Like Water

All day the water has turned on and off in this apartment.

pulsing like arteries in the walls,

flushing, washing and

draining the limp linguini.

I splash my face with water and soap,

organize dishes into the machine,

close the dribbly tap.

My grief is something like this.

feverish in the angry teapot,

poured and still in the cup,

wet on my body, dripping on the floor.

I walk up the hill to visit my godson for bathtime.

he shows me how to splash, splash, splash!

with his arms extending out like rows,

face firmly directed at mine–

he points at the water in between his toes,

and he remembers to close both eyes

as I hold his forehead and pour.

Like some sort of deliverance.

I pour from a tiny blue plastic bucket,

slowly through his light toddler hair

washing down his little shoulders and back

and then, I embrace him like water,

into the wide towel of my arms.

In a Version of this Story

In a version of this story, the words are clinical–

Hippocampus, ictal, convulsions, cortex

In a version of this story, I am losing my mind–

Nightmares, anxiety, dissociation, loss, I am losing

My memory. I forget how things look, it’s your mind

Said my therapist, he said doctors draw fast conclusions–

One person’s brain is another person’s unconscious,

One person’s seizure is another person’s possession by god

My god, how do I know what’s real

My god, surgery, my surgeon–

God with a scalpel, he removed part of my brain,

I lost part of my mind. My god, how do I know

What I’ve lost. I don’t know what I’ve left out

Of this story, how do I know my omissions

She said an omission is just a reporter holding a scalpel

A voice is just something making sounds

I tell my friend that today, CNN finally shared an un-westernized

view of the war and my friend asks if their headline was in the past

Tense, and what words they used in place of murder

What words make their story broken-open truth,

Tell me, why do they get to hold the scalpel?

The Fix

My friend says the life of an artist needs to include other artists

because the rest of the world says we’re useless. 

My neurologist suggests patience with the dosage adjustment. My brother 

says just to remember that I’m exactly where I should be.

My uncle says time is the strangest thing. My friend asks who’s in charge      

and my other friend says only I can know.

Over the weekend, I walked Golden Gate Park twice and I felt irrelevant in its 

explosive green grass and vast blooming. 

Over the weekend, we hiked Peacock Gap and my friend says

the picture of us seated in the flowers is evidence of a state offense. 

My friend says that memory isn’t as important as a healthy brain. I keep 

notes on my phone to remember quotes like that.

I take pictures to understand what friends mean 

when they say, remember?

Where There’s Water

The media says that all this rain resurrected Tulare Lake– 687 square miles of water that the resolute California drought had dutifully drained off the map. The long empty years made most of us newcomers to this space, now a vast drowned dimple on our planet. 

I scroll through the images of the lake that I could have been convinced were taken of another world. Or, images that could have been taken by satellite, a million square miles away from this exact surface of the Central Valley.  

I imagine the alien life out there, somewhere in our galaxy, bearing witness to our water-water everywhere; bearing witness to our tiny little eyes peering at them through our Earthy telescopes because we are searching for water elsewhere. We are searching for water elsewhere because sixty percent of each adult human is water but a billion humans live without clean water and we all know how we’re training our planet to adopt a scorched Earth policy. 

In third grade, I learned that a single drop of water holds billions of water molecules. Decades ago I learned to save as much as I could, (if it’s yellow let it mellow). Close the dribbly tap. Finish the water in your glass. Now that Tulare Lake moves water with the moon again, may I step into my bath and rest?

Good Morning!

The cab driver asked me if I liked the radio on and I said “yes!”

I was feeling Beyonce and her tremendous voice as we U-turned on Polk Street

and that cocktail from five hours ago was still seeping into my sphincters.

He was drinking a Starbucks coffee and he looked fresh and showered and he drove aggressively and I liked it.

I felt fine with the start-speed and the stops for the lights down Pine Street

with the techno remix of Katy Perry beginning, I listened to his Persian accent when someone called him–

“I have a customer in the car,” he said without even turning down the music and then he hung up.

And then we were bumping as we crossed Fillmore Street and I thought about how much I like your skin when you start laughing.

As we turned on to Masonic Avenue I said my Sunday, “Good Morning!” to the backdrop of the financial district before we dropped

down

the

hill

and then tore by Grove Avenue where Amy and Billy live.

The young Persian driver called me sweetie, (he pulled it off),

as he kindly thanked me for the five-dollar tip I gave him.

But before that happened, he asked me:

“Are you going to take a nap, now that you are home?” and I said “no”.

But he was right, I did nap.

Until now.

Now, I am awake and I am at the recently opened Rose Tea Cafe and Flower Shop on my street.

It’s the afternoon and the beautiful French co-owner made my $5.00 latte,

(which is what it would cost anywhere else) but here all is attractive and unhurried.

Look! She placed a hydrangea next to my cup and a small biscotti,

and even the sugar in its bowl and spoon-on-top is a presentation.

And a few minutes later she came by to ask me “is your latte is okay?”

And I said “yes”, and she said, “thank you” and I said, “thank you”.

And I wanted more than anything, right then and there to be the Mayor of San Francisco

so that I could publicly announce that “The Rose Tea Cafe and Flower Shop is the loveliest place in the city.”

Even the wrought-iron chairs are made to look like they’re straight from a country house in France.

And again, the flowers!

They have flowers in all parts of this shop, yet the view is remarkably uncrowded.

This red Gerbera Daisy on my table is terrific company

and I’d like to tell you right now how happy I am that I got to San Francisco

before you left and explored the world.

Meeting Her Aunt

She told me that she didn’t need help,

“I only have one mandoline, anyway.” 

So, I sat next to her at the counter and waited it out.

We got to know one another

as she pushed through the heads of cabbage.

Pressure down. Shavings drop. 

Shift. 

Down. 

Shavings.

“Pets” entered the conversation.

She said that she hadn’t been a dog person, 

but then a client gave her this dog. Now she loves this dog.

But maybe it’s only this dog?

Maybe she is a dog person, she’s not sure.

This is how I learned to make slaw. 

Opening Day 

One Thursday, mid-morning, I saw my life:

idle, and then, fixedly irrelevant.

A beautiful blue day in April, this year’s rain

produced different shades of green outside my tall

Marvelous apartment windows. Disembodied,

or, clinically, dissociated. Do you know

What it’s like to walk outside, vague, among the living?

I find a community on Reddit that does. Do you know what

It’s like to forget how to spell your own name? Four more days like this,

borderless and unrelenting. I decide that a lie is OK

If it makes the day easier on everyone. On Easter

I said I had food poisoning. Last night I read a poem 

By Bernadette Mayer, who says, "You have nothing more to teach

Until there is no more panic at the knowledge of your own real existence" 

Last night, I let myself sleep with the lights on. This morning, 

an incoherent opening. I took the dog out for a walk

Spring pummeled alongside her on the trail. Guiding my grief

into the long park field, speckles of mist on my hands.

Some Thoughts on Carving:

The boy carves his initials in a tree. 

He is himself and this is his tree he walks to on his two legs.

He carries a few of his own things:

Clanky binoculars, a pocketknife, and a sandwich.

His tongue extends out of its cavy wet mouth

as he focuses his entire attention on his notch in his world. 

Sweaty and tired, he has learned that this is hard work.

*

The bear pauses in his lumbering movement.

Perhaps he smells the boy. 

Perhaps his back itches. 

Perhaps nothing. 

Let’s go with the second option. 

He rubs against this claimed tree detaching bark

while he buffs the boy’s newly placed initials. 

At some point, he walks away. 

Maybe he liked the carving?

He doesn’t know. He’s a bear.  

*

The tree responds, growing around the cuts, 

the initials.

It festers but we can assume it survives. 

Dented, the mark remains as all pain does. 

*

How else is this world frightening?