Oubliation

All week long, I’ve avoided you.
Tried not to think of your alabaster chambers
against the isochromatic watershed of my regrets,
or the ease in which you power-lifted me
off your shoulders like the albatross I knew I was.
But the spin down of spring break
with a little rain and nowhere to go, nothing to do
makes you the mariachi band at my window
at 2:47 in the morning I cannot ignore.

It’s been 9 years since you left
carrying your own weight in a tinderbox
of swirled cream and melted chocolate,
headed for a Congo hut and fortunate insights
that would complete my oubliation.

Without articulating the particulars
or exposing the curdled mess I’ve made of myself,
I want you to know I still suffer your loss.
Even if I prick my finger and fall asleep,
you gnaw on me like candy on enamel
and I wake clench-fisted and displumed
repressing voiceless sounds
only a blue-eyed dog can absorb.

**

Litany of Regretful Things

Another morning comes
with regrets of the night before.
One twirl around the dance floor,
another around your bed.

My beautiful body of lies,
and the carefully constructed speech
you never thought you’d use
again.

Somehow you’ll shade your eyes
from the naked truth
of my scars and tattoos.
But these memories will surface later
in your litany of regretful things.

Of this I am certain.

I will stop to savor your smell on my skin,
the taste of you,
too many cigarettes,
not enough wine,
just one moment longer
before washing you from my memory.

Later, I will unfold a deferred dream
from this cache I’ll remember to spend
in my old days when power is no longer yours,
and the scent of you has faded
like a blush on my complexion.

Only then will I open you again.
Like a forgotten gift in the corner
of a bedroom closet,
I will open you and remember
your smell,
your taste—

Jasmine and olives
still hanging from the stalk.

**

Wading Through Phoenix Ash

Red and black ribbons brushed my face today.
I thought of you. I was reminded to write this poem
on your ocean of mystery eyes reflecting what could’ve been fideism,
or a reason for someone to return
the heart you didn’t believe you’d find
in warm Louisiana lore, moonlight kissed and breezy.

From billow to billow you came to erase statues of doubt,
flagrant memories, twilight walks through Paris,
wading mouth deep into this game with 20 love songs
and none of despair. No sad nets to remind me
of sunlight sonatas in slippered glass.

I wanted to toast these ashes we are risen from.
These deep echoes that kept us in tune with blood passion,
rustic ribbons, silence even.

I wanted to toast miles and miles
of billows and brown shoe boulevards
between New Orleans and Paris,
the sapphire proposal over
Notre Dame Bells, blue-haired tea ladies,
waving and singing
continuez les jeunes amoureux,
in music box voices postured more regal
than any I’ve heard before.

I wanted to toast Mardi Gras and the heavy loot
we scored by yelling lancez moi quelque chose!
Our endless voodoo in the French Quarter,
Lucifer specials shared at Angeli’s,
candlelight and sauerkraut at Chez Jenny.

I wanted to toast gumbo and margaritas, couscous and champagne,
Pere Lachaise and Lafayette Cemetery,
a vintage Hermes scarf—as blue as your eyes . . .
Cantal and pasta eaten at a sidewalk café in Forum des Halles,
a quaint and crowded bookstore in the Latin Quarter,
that gut-punch view of Paris from Centre Pompidou,
New Orleans from the muddy water Ferry boat . . .

I wanted to rise to the occasion and idea of a French lover,
but the mystery of your eyes revealed itself
in the permafrost blue and lack of affect in them,
so I had to leave you where I found you
among the ashes of the dead.

**

What My Shrink Says About Forgiveness

He tells me, my shrink, forgiveness is the key to healing,
to releasing these voices I have come to love.

The voices tell me I’m not beautiful and I’m not.
I am not to blame for my father slipping away
in broad daylight in the cop car he loved so much,
holding the badge he wore more proudly than us.

I tried to stop being
the girl who lost a father somewhere
between the green beans and grits,
the girl whose name no one dared pronounce
for fear of my sister’s handprint across your face.

It happened once to a girl on my street.
The only girl who didn’t live with us in the ghetto
of fatherless daughters although her father was a drunk,
and had to be taken away by ambulance once a week.

We’d all gather on the corner to solemnly watch the white coats
drag him outdoors bucking and bellowing,
his voice pitched like a girl’s; skin yellow-white and pink-veined.
We always knew he’d come out half-dressed.
He was my first glimpse of old man-tits, flabby, white-spotted skin,
chest hair matted like those cheap Halloween wigs
you might toss after the second or third year.

Marie was the only girl on our street who wore hats, walked like a pony
(but she said model) in high steps for such thick legs, and I wanted to be her
until the day brown eyed, heavy browed Marie crossed the fatherless girls.

She breaks my nose on the merry-go-round
and will not let me off so I drop to my knees
spin, spin, spin like a toy-box dancer ,
spin, spin, spin into a feather-weight fall
while blood pumps into my mouth and I learn
to love the taste of my own blood so much more than anything else.

Marie’s face crinkled like her old mother who smelled
like leather and roses in sickening peculiarity
when I raised my doll-sized fists and howled
like the madwoman I would later become.
I told her. I told her my sister was watching.
I told her she would pay and she laughed
until my sister jerked the merry-go-round to a halt
and dragged Marie to the ground by her hair.

She did this so I could stop the blood flow,
stop my head from spinning, spinning, spinning into this dark abyss
where voices tell me I am not beautiful and I am not to blame.
She did this so the other fatherless girls on my street could get their licks
on high-stepping Marie whose father always walked home from the hospital.
She did this more so I could witness the beating that became my sister’s forgiveness.
She beat Marie until she pled mercy from my mother and me.
Beat her until she crawled back home and begged to stay.
She beat Marie for the years my father was away
and stopped when he returned with the bag of stale groceries
he’d gone to buy the day he disappeared.

3 weeks later, Marie’s father died in the ambulance
and we didn’t see her again all summer.
Come fall, Marie was the biggest kid at the bus stop.
She wore an orange hat over the heavy brows, crimson scarf,
brand new moccasin boots, spot and ravel free.
She watched me cross the street, rubbing my nose without thinking.
I squared my skinny shoulders, bounced my step the way I’d seen boys do,
but Marie grabbed my collar anyway. I winced, waited,
then learned the real value of forgiveness that day.
Marie pulled me to her side, kept everybody else in line while she announced
she was my best friend and nobody better not lay a hand on me.