Cow

Sure, you might save your dignity if
you didn’t bray like a calf being castrated
but the truth is, the capacity for pain
equals the capacity for joy;
and while truth hurts, remember too:
pain is the great teacher.

So, scream your head off to anybody who’ll listen
Men are all jerks and you should have known
he was no good, didn’t you see the signs?

Honey: let me clue you.  There were no signs.

Unless you’re a psycho, in which case,
I’m not talking to you anyway.
All men, and most women, can act
like sadistic children given the right
phase of the moon.  Blaming yourself, honey,
that sells self-help books, which just make money
off you, pretending that anything makes sense.

Truth is, you scream loud and long enough,
like a wounded cow, splashing around in your own
puddle of tears
and some man will come and say,
“Excuse me, Madame, but you sound like you’re in heat.
if you just drift over here where it’s nice and private
and lie down, we can do us both some good.”

Might work out or might not, but you never know
till you try it.

**

Joshua Tree Honeymoon

We go to see the sky,
forest scorched flat,
a sea boiled dry.

On the way to 29 Palms, they farm the wind!
Ten thousand monster robot sunflowers.

At Joshua Tree:

Cool holes in rocks.
112 °  fetters German tourists
(sun glare off Japanese camera lens)
creeping through rattle-dry gardens.

juniper berries
astringent sweet sting in your nose
creosote bush
hot dry Lapsang Souchong smell
whiptail lizard
epiphyte mistletoe-mock, balls of it burdening trees
ocatillas, ghost cactus,
hot loaf of red thorns tangled, like a sea anemone
salt but not wet.

The trees stretch up like twisted ballerinas
with eight arms and five thousand fingers
begging for water
waiting for the moon

nothing alive
until it jumps.

Jack-rabbits:
sun shines through them.
stain-glass ears.

It cools.
Through binoculars, he shows me
Jupiter’s disk.

Planets evolve, go hot-house, he says,
then dry up like fossils.
Honey?  Is it Mars yet?

**

One Day

One day
he was a wish
One day
he became a single cell
One day
he will come forth
hands tiny and plump
with his mother’s and grandmother’s clever fingers
his feet kicking and proud
with his grandfather’s decisiveness
One day
he will say “Mama”
and more words
maybe only you will understand
One day
he will walk on those small feet
leave footprints on sand
leave toddler chaos in his wake
One day
he will accept just one kiss
because that day
is his first day of school
One day
you will notice his hands are calloused
his pockets filled with maybe worms
or tiny cars or treasures strange and precious to him
One day
you will look him in the eye
and the next day he will be taller than you are
One day
he will disappear with some other child
and you will know he is growing away
away from the wish and the tot and the boy
into a man
And one day
he will bring you this partner
for your blessing
don’t weep
(oh, I know you will weep, but don’t show it)
And one day every day
he ranges farther and farther
into the future
and he is a man
someone you know
someone who bonds to your heart
but leaving
for a place called the future
And that day
you will know
you are his
he is yours
your bond
no matter how far he goes
to Paris to Telluride to the moon
that bond
will go on
forever.

**

Italian Mama

Italian mama says
to her husband
who doesn’t know from what is this thing
called a tea-towel
and so he tries to use paper towels
she says
Mother of God help me.

And when her son
calls her cell phone as she emerges
from the T at Harvard Square station
to get her lasagna recipe
she says, if you find a recipe that uses cottage cheese
son, that’s not a good cookbook,
run.
She says don’t forget garlic,
oregano and garlic, I use quite a bit.

It’s all about tea towels, the T, and lasagna.
That’s what it is
to be an Italian mama.