A Poem in Recovery

The 12 step program
1: Correct misspellings
2. Decide where each line should end instead of where the line on the paper runs out
3. Drink a small glass of red wine
4. Maybe bread and cheese would be nice, too
5.  Rewrite poem legibly
6. Try that again.
7. Seek meaning in the jibberish
8. Sleep on it.
9. Think with admiration and disgust of people who love to edit their writing
10. Go to coffee shop, furtively look at other people exuding creativity
11. Recall the Serenity Prayer "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change"
12. Reread it with love and let it go.

Who's Inside

behind those glasses, that wry smile
who are you, what do you need,
are you attached, or merely performing
the required, being the devoted,
the one who shows up on the outside
but never the inside behind that wry smile,
i wonder who you are, brother,
i know you wonder, too, but no one
ever asked and cared,
until me.

the recital

i had visualized the whole day
from the first smile as dawn broke
and a black puppy licked my hand
dangling off the bed, the bike ride,
wheels crunching on fallen leaves,
coffee with Andy.
an indifference to work, all energy
and thought to the big event.
when the nerves came on at 2 p.m.
I had known them, and that they would
pass and I drank a glass of wine
to their passing at 6.
when I settled into the church pew,
i knew all would settle and I would
be surrounded in sounds until
I made my own voice heard, and
as I heard my own sound singing
from the flute, i knew it as a
song from my heart, an offering
to all those I love, all those
who listen.

Those are my stilettos hanging from the phone wire

those are my stilettos hanging from the phone wire,
next to the Adidas and boat shoes
that drunken students spend hours lofting
under a full moon at 2 a.m.
when the bars closed.
I know because I look up and count them
every day when I walk by with the dog.
I sought liberation from stilettos while sober
and in broad daylight,
liberation from never being able to run away,
stumbling, only to be captured again in her web.
I sought liberation from heels jamming in cracks
that life had generously opened in front of me.
liberation from money spent foolishly.
at noon, I stood under the phone wire,
stilettos tied together with bailing wire
and flung them skyward until they caught
next to the Adidas and boat shoes
of drunken students.
Whereas I am liberated, they only wonder
what happened to their perfectly good shoes.

safe places

he asked me to place myself somewhere safe
I chose here, upstairs where I can see the Moon
pass in front of me by night, the sun reflects
off golden walls by day, my bed is soft and warm.
it's this place that is my safe haven, under a warm
comforter, my books close by, old letters,
a fountain pen, the place I write and play
flute each evening, this is my safe haven
where I reflect on the past, experience the present
and dream of the future, where I can imagine
the most perfect notes.

Singing

The voice never lies,
a song sings the truth,
the notes tumble out like
beads on an oscillating string
bouncing off a taut diaphragm.
the tongue slurs an arpeggio in 32nd notes,
sharp staccatto in A minor triplets
from low C to high G without
a single stumble,
I feel the strength of each breath.
the voice knows how to sing
as the heart knows how to
beat.

He dreams sweetness

he dreams of
sweetness and freckles
on her golden face
freckles on her lips,
her arms, kneecaps.
he only knows them from a distance
as far away as Orion at 4 am.
he dreams sweetness in her
mix of words that fall into
poetry, like snow drifting
down from endless stands of
pine,
black dogs chasing mice.
(frozen solid, they crunch
as she chews them, the small
tail finally disappearing down
her gullet).
he dreams of sweetness,
a dream knit alone on airplanes,
the steady hum slowly rocking
him to sleep.