She was so proud of you.  Are you still in school?”
    “Yes.”  My curiosity was now peaked.
    “How much longer before you graduate?”
    “I’m a sophomore now.”
    “All she wanted was for you to get a college education.”
    The woman left me standing there in complete confusion.  My gran’ma never asked me about college, nor indicated pleasure in my attending.  Although, one time, she did say, “I’m glad you went back to school.”
_______________________

    I’ve finished my bachelors, and have continued onto graduate school.  I practice gran’ma’s stories in poetry because prose doesn’t work.  Poetry helps, but it still doesn’t capture the essence of what gran’ma told.  Do I know too much?  Have I collected too much information that my imagination can’t take over?  I want to write the Stairwell story.  I take advantage of a poetry class:
talking jacks
Bounce the ball
        pick up one.
Bounce the ball
        pick up two.
Bounce the ball
        pick up three.
   Now you have missed,
      you must speak.

In the stairwell, Jack speaks to his jacks,    everyone
thinks                    :
                    “Why did you go away?”
No one hears
a reply                    :
                    (Shh, Jack,    it had to be),
                Jack lays out
                his jacks, again,
                    (this way);
                Jack shakes
                his head,
                    “Your turn.”

Bounce the ball.    Someone
watches from the upstairs landing,
the fourth bounce recuperates
nothing                :
                    “Betty,        why can I see you and they can’t?”
Gran’ma Ginny holds her
breath        hoping to hear        :
                    (Jack,        you missed four).

Bounce the ball.    Alone
he is left to talk it through;
Gran’ma wants the twelve year old
spirit        to visit her.
She stands at the stairwell’s door
awaiting the voice of the daughter    :
                    “I’m not growing up
                    because you’ll go away.”
                    (Jack),
                jacks roll
                without his touch,
                    (I can’t play anymore).

This isn’t my story.  I still cannot feel the story as when gran’ma told it.  The writer in me wants to be free.  I am free, but lost when I want to tell gran’ma’s stories.  Writing these stories down gives great loss to the way they are supposed to be.  What is the story?  Maybe I should be asking, “Whose stories are these?”  Are they gran’ma’s, are they mine, are they the person’s of whom they are about?  Are they my children’s, or grandchildren's?
    And then, there is always, what is the penmanship?  First, I find, in myself, the penmanship is the person wanting to be correct, to be perfect, the person who wants all the information in the order it’s supposed to come in.  The penmanship is oral-nation coming to life on paper.  That’s the logical side of me.  I cannot tell the stories my gran’ma told, I can only add to the stories.  I will always be in two worlds when I re-tell her stories, for I know what she did not know: that little kid in me enjoying the nonlinear line of a story, where different time lines are all one; and that older I, who is now in the academy, attempting to answer the underlying questions that my children, and grandchildren will ask me, “Why?”  Do I need logic, must there be logic?
    But there is more, much more happening in the “you should be a writer” and “beautiful penmanship.”
    There’s the “like Mark” comment.  Mark the ex-philosopher, Mark the ex-poet, Mark the calligrapher, Mark the Fortune 500 company owner.  I can only conclude that Mark’s education is what gran’ma saw me doing, that my penmanship would lead me to the Right Position, but not the position that another wants me in--it’s my position.
    No, I’m not Mark; and, maybe my penmanship is beautiful, but I can tell stories, I do have a degree, I’m where gran’ma wanted me, in the Right Position.  I’m not in the position that someone else wants me in, but the position I want to be in--making change.  It’s alright to change gran’ma’s stories.  I can be a writer; I can be the penmanship.  I don’t always have to please--anyone but me.

Blind Marriage

     Opal Ling-Smith waited on a park bench near, and facing, a marbled horse and his rider—Mad Anthony.  A letter in her hand was shaded by the horse’s legs, and a breeze played with the two upper corners of the page.  She sat, dressed in her white spaghetti strapped shirt and a thigh length jean skirt that fit snuggly to her body.  Two thin white sweater sleeves draped over her shoulders and were folded neatly one over the other just below the crevice of her neck, just above the crevice of her breast—just as great grandma said not to do.  Her skin was not tan, but dark none-the-less, and shined beyond the white display.  It was nearing one and she remembered bells rang downtown every hour.  City of churches; also, city of restaurants.  Every block seemed to have a restaurant.  She stared at the motionless animal and his rider.  Mr. Anthony looked like he was in need of a cleaning, the brass wilty looking and his angry face added just that much more to he need.  “Mad Anthony,” she sighed.  “I’m as mad as you to think anything will come of this.”  She lifted the letter to him as if he would read it.  She looked at the letter again.  She remembered coming down to this park for a festival a couple of times.  She had enjoyed the first homestead out on Butler Road, shared by her, her parents, and three siblings.  Honnoy Hong lived next door.  His family way into the Chinese culture, though he was fourth generation American.  Her family not so intense, though they had started a ritual three generations back: “not married by twenty we find you a marriage,” as her great grandmother put it.  So, she was twenty-three and traveled—because of her parents.  Born in the U.S., keeping her U.S. citizenship, and living in Scotland, Hong Kong, Paraguay, Berlin, and lastly Columbia.  The last three places all within two years—without her parents.  This was only a visit home, and back to. . . .  Well, where was she moving onto now?
     She read the letter again, and said the signer’s name aloud.  “Honnoy Hong.  Honnoy Hong.  You annoy Hong.  You annoy, go get hung.”
     That’s what came to mind listening to, hearing the, saying the name—Honnoy Hong.  Who was she kidding?  She’d never fall in love; and thought she had at one time.  That was annulled after he confessed, in their wedding bed; he couldn’t get it up for a woman.  He loved her, but men turned him on.  After she had evaluated her feelings, she realized the reason why she married: a solid last name.  Her parents gave her both of their names: Ling and Smith.  Both too common, both so . . . well, so wrong for her.  “This way you have a part of both of us,” her mother told her one day.  She couldn’t understand how great grandma allowed it, but dad was the strong type.  While she insisted on keeping her married name—Cronwall—the government refused: no consummation, no change of name.  The church idea had really taken hold in the Soviet Union.  But they weren’t called that anymore, were they?  The Republic of something?  Now, if this arrangement didn’t work, she’d change her name to Opal Cronwall legally, at least in the U.S..  It would cost her, but she would do it.  The name Cronwall was her, so her, not Ling-Smith.  She sighed, deeply; that questioning sigh when one thinks they know.
     The bells awoke her to one thirty.  No Hong.  Mad Anthony was looking pleasant.
     “Ugh!” she kicked her bags to the left of her on the cement.  Two bags and a purse were all her worldly possessions.  Well, not quite, her books, her bit of furniture, and her stuff animals—except one—were with her parents in Indianapolis.  They had moved back to this state, the state of their bliss they said, to become reconnected.  They wanted to move back to Fort Wayne, actually, but . . . you went with and to the job.  “Ah!”  She told them that she wasn’t coming home.  Home wasn’t here anyway.  And here she was.  She had no home except what she took with her, and that was mostly her bags.  Somehow they had managed to talk her into coming to this . . . this place!  And now?  Honnoy Hong wasn’t here.

     A crowd had gathered at the water fountain and pool area, watching the display of colored lights decorating the water in a matrix of colors, the colors dancing in the pool and in the spurts from the fountain.  Not as bright as they were at night, she recalled.  The joy on the children’s faces made Opal forget her anger, and she flung a backpack across her back, her purse over her shoulder and the other bag she let dangle at her side from around her wrist.  She made her way to a tree, but before getting there a biker’s handle bar hooked her backpack.  The biker flew from his bike and the bag on her back jerked her around and down, missing the back of the bike with the spinning spokes.  She fell hard to the ground on her right side.  She groaned, and smelled the fresh cut grass.
     “Oh! ma’am; I’m sorry, so sorry!”
     She rolled over to see a guy all decked in biker’s equipment getting up from the sidewalk.  “Are you all right?!  I just happened to look at the statue and leaned a little too much to the left.  How clumsy of me.”
     She squinted her eyes and shook her head slightly.  “I’m fine.  Nothing a little clean water can’t fix,” she hoped.  She sat up and rubbed her shoulder from the pain of being jerked, and then landing on it.  A close look at her shirt made her sigh.  The stains would never come out, but that wasn’t the worse of it, it was ripped right up to the seam under her arm and a cut just above her hip exposed itself, about two inches long.
     “Please.  Let me help you.”  He picked up her bags and brushed them off, picked up her purse and flung it over his shoulder like he wore one everyday, then held out his hand for her to come to her feet.  “I should have never looked away from where I was going.  I turned and . . .”
     “. . . ran into me.  I need to . . .”
     “. . . clean up and dress your wound and find . . .”
     “. . . another shirt.”  Opal’s brows rose.
     They laughed.
     Opal brushed herself off more.  “I do need to do all of that but I was waiting for someone.  Don’t know if I missed him, if he’s late, or I’ve been stood up.”
     “Hmmm.  That is a dilemma.  But I believe you need to take care of yourself.  I’m going over to the Civic Theater for practice.  I’ll get you in as my guest and there you can fix yourself up.”
     “Thanks.”  She held out her hand.  “Opal Cronwall.”
     He took her hand and kissed it.  The gesture sent an odd feeling through her.  Dé jà vu.  “Milan Cal,” he smiled big.
     His smile was all she could really see of his face—sun goggles and head gear all blocked what he looked like, and no hair appeared below the helmet; but she felt strangely attracted to him.  The smile was beautifully perfect.  A warm smile made the pain become a dull ache.
     “I think the doctor’s here today.  He can check that wound.”
     “That won’t be necessary.  I’ll wash it out and bandage it with my . . .” she tugged at her tattered blouse.
     Mr. Cal put his bike right and moved towards the building that set next to the park.  Following him, Opal didn’t feel eerie, no danger signal, but awkwardly assured.  And that dé jà vu came back.

     The building smelled of rock and concrete, cold and old.  The walls were rough, as if sand stone had been plastered on, and the sections with doors jetted out like a rugged cliff or an overhang.  Not noticing which direction she was taking, she soon became disoriented, and began to dart her eyes about to find the nearest exit, just in case.  She’d learned long ago to be aware, and for some reason she had let that guard down because of the warm fuzzy feeling she was getting from him.  Soon a door was opened for her, a small personal restroom, a restroom that must have been a closet or storage space at one time.
     “I’ll send Bobbi for you to take you to a room where you can change.  Not much room in there, but it is a private facility.  At least you can wash up some.  There’s no privacy in the rooms.  When you’re done, wait just outside the door.”
     “I’ll do—”
     The door closed.  She wasn’t going to any other room.  Changing right here was fine.
     It was tiny, no doubt, but private, where she could clean the open wound.  There was barely enough room to do that.  Pulling towels from the dispenser she folded them and blotted them with some warm water then dabbed some liquid soap onto the makeshift cloth.  Lightly touching her skin she flinched at the pain and pulled the wound apart.  She would need stitches.  Throwing the towels in the trash she began to take off her shirt so she could rip it into rags for bandages.
     “Miss Cronwall?”  Someone knocked.
     “Yes.”
     “Bobbi May.  I’ll need you to wait back stage for just a bit.  Need to open a room for you.”
     Opal peered out.  “That won’t—”
     The young girl smiled and walked away, signaling her that a seat on stage was hers.
     Opal took her white sweater and shoved her arms through, pulling it close.

     Opal noticed backstage was full of people: chairs in rows facing the curtain and one column of chairs facing the rows.  Many people were planted through out.  Opal took a seat in the third row first chair.  People were reading, listening through headphones, mumbling, or talking to another.  No one person paid attention to her moving towards the chair indicated for her.  After a small time, an old man balding in the front and all gray came around the farthest end of the curtain.
     “Drake McCallister.  Mr. McCallister,” he called out.
     A man a row up and a few seats from Opal stood.  Drake McCallister?  It can’t be.  She watched.  She stared.  Look this way, will you please.  You can’t be him.  The old man directed him to the column seating where she could see his face but he was too far away.  If it were Drake, his eyes would give him away.  Gathering her bags and purse she moved towards him and began to remember the little boy back in Scotland on the Isle of Skye, the little boy she babysat for three years, the little boy who was devastated by an act she had no control over—her father’s job requirement: move where it took you.  He looked at her, leaning his elbows onto his knees and propping his chin onto his folded hands, just as that little boy back in Scotland.
     ‘Drake.  I have to move.  I won’t be able to come to your birthday party.  I’m sorry I’ll miss your ninth birthday.’  The boy stood there.  His eyes watered.  ‘Can I give you a kiss?’  She leaned over and exposed her cheek.  He grabbed her cheeks between the palms of his hands and turned her lips to him, placing his lips squarely and forcefull firm, and pressing in on hers, their teeth clinking together.  The kiss had only been a few seconds but if felt like a whole minute in her shocked state.
     His eyes were directly upon her and the closer she came the memories flooded her more.
     ‘Mr. McCallister?  I’m sorry about what happened yesterday.  In all of that commotion I forgot to give him his gift.’  Mr. McCallister took her hand when he took the gift.  ‘Drake is devastated.  You know you’re his nightingale.  You know when one finds his soul mate in Scotland one knows—no matter his age.’  He kissed her hand.  ‘He’ll find you.’
     She reached a seat just a few down from him, and elegantly sat her bags down, realizing too late that she had not paid attention to his eyes, which now diverted from hers.  How could she drift?  There was no way it was the same person.  The boy, the 9-year-old boy of Skye would never come to this . . . this city of backwards and boredom.  But she had.  To what?  Another disappointment?  Another dead end?  She sighed: another I told you so from her parents.  Why can’t you be more like Sammy? or marry a good man like Kenra? or go to college and get a real job; her parents’ words echoed.  And Honnoy probably saw you and ran—with that get up what did you expect?  Yes.  That was what great grandma would say.  She wasn’t going home.  At least not until the family took their ritual vacation trip to all the homelands.  Then I’ll go home and gather my trinkets and scadoot.
     “Opal Ling-Smith?  Is Opal Ling-Smith here?”  The old man was calling her, now.  She was confused.  How did this man know her name, her given name?  She stood.  “Miss Ling-Smith?”  To stunned to answer she nodded.  “Follow me.”
     Quickly her bags were on her being, and with a quick look to the McCallister she so wanted to see the eyes of, she trotted off to catch up.
     “Sir.  Please sir.  How do you happen to know my name?  I didn’t sign in, and I surely didn’t use my maiden name.  I’m not here to audition. I told no one who I was.”
     “All I know ma’am is that your name is tenth on the list for tryouts of the Pumpkin Queen.  It was already typed in, and I assume the manager did it.”
     Pumpkin Queen?  “Sir, who would have—?”
     “I told you.  See here,” he pointed to his clipboard, held it out for her to see as they walked.  “Now.  Go down this hall to number 3—on your left.  Costume’s inside, and your script.”
     She looked down the hall.  What kind of game was this?  The hall was nothing more than boards put up as dividers.  But that didn’t bother her the most.  Someone here was pulling a fast one.  Some gag to show her parents what kind of dope she was.
     “I want the manager.”
     “Sorry hon.  Mr. Hong left for an appointment.  You can speak to Bobbi.”

     Bobbi, uh!  “Send her!”  She wasn’t falling for this!  And where was that something Cal or Cal something?  He had to be in on this too!  Then it struck her—Hong!  How many Hong’s would be a manager of a theater—in a town like this?  He stood her up to do this?  Not a good first impression for sure.  Why didn’t he just meet her?  Wait—that biker, Cal, was to fetch me.
     “By the way.  The doctor’s waiting on you.”
     “Doctor?”
     “Mr. Cal said you had a pretty bad cut, and it looks like it to me.”
     Forgotten was her injury.  Touching her side in memory of the convenient set up, a wave of pain enveloped her side, back, and stomach.  Her torn shirt felt matted and sure enough there was a substantial amount of blood, more than when she cleaned it, her sweater absorbing what her blouse couldn’t.  How could she have forgotten about. . . ?  Allowing myself to be astonished and played!

     “Miss Ling-Smith, you need a dose of antibiotics; and when was your last tetanus?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “I’ll give you one for a precaution.  Sign this sheet.  It’s another medical release form.”
     Still dazed by all that occurred she scribbled her name at the X.  Bobbi had come and gone with no direct answers and leaving her with more questions.  No one knew where Mr. Hong was, who was supposed to be back by two.  And flowers appeared—two-dozen white pinked-tip carnations and another sheet to sign—for delivery.  During the ten stitches she read the script.  It was vaguely familiar.  She looked for the writer’s name everywhere on the script.  It just wasn’t there.
     She decided to play along.  There was no other way to get the answers she sought.  And if Hong staged all this, she was surely interested now.  No man had ever gone the limits to entice her.
     The dress fitted well and it was gorgeous.  White chemise under a shimmering light silver coating that caught every color around it; and the veil was made of the same white chemise with silver trim.  She was a princess in a fairy-tale, for real.  Hong was enticing, was sweeping her off her feet, was being mysterious—and she like it.  And she hated it.  When life wasn’t in her control—like most of her life—she became pungently obnoxious.  Somehow she was holding back the worse of her outbreak.  She read and re-read her part, the part she would do on stage in a few minutes, a part that felt so much like. . . .  She just couldn’t place it.  But the surprising part was when the script said, “repeat after the Uniter.  The person playing this part will tell you what to say.”  Memorizing on the spot wasn’t good for her.  And whoever wrote a script like this?  Was this an experimental script?  Not something she expected from Honnoy Hong.

     “Alright.  Miss . . . Miss Smith.  Right?”
     She raised her hand to cover her eyes from the glare of the spot light in hope to see the man speaking to her.  “Miss Smith will be fine.”
     “Okay.  When you see the groom enter from right stage, kneel and bow.  He’s the mighty warrior who has won your love.  When he approaches, swear your allegiance.”
     She turned to stage right.
     “Make sure to speak loudly.”
     “Yes.  I will.”
     “Very good.  Stage right!”
     A man dressed in purple tights and a gold cape with a mask covering his eyes like Robin, and a bow on his left shoulder clinging as a sock’s top and a band around his head with a couple of dangling feathers made her about burst into a hysterical fit.  She managed to do just as she was directed, spite the comical get up of the warrior—just like . . . like whom?  Damn, why can’t I remember where I’ve seen this before?  His hand touched her shoulder and the lines smoothly broke from her lips: “My Lord, my life, my savior, I give myself freely to you and your kind,” and your kind?  She had been so busily remembering the lines that it hadn’t struck her what was actually being said till now.
     “Rise; and give me your hand and I shall pledge my life, my heart, my being, my eternal love.”
     Opal stood and her hand was kissed with delicacy—just like . . . Mr. McCallsiter?  She nearly withdrew.  Pausing, just pausing, she smiled at the man dressed so silly.  Together they turned to back stage where a man in colorful clothes stood.  His apparel had suns and rays, clouds and rainbows, rain and earth in all its beauty—though through it all, the white collar stood out.  The man had not been there when she came on stage, nor when she turned to stage right; the man had magically appeared.  Then she noticed the two wires.
     “Repeat after me Princess Pumpkin,” the man nodded at her.  She returned the nod.  “I, Princess Elegant Pumpkin of Mistress Opal Ling-Smith’s mind do solemnly swear to love eternally through all triumphs and defeats forever and forever.”
     Opal repeated the words with little thought of what she was actually saying due to her concentration, so as to not make a mistake.
     He bowed to her as a reward for perfect recitation and then nodded to the fellow who dressed as a kid’s fantasy.  “Repeat after me Prince Spotted Wind.  I, Prince Little Spotted Wind of Master Drake McCallsiter’s mind do solemnly swear . . .” the preacher went on as Opal’s mind drifted into the past where her conscious began to lift a haze, a fuzziness.  “Swear both of you,” the words registering little now, “under God’s vast almighty hand that this you promise by saying ‘I do.’”  She heard the man next to her say ‘I do,’ but she stood and stood, silently, dumbfounded with realization gripping her face.
     “Miss. . . .  MISS. . . .  HEY!  SAY I DO,” the man from the light booth yelled.
     “Oh!  I do.”
     Then . . . a flood.  She remembered now, remembered the story that she read to little Drake McCallister, a story that. . . .
     The preacher went on.  “Now, by the power of God and the power of the state of Indiana you are married.  Please lift your veil dear Queen; and dear King remove your mask.”
     Before the man in tights could lift his hands to his face, Opal collapsed to the floor.  “Drake!  Drake McCallister!  The letter?  The biker?  Back stage?  The flowers?  THE SCRIPT!”  She remembered the enduring term . . . my little Spotted Wind.  Exactly what she called him after they wrote that silly little fairy-tale together.
     Drake laughed.
     Everyone clapped.
     Then the song, he sung that song from the made up fairy-tale:
        “Rodeo.  Once there was a rodeo,
        and Spotted Wind wanted to ride,
        show them all a McCallister could,
        that he could with his Elegant Pumpkin. . . .”

     And Opal joined him:
        “. . . with his Elegant Pumpkin at his side,
        at his side his new bride, his new bride.”

     Whenever she heard him sing it he was looking out the front window across the street.  She always thought it was for the girl across the street.  She thought the story had been written for the girl across the street.  Everything was for the girl across the street.
     He knelt and hovered above her.  “Opal, when I stared out the window I was actually watching your image cast by the glass.  My heart was yours and is yours.”
     She wept.  She mumbled.  “No Hong.  No Hong.  Find you he will.  No Hong.  No Honnoy Hong.  Find you he will.”
    “Yes.  Find you I did.  No Mr. Hong for you.”

Transformation Evident

     Yellow and pink handprints circle the bedroom's four walls. The blue they are pasted on reflects the summer sunny sky at noon. If you stare at the alternating yellow and pink handprints, ripples appear, like slow moving waves in the wide open ocean. One print, then the other, grasps the rise before the fall, walking on rolling water one hand at a time.

Wanted

I listen to Ginet talk on the phone.
          Life is about the next guy.
          Life is about having a guy chase you,
                    even if he isn't the one you're interested in at the time,
                    --even if . . .
          Life is about being wanted.

Water Spirit

I am the one you may say anything to.
I assure you, I will understand.
Feelings, emotions—they are neither right nor wrong.
They cannot be assigned a value.
Feelings, are.
. . . let it burn through you, . . .
—Circenn Brodie from A Highlanders Touch
by Karen Marie Moning

The park was empty, the sidewalks puddled, an advertisement booth dripping lonely tears onto a heartless surface. Three people walked in the afternoon drizzle through the grassy marsh. Victoria. Troy. Tiara.

—Somewhere at night before today. . . .
. . . from behind the tiered water fountain, double doors beckoned the running feet; they didn’t pound mud on or trace water on cement from fresh marshy grass; the water guiding to, guiding around, guiding through large wooden doors trimmed in brass and gold; swinging easily, effortlessly with a touch of fingertips. An aroma of incense and wax filled nostrils as feet escaped to the stairway just beyond communal water; fifteen steps up and a hundred eighty degrees left; another fifteen steps up and a hundred eighty degrees left; onto a platform vacant and silent, doorways staring, a showcase upholding a golden cross draped in purple silk with a crown of rubies, sapphires, and jades set in thorns. The feet ran without confessing onto the catwalk where a sun paved striped path of light and heat touched down; running and panting to a single door, a single room protruding the whole structure ten steps up; a room cushioned in red and marked by a massive wooden cross; knees falling, crumbling . . .

   Tiara tipped-toed through the new marsh, the flooded grass rocking, she feeling saturated like the Mother Earth, saturated with emotions she could not display, her spirit over filled in the want of a love she may never regain. Her smoky chemise dress formed to her body as the water weighted the hem and a breeze touched her skin, the rolling waves lapping at her ankles, the coolness bringing the child in her to the surface.
   Troy chased Tiara . . .

—Some five years ago. . . .
   . . . standing over a body, creamy, smooth, soft dark hair, a tattered cloth draped loosely, breast exposed, pink, the want, the need to touch the beauty so sacred, so fair, and so . . . still. Unfair; young beauty lying in the mud, creamy, soft . . .

      . . . , his first legal wife, her steps echoing the prance of a doe. Victoria grabbed his wrist—his second legal wife—grabbed his waist, the fun slowly escaping in front of him. Victoria whined that her feet were cold, shaking her feet like a cat, displacing the goo with each lift of her foot, the mush between her toes sickening her; he sighed out loud and internally yelled Let go!
   Tiara, on the sidewalk, circled a puddle with her pointed toe and dragged it through the middle, creating, for a brief moment, a dry line of two hearts interlocked that quickly flooded again, like her heart that ached for his touch, knowing that she couldn’t advance, knowing that her physically spiraling body cried for him, the world circling down upon her as a dream, the soiled sky changing with each spin, she falling into nothingness, of an earth absorbed by tears.
   Her face uplifted—to hide it—in the downpour, it scouring her eyes to close tight with thunder spilling sourness of a lingering destruction into her mouth.
   Troy grabbed Tiara’s spin, pulled her to him, guiding her to a booth, folding his lips around her moist neck, moving up her chin, her moaning encouraging him, suckling her lower lip, her breath stroking his cheek as she opened her mouth, he advancing. . . .
   The much wanted kiss fell away; see opening her eyes to see Victoria wrap arms around a neck of promises made five years ago, Victoria’s lips filling the space Tiara once filled.
   Her hand slipping . . .

—Some five years ago. . . .
    . . . standing over a body, creamy, smooth, soft dark hair, a tattered cloth draped loosely, breast exposed, pink, the want, the need to touch the beauty so sacred, so fair, and so . . . still. Unfair; young beauty lying in the mud, creamy, soft . . .
    . . . falling to his knees in the mud, wiping the falling drops from her face, the highway above sang about tomorrow, tomorrow and promises, promises . . .

   . . . from him; now running from Troy was the creamy, smooth, soft dark hair soaked and clinging to the drenched chemise that clung to the body, and his want and need to touch the beauty so sacred, so fair, so . . . alive. . . . To keep her always.
   Tiara drifted to the bells, the chill of the wind scurrying her off, walking her poetically atop of the pooled cement, sensing danger, a danger that would fold her soul in, seal it tight, fleeing as an allusive doe, for she may become the victim, jumping spans of marshy grass, feet slicing the swells that greeted them as they paced back down, her marks untraceable.
   Fear chased her steps, echoed her, trudged after her, eyes escaping through the drizzle to one place that called out sanctuary.
   Troy’s fear loose . . .

—Some five years ago. . . .
    . . . standing over a body, creamy, smooth, soft dark hair, a tattered cloth draped loosely, breast exposed, pink, the want, the need to touch the beauty so sacred, so fair, and so . . . still. Unfair; young beauty lying in the mud, creamy, soft . . .
    . . . falling to his knees in the mud, wiping the falling drops from her face, the highway above sang about tomorrow, tomorrow and promises, promises . . .
    . . . she wouldn’t wake, she may never wake he could hear them say as he was pulled up the embankment; never wake to never die . . . lying in tubes and metal forever . . .

      . . . , his heart racing with her, his mind squeezing Victoria into a bubble, his spirit physically climbing out of the valley of Victoria, seeing the fine footmarks fade before him. His spirit bucked and so did his body, ejecting Victoria to the air and from him, his feet taken over by a spirit he knew not as want and need, but as the nourishment of purification that only could be quenched by his love, his love, Tiara. Blasphemous snarls dragged on the cuff of his heels, while his spirit lifted him in leaps across the glistening ground of pavement and grass.
   Tiara felt the spirit of this day. So fresh. So clear. No matter the disaster. She had to follow the spirit, and her feet knew how to listen. If he had not forgotten, he would as well.
    Open doors beckoned at the steepled-gateway, the stairway beyond called, the Mary pressed her on with tender eyes, Tiara’s heart showing through her chemise, speaking through her tears; for a moment she thought she heard Troy call out, but she would not turn, could not turn, for her path would not allow her to look back.

          . . . from behind the tiered water fountain, double doors beckoned two sets of running feet; neither pounded mud on or traced water on cement from fresh marshy grass; the water guiding to, guiding around, guiding through large wooden doors trimmed in brass and gold; swinging easily, effortlessly with touches of fingertips. An aroma of incense and wax filled nostrils as feet escaped to the stairway just beyond communal water, as second feet escaped to the stairway just beyond communal water, fifteen steps up and a hundred eighty degrees left; another fifteen steps up and a hundred eighty degrees left; onto a platform vacant and silent, doorways staring, a showcase upholding a golden cross draped in purple silk with a crown of rubies, sapphires, and jades set in thorns. First feet confess, second feet confess, before running and panting to a single door, a single room protruding the whole structure ten steps up, a room cushioned in red and marked by a massive wooden cross; knees falling and knees falling, crumbling and crumbling more, hands folding and folding and folding within and folding around and around, squeezing gently and more gently, forgiving and forever for . .