99poems/desperate

The plants in the pots are dying,
the French doors desperate for paint,
more desperate than they have
ever been.
My sister calls, alone in her
bed unable to move,
uncertain whether to go
to a nursing home.
My daughter calls, slighted
on her last day at work,
cut to the heart by the gossip
and politics that always seems
to litter the office place.
My husband decides to take a
class because there is an hour
in the day he hasn’t filled with work,
it pushes him to the point that his
personality becomes unendurable.
He rages at me for reaching
for a cup he has not finished with.

I can hardly wait for my mother-in-law’s
visit, the holidays.
Everybody has to pay their bills.
When your stomach hurts eat a burrito
with lots of chilies,
can’t sleep at night, take aspirin.
Just life, just the rigors of living.

Brakes are loose, tune-up over due,
don’t know when I hard a car wash.
I can’t seem to even complete
the laundry, he wears beige socks
left over from our wedding
with his black jeans.

Why am I suppose to fix this
or his lunch.
Couch is covered in cat hair,
as it is each day.
Hard water build-up
on the glass topped table
like coasters.
Cat vomits all over the newly
cleaned carpet, so vile
it makes me sick.
The stains linger,
other ones volunteer
from beneath the pad,
white tile counters black with ants,
they bite me in the bed.
Months and months of this
I cannot hold out to care
about not poisoning the earth.
make a plan, try to hang on
to your intention,
the manuscript you are trying
to complete for the third time.
Piles of leaves and acorns
upon the deck, a deck I never
sit on because it is too hot.
A yard I never enter because
of the low-lifes next door,
filled with crap from
all the canines roaming around town.
Just the rigors of living,
I get up and take a walk,
so out of my rhythm with doing that
I forget my key,
and have to break in the window.
The fall cleaning I did early,
wrapped in cobwebs spun
from the spice rack to the ceiling,
as though no one has cleaned for
a year, instead of two weeks.
The house enshrouded as it
always is time of year.

Maybe I don’t like it here,
maybe I need an altogether
different life,
driver’s license expired,
homeowners insurance is due
earthquake as well,
everything has changed so I
don’t know when the pay checks
come, or for how much.
What is the health insurance, now
now that it has changed
for the fourth time in two years.
The lens pops out of my glasses,
randomly on department store floors.
I thought I’d take a dance class,
and then there’s the yoga I’ve
meant to get to for years.
I wanted to study a little music,
there was a book I needed for
my work, I hoped to keep
in touch with friends found
or sent for my birthday,
but then the bulb burned
out over the kitchen sink,
it takes a special trip
to one of the big stores
that drive me crazy,
as does my desire to
work on my video tape
which I have long since
lost all dream of.
The dryer is making
a terrible racket,
I have not gotten the
lint holder replaced
as I meant to.
My sister has water
storage bottles for the
millennium disaster,
which I have to drive
12 hours to pick up.
oh yes, and finally I am
laying in provisions,
but I keep feeding him
the Y2k tuna for his lunch.
I have always been like that,
I can’t get past today.

I can’t get my work done
because I can’t get out
from under the details.
Everybody has to pay their bills.
Just life, just the rigors
of living.

I love to drive
down two-lane roads,
somewhere out in the country.
Make a plan, Get a concept.
Try to hold on to your intentions.
Re-schedule how you do your day,
say again you’ll just fit chores in
at the edges of the day, not
allow them to creep to the core and suck
the life from you.

I might have known when I had
to call the plumber on my
birthday that I was in for
a bad cycle. Its leak
waiting for me to return
from a trip. Luckily one of
us knows how to use the telephone,
that I’m the one
capable of calling a plumber.

No place to put the pods
I carry home, no place to stack the plants I press,
every file drawer filled
every shelf stuffed,
can’t find a spot for the
cut glass bowl that is a
birthday gift,
even though I eliminate for
a living, and can’t see what
else to give away.
Ah, just the rigors of living,
just life on the material plane,
dusty, dirty, wrapped in cobwebs,
covered in cat hair and vomit.
Bring God in they say to where
you really are, but I can’t help
but feel first I should clean
the house.

10/12/99