the one about stains

Colored plates held by twisted metal boundaries—
Illustrated religion for those who cannot read
The signs on interstate 40
Announcing potluck dinners and that Jesus Saves.

Ten feet tall, so no one imagines measuring up,
Because they can’t—sinners and saints alike,
All in their pale or pretty garb,
None with intensity so rich it fills a window
And stuns the parishioner into wonder and silence.

The whore with her crown of beauty let down at her Lord’s feet,
The Rock upon which He built His church, even after three denials,
And the real first communion—with a traitor present and accounted for.
They are easily understood lessons, when they are told with Blues,
And Greens and Yellow and Vermilion Orange.

People understand color, they understand stains,
Blots on clean plated glass,
When words do not speak and tone cannot convince. 

So God bless the sinners and the stunned parishioner, him too—
No wonder it’s called Stained Glass.
Only the stained understand.

the one about hands

You were brought in crying, your hands clenched tight and you will go out dying, your hands wide open. But this doesn't stop you from trying in the middle and so you spend your whole life trying. First steps wrought with first words and you couldn't bring yourself to speak an intelligible sentence to your middle school crush, so you turn around and walk away. You know failure is in your future and your high school grade point average confirms it.

No one is surprised when it takes you four years to chose a major in college and no one is surprised when you finally choose interdisciplinary studies, which is really just a way that the university lets you graduate before you spend your inheritance and yourself raw.

No one hires an interdisciplinary major.

You tell your parents that no one is hiring anyone, but your father can't help but wonder out loud if his co-worker's daughter, that sweet blond thing who majored in business administration, has found a job. It turns out she has, plus two rejected offers.

You find employment of your own making, drawing fruits and vegetables with chalk for grocery store boards. Who knew there was a niche for that? Your father asks. You shrug and wash the dust off your hands. No one knows that you are happiest making $8.64 an hour with chalk.

Your hands are clenched tight around that chalk, guiding it, watching the illustration take form, until the stick is completely drawn away, your hand loosely left holding a stub of dust.

From dust you have come and from dust you will return.

You brush your hands on your jeans, clap them together, and spend your $8.64 on a submarine sandwich and a lemonade.

the one in maine

We drove up the coast and the air was cold, November cold. Acadia came out of nowhere but we didn't stay long. Long enough to stand on boulders and let the wind whip our hair wild. I was wearing my quilted down coat and she her navy pea-coat and we felt the chill through every pore. The Atlantic is not a friendly surf in November. New England is less friendly.

We have just left a funeral for a man we never knew. By proxy, we'd been asked, when it was found out we were going to be driving up the coast. "Go in proxy of me, instead of me." I hadn't worked out the sense of such a thing in my head, but funerals have never seemed to fit into the realm of sense. We go for the family, even if we only knew the deceased. And here, the two of us knew neither the family nor the deceased.

It is a strange thing, a funeral. A perimeter of dark clothed mourners paying their last respects to shell of a person who used to be.

I decide that afternoon, in the cold, on the boulders in Acadia, that when I die I don't want a funeral. I want to live as though I came from dust and I want to return to the earth as dust, spread wide in the Atlantic.

I want to let the wind whip me wild one last time before I finally rest.

the one in birmingham

He picks me up from work. I make him flip the mirror up and I change in the backseat. We drive over mountains, the long way; we hit the streets of Birmingham, with its Ginkgo trees. He picks me a bouquet of leaves that I put between the pages of a book filled with photos of us. He holds my hand and I laugh to his face, his fedora tipped to the left and his striped tie askew.

We are happy in silence, his hand on the back of my neck, the car windows open, my eyes closed.

"You like this song?" He asks and I always tell him the truth, even if it hurts. He is serious about his music and I am serious about my opinions.

"How about this one?" And I say yes, because he already knows, and it's why we're in Birmingham, to see it played by the penner and piper. His gift to me is always music, even when I tell him the truth.

Later, when the old theater is dark and the burgundy velvet curtains are shivering with anticipatory movement, he leans over and tells me he'll never forget tonight. I tell him that tonight is only halfway through, that they haven't begun playing yet. He tells me when he saw me walking toward him from work, disheveled and tired that he already had enough to make it a night for the books. It's good, I say to him, patting our book with photos and Ginko leaves, we have a lot of pages to fill.

We are driving home, on the highway, the short way. I am curled with my back against the door, staring at his profile in the street lights. "Are you staring at me?" He asks. And I tell him the truth, that I always want to stare at him.

the one with the key

They were married eight years and five days, which was why it was a surprise to him when she handed him the papers and their house-key. He'd heard of the seven year itch, but they had crossed over that mark with the ease of a skipping stone, bouncy, but sure. Now he sat in his blue lazy-boy, a stack of papers to his left, and her key clutched in his right hand. She was leaving him. She'd left him.

She didn't take much from the house, the tea-towels still hung from the wooden rack hanging by two loose screws. He'd meant to fix that for a while, maybe tonight he'd do it. Her afghan, the one she'd taken from the nursing home when her mother passed, was folded neatly with the other blankets in the corner basket. The screen door slammed against the door jam and he jumped. Noises in this house were louder than in the house where she had made their home.

They married late in life, beyond children. But that's okay, she said. We'll have a quiet home filled with the things we love most, and most of all one another.

Most of all one another.

One and another. Two. Together.

He would leave for work every morning, a mechanic for 40 years, and come home every night to her. They danced to Sinatra and Elvis, Clooney and Fitzgerald. Sometimes to Simon and Garfunkel. They would eat turkey sandwiches and black-eyed peas together. Then they would sleep, separate beds, because 30 year old habits are hard to break. For those five hours a day he was never lonely and it was never quiet.

The screen slammed again, the lock broken for two summers at least. Maybe? He couldn't remember. There were so many things he couldn't remember hearing, now in the silence sounding so loud.

the one about being naked in the living room

In our living room
We are naked
Because it’s where we live.
We live naked.
Really.
So that, knowing we all look the same,
Underneath the stitched attempts to cover ourselves,
We can be human too.

We pretend that looking almost the same is our fault,
So that we feel better
About ourselves.

But looking the same is no more our fault
Than the small differences that set us apart.

The things that make us different are the masks worn
By those who know better
Than to be naked
In public places—
Which is everywhere.

the one about the alchemy of happiness

Wrought in the bowels of earth,
life veins surprised by progeny,
puddles of metal spooled into gold,
deeply in, heavily crowned

out.

Our breath, together, brought
fresh breath, first breath.

the one who doesn't know my name

You know my drink, but you don't know my name. I wonder if you'll ever ask it and what difference it would make if you did. Sometimes we make small talk, sometimes you roll your eyes at your manager and look to see if I noticed. I did. Sometimes you see me walk in and you give me the Pittsburgh Nod, ready with my drink before I even get to the counter. I wonder if you wanted to work here as long as you have, four years you told me a few weeks ago. Four years is a lot of years to make drinks for people. Four years is a lot of girls who have had crushes on you. Four years is a lot of years for people to not know your name. I know it though. You wrote it on the bottom of my cup today, with your phone number. I just want you to know that even though I probably won't call you, I still want you to know my name.

the one in the pickup truck

You know we are looking at you, don't deny it. We're pulling out of the coffee shop, you're pulling in. We debate on whether we should turn around, go back, thank the barista for the coffee again, just to bump into you. We laugh instead, turning into the bank parking lot. But know that we thought about it, okay? You, with your manly pickup truck, your scruffy beard and sparkly eyes. Yeah, you. We are still at the bank when you leave, your venti coffee in your gloved hands. I like a man who can handle his truck, his coffee and two giggling girls in a red Toyota.

the one in the grocery store

I try to have a crush on you, really, I try. Mostly because I need another post here because I've been neglecting this space the past few days. Colds and flus do that to you. But I did try for you. I stare at your back as we both meander up and down grocery aisles. I am looking for orange juice, the expensive kind, and medicine, the knock you out kind. I don't know what you're looking for. I can't even see your face and I'm not really coherent enough to care. We both have our hands in our pockets. Who said it wasn't cold in Texas?

the one on the index finger

There are only a few of you in the world. I can count them on one hand, minus the thumb and the pinky. So three. Three of you. But you are the one I count with my index finger. The first one. Number one. You think there are all sorts of things about you that make you less, but I see past those things and because of that, you are more. More than all the rest. I never tell you that though. I'm afraid to say it out loud. Afraid you might hear me and be out of my life completely. I know this is selfish. I know.

the one in the coffee shop

I see you from inside, walking toward me, checking your reflection in the coffee shop windows. Normally I dismiss men like you, but you have dreadlocks, so I let it slide this time. You order a green tea and I wonder why you pay three dollars for something you could have made at home for nearly free. Your corduroy pants brush together, like the sound of a steam engine on tracks. I never catch your eye. I don't really try.

the one in the italian restaurant

It's hard to be inconspicuous in a nice Italian restaurant. Fortunately they have large menus. We steal glances at you when you walk by us, serving the patrons, your eyes darting across the entire room. I like a man who is alert. I also like a beard. You are both. You rest for a few minutes at the bar, leaning over, talking to the owner. This place feels like family to you and I like family. She and I disagree on whether or not you are good-looking. But it doesn't really matter, does it? If you have all the other qualities?