abbeyminor

i am the candle

that one, across the room’s expanse

flickering with all the others but

just

a 

bit

too

quick

the girl standing on the pier

her breezy baby blue blouse grazed only the very top of her arms,

and her delicate blonde curls fell across her dainty shoulders in

crashing waves,

glimmering in the crisp yellow light of a fresh June afternoon,

its beauty and magnificence mocking the sand’s rough hues,

as did her glowing golden skin,

shown much affection already by the early summer’s

shining skies.

she knew not what she was.

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robin

boots grope the grass and 

the long hem of her brown-buttoned-dress

is splashed with mire

Treading toward the peak

to escape life,

she pants anxiously

and sweet beads of sweat

cleanse her as they roll down

her face,

atop her cheeks,

catching on lashes

baptizing her—

renewed life—

a new flesh emerges.

each button pops nervously

and the wind is rushing her,

whipping her skirt from her knees.

a blushing silk chemise

to match the flushed cheeks.

she tosses the buttoned cell

to the wind,

who carries it eagerly westward.

next the boots tumble 

in suit,

and ruffled white socks remain,

soiled with feeling,

stained with flood of

liberation.

Solitude beckoned,

and now she has come.

Hair-pins are plcked from her

smooth, neat pleats and

litter the ground ‘round her feet.

Honey falls thick and full to the waist,

equally thick,

equally full.

The birds sing praises

in the sky 

welcoming her,

and she smiles,

and the sun smiles back.

Letting go,

arms outstretched,

she falls backward,

trusting the daisies to catch her.

selena

young woman
broken
sits sullenly on a moonlit balcony
leans her head against the cool stone
shakes her head as the smoke
crawls trom between her lips.

for spring it seems awfully dead
out here.

a small tremor
a smaller sigh
so many heavy thoughts
contained behind
a beautifully feigned smile.

the chill is penetrating her blanket
and also her heart
while a million tiny knives are thrown
fingerprints of the past litter the handles.

An All-American Satire

Passing in front of him, he sees a brand new, cherry-red mustang that must have cost two or three times what his modest van did. Mark frowns. He’ll never have a car as nice as that so long as his nagging wife keeps popping out kids. He removes his ball cap from his mop of messy black hair to cool the top of his head, but decides the little bit of added protection from the hot July sun is far better than trying and failing to cool his hot head. Those Africans have the right idea, let me tell you! They live in the jungle, under the shade of the trees, and they don’t even have to wear clothes to keep in the blasted heat! And they’re so skinny. They mustn’t be able to hold all too much heat in their little bodies.

Mark Johnson grows impatient with the red light and with the summer’s heat. Mark slowly crawls up into the crosswalk, not noticing the child and mother trying to cross the road directly in front of him. Mark lays on the horn. “Damned kid, watch where you’re going!” He shouts out his open window and is quick to offer the pair a one-finger salute. The mother covers her boy’s eyes and shuffles him across the rest of the way. “People these days.” Mark shakes his head and thinks about how the world is going to end up amounting to nothing. People are so unreasonable anymore, it seems.

Mark rolls up his window so it’s only cracked and pulls a cigarette from the pocket of the new Levi’s his wife brought him home yesterday. They weren’t the style he was used to, but it was better to just wear them and deal with it than it was to hear her pouting, sniffling whine all evening. He sighs at the thought of going home to a house filled with screaming children and a nagging wife. At least she’d have dinner ready and the central air on when he got home. If he ever got past this damned red light, that is! “Come on, come on, come on, come on…” The nose of his van was now sticking into the intersection, and cars running the now yellow light were swerving to avoid him.

Mark stares hard at the red light, willing it to turn green faster, as though his ability to intelligibly communicate with inanimate objects would kick in at any moment now. When the light turned green, he gave his van a jackrabbit start and was flying on his way home in no time. He was going only about ten miles per hour over the speed limit; clearly an acceptable decision considering the circumstance! He has a fresh-cooked dinner, a nagging wife, and whining children to get home to. He can’t be late.

Mark Johnson pulls into his driveway on Maritime Lane, and opens his door to two tiny bodies screaming ecstatic hellos to their daddy. “Alright, kids! Get out of daddy’s way so he can go inside and get cooled off.” Mark grabs the bags from the back seat of the van and thinks about how heavy they are. People really should invent a more efficient way of carrying grocery bags to ease the strain on the every day American; not everyone is equipped to handle such a load as this!

Mark’s children hold the door for him as he walks in through the front door, clutching supplies for his weekend’s Independence Day barbecue. He drops the bags on the kitchen floor and takes off the ball cap, bearing an American flag waving proudly on the front.

“Mark?” Mrs. Johnson asks, “Did you remember to get the ballpark franks and the root beer? You know the kids won’t eat anything but those hot dogs.” Mark rolls his eyes. How can an American forget the hot dogs for his Fourth of July barbecue? “Yes, Betty, I got the hot dogs. Didn’t forget the beer, either.” He giggles to himself at the pun. God bless America. “Really, Mark? You haven’t had dinner yet. It’s barely two thirty in the afternoon and you’re starting on that six pack already? Please, honey, save some for the guests. And you know I don’t like you drinking in front of the children.”

Mark Johnson sighs and rolls his eyes. “Come on, Betty, leave me alone. I’m hot, and I’ve had a long day. I woke up at ten thirty and I’ve been out shopping for this stupid picnic since eleven o’clock. Can’t a man enjoy his damned beer without his nagging wife crawling up his crack?” He pops the top on his red, white and blue can and takes a sip of the froth on top. “Don’t you have a pie to bake or something?”

—Day of The Picnic—

Mark Johnson wakes at ten on this most glorious of mornings, the only day of the year he’s allowed to drink before dinner and the only day of the year he’s willing to wake up at such an ungodly hour. He would have liked to sleep in another half hour, actually, but his wife was busy clanging pots and pans downstairs. She must be thinking of starting her own symphony orchestra.

Mark trudges down the stairs in his red and white plaid boxers and nothing else but the farmer’s tan embracing his shoulders and the five o’clock shadow that, overnight, has become an early morning oil spill all over his face. His wife was already dressed and ready for company, complete with patriotic star-spangled apron. She greeted him with a chipper smile and a peck on the lips. She was cutting vegetables for the salad and humming “Yankee Doodle.”

Mark sits at the table with a blank look on his face as his children dumped loads of red, white, and blue star sprinkles on star-shaped sugar cookies on the table before him. Mark got tired of listening to them bicker, got up, and stepped into the bathroom for his morning shower. He turned on the shower and got undressed, then stepped behind the red and blue curtain and pulled it shut. He let himself relax. After all, he’d had a hard night last night and hadn’t slept well. It was almost as though he hadn’t done enough yesterday to tire him out for a good night’s sleep.

All of a sudden, the water becomes scalding hot. He shrieks and leaps out of the shower, becoming entangled in the curtain and tearing it down with him as he hits the floor like a sack of potatoes not yet chopped into Freedom Fries. He sees a small face looking down at him from above. “Sorry, daddy. I went number two and you told me to always flush when—” Her little blue eyes were tearing up. “Just. Get. Out. Now.” She runs from the room crying. Damned kids. Bet they didn’t have this problem before toilets connected with the showers through the plumbing.

He found that his wife had dropped for him a neatly-folded pile of clothes for him to war on the stand next to the shower. A navy polo and another new (wrong) pair of jeans. He figured after fifteen years of marriage, the woman would know what kind of pants a man liked to wear. So lacking in observational skills.

When he exited the bathroom and returned down the stairs, he noticed that his nagging wife and screaming children had relocated to the backyard, where all the food was now laid out on the picnic table and a pair of guests had joined them. Of course, it would be her parents to arrive first. He shakes his head and rubs his temples. Briefly he contemplates whether or not there may be a way to escape going outside at just that moment. He quickly discovers that there is no way to escape. Surely people who have taken refuge in this great land of America and left their families behind in Mexico haven’t got to worry about seeing their in-laws on Independence Day. He frowns, defeated, and stomps outside, still pouting.

—Later That Evening—

Mark Johnson watches the sun setting on the horizon. His house overlooking the South Carolina coastline, the waves crash in the distance. The penetrating heat of the afternoon is finally starting to die, and Mark places his ball cap once more on his head. His children beg him for one more inning, but he declines. “Not now, kids. Daddy has to have some Daddy time. He’s been playing with you all day and now he’s very tired.”

His wife gives him a disapproving look, knowing he’ll be heading straight to the cooler and a lawn chair. She says nothing, though; at least he played with them for a little while. She promptly removes her apron and convinces grandpa to come play with her and the kids instead.

Mark walks over to that very cooler, opens it up, and reaches down into the ice, digging around for a beer. There must be one in there somewhere. When he doesn’t feel one, he lifts the lid all the way. The cooler is empty. “Now, who drank my last beer?” He looks around to notice that nobody is listening to him; everyone is now watching the family baseball game in the front yard, and he has the back all to himself.

Mark Johnson walks into his house and excavates a hidden beer from the back on the bottom, where he always keeps one, just in case. Mark Johnson walks back outside and drags a lawn chair across the yard into the shade of the tree, away from the sunset. Mark Johnson sits his caboose down into the red and blue woven plastic, puts his feet up on the cooler, cracks open his emergency beer, and sighs. Finally, a moment’s peace away from all the stress! Surely hermits and single men without families have a much easier time of it. No kids to worry about, nobody to depend on them, nobody expecting his presence at family events. He shakes his head and sees fireworks in the distance. He grins as he watches their red, white, and blue glorydissolving into the sky, and sips the froth off the top of his can. God bless America.

stirring up dust

 My dismembered Christmas tree lay slain in its cardboard coffin once more, decorated now only by its own badly staged pictures and Wal Mart’s signature proof of purchase tape. Since my mother had decided for some reason that I should be the one to return this cumbersome package to its dusty grave in the attic, I had dug to the bottom of the kitchen’s odd drawer and successfully excavated a face mask. I knew that this was entirely necessary. It was quite possible that upon pulling the attic steps down from the ceiling, an avalanche of dust would tumble down with them. I equipped myself and grabbed the box. However large and awkward, it wasn’t heavy— light as a feather.

When I yanked on the chain of the attic stair, I pleasantly surprised when I didn’t nearly choke to death. A few clouds appeared here and there, but nothing too dramatic. I pushed the box up the stairs ahead of me and fumbled around looking for the pull string of the one and only light up there. When I could finally see everything around me, I realized that I hadn’t been in this attic since I was like, seven. It was over ten years ago. 

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Running Away

The parking lot’s surface shimmered, glaring angrily in my eyes and blinding me. I closed my lids tight and walked briskly in the direction I hoped my bike was in. It was hot for the end of April, and that only matched my temper at this point.

I threw my backpack around my shoulders, hopped on my bike and took off in some direction that wasn’t his. I trusted him so many times and in the end, every time, this proved catastrophic. Telling him off felt pretty good, and leaving felt better; now though, I was angry at myself for having let myself give a damn about him for such a long time when he was always rooting for me to fail.

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005

My small worth is

measured in words and

syllables.

My word is my craft and I’ll

thank you kindly

for leaving it with me.

Take any memory you wish;

boys too young,

men too old

for the good of either

him or myself…

take those.

You may keep them.

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004

Yesterday held

nothing.

Today, though,

brings me life and

all of the sugar

to coat my words and all my thinking,

sweeten up my state of being.

And I will eat it up.

003

a girl in the green grass

‘neath a knotted old tree

lies on her back and the light wind teases

the long hem of her lavender frock

and she wakes.