DOAEN 18: Tkhine in Sh'vat

"The renewal of the moon shall be for you a beginning of new moons; it shall be for you the first among the months of the year."
Exodus 12:2

Lord, if you're out there today
hesitating someplace between the branches of trees
in the interstices of black matter,
or in the dotted lines that stitch
hemispheres into a radiant globe,

I, your daughter, beseech you
who reflects
from beneath the cool shadow
of her parents' death
so I may

take a breath and exhale
into a lover's ear
as you score
chronicles of the winding canal,
through and out

listening so closely, you may understand
the sorrows of the world, and by that
I don't mean the common every day stubbing,
but why a child is shot in the abdomen
by a stray bullet while taking piano lessons,

glass shattering,
or how a journalist is gunned down in the street
for telling truth, in my own community,
far from other cities where terrible things happen
for which I have no ample words.

All I know
is I must find my way back to you
like a child
pushing through wild grass,
wandering far from home.

DOEAN 17: Food Service

The airplane attendant wears a black apron with gold-braided edging and serves me seltzer water with a lime from the foot cart speared on top. Then she pours Diet Coke into two plastic cups of ice. Guillotines rumble up and down the aisle. Attendants advise passengers to watch sharp elbows. A herd of people make it up the aisle to the bathrooms in the back. A bald man seated in front of me plies his hair with long red fingernails. Upon landing, I hear that a baby has been delivered in a MacDonald's bathroom to a girl who worked behind the counter serving french fries. Exit / Salida. From french fries to grits and ice-box coconut pies. I'm in Monroe, Louisiana. We're there for a week and then back. Crap. I spent last night researching with my vibrator so I could better explain to you how to get me off. How can I describe how fast, how soft, how slow? Allowing someone to see who I am sexually other than myself never was a possibility. You've increased my options. I'm stoned and reading the Wall Street Journal. The recession never looked so good. My daughter has shared me with you, but once again wants to become the supreme center of my attention. I sleep in your LSU t-shirt, and she sleeps in her boyfriend's camouflage jacket. Mom's boyfriend is an annoyance, particularly while hers is unavailable. Last year I served both her and Jefferson hot cocoa before he went to do eight months in Santa Rita. I revert to my primary role as nurturer, and remain in the kitchen cooking food. We eat chicken soup, pesto pasta and she returns for second helpings. Tomorrow she leaves for her next round of adulthood. My cats meow for water. They know what they want.