foxtales

As a girl
She would crack watermelons open in the field
And eat the dark red flesh, glistening
Against the dark green rind
As the sun sank down in an endless sky.

In the morning
The sun would rise again, as it always does—
The start of another backbreaking day
Of hoeing and bailing and picking and planting,
Gentle fingers rubbed raw
By the brittle stalk,
The barren stubble of another season,
Coming to an end.

“Jill, time for dinner!” a voice calls—
Or was it breakfast, or lunch?—No matter.
It is all part of a never ending day of work.
School was a rest, a cool reprieve,
A place to sharpen her already sharp mind,
Naturally inclined for math and analysis but . . .
Nourishment is rare in the country,
Except for a snack stolen between rows,
Or a furtive sip from the garden hose,
Water luke-warm and metallic but oh so good
When it’s all there is.

But she kept going,
Met her man in that school, and married him, too.
Moved to the city and raised two girls—
A different kind of work, broken by trips to the pool and practical jokes
On camping trips,
When they could hide behind a tree and jump out—
BOO!
Before laughing until they cried,
And dreaming at night in their pop-up camper,
Of watermelon in the sun
And the sticky, glistening rind
Left lying on the ground.

I make things of words
because I don’t know what to make of myself.
I bend them and shape them,
shove them here and there,
soften the edges and shave off the extra,
twist them and turn them,
stitch them together with logic I learned in geometry class
and grammar I learned in French class
and shreds of nonsense I learned everywhere else,
the same way that my dad and my uncles can take a block of wood
and breathe it to life.

Sometimes it feels lucky
and sometimes it feels cursed.
I always hear in my head (dad’s voice), “Leave well enough alone,”
But I can’t–there is always more pecking to be done.
Songs and poems are easier because I don’t have to think as much.
They are like a shortcut to an emotional well inside me
that most days stays tamped down, mostly–
but in a poem, I don’t have to explain it
and in a song, I don’t have to sing it, because–
well, because I don’t sing, but also because–
It just is . . . and yet, once it is out,
the tinkering begins.

I’m not obsessive about it,
but I am possessive of it.
I used to worry a lot about meter and rhyme
but I don’t any more.
I don’t have time, and I don’t think it matters, really,
religious adherence to this form or that,
but it used to matter to me a lot. I mean,
I really worked at it, when I did it–but no more.
Now I save that kind of thing for what I am paid to write,
the articles and blogs and web pages and marketing stuff–
and that’s OK. But still–
the thing is,
I make things of words
because I don’t know what to make of myself.

I’ll tie myself onto the rack
And if you want, I’ll tie you, too
Then we’ll stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch
Until we snap in two

Then my good half and your good half
Can run away and play
And we’ll just leave those other halves
To stretch and stretch away

A sliced up golf ball in the grass
The morning dew in sun
The water flowing under ice
Before the day’s undone

You’re late for school, the car is here
The creek is on the rise
You must have known me better then
Through that gray disguise

Better here than over there
With the halves all left behind
Better here than over there
It was good then . . . never mind

Everyone is better than me
At least that’s how it seems
They live in the black and white
I live in in-betweens

They can tell you right from wrong
And where to nest your eggs
I can tell you where run
And where to hide your head

The world comes crashing down on me
Every other day
And every other every time
I just wait and see

Everyone is better than me
At least that’s how it seems
They live in the black and white
I live in in-betweens