Table of Contents
Little Planes
Notes on Diapers
Marriage
Love Does
My Mother’s Pots
Little Planes
I was 17 years-old when I took that job in Wakefield assembling balsa wood planes for the venerable Paul K. Guillow who had pieces of the Wright brothers’ plane hanging on the factory wall.
Barely old enough to snot on my own yet there I was sucking in balsa wood dust and silkscreen fumes as if this factory was my first home.
I sat at the carrels most of the time, wings, body, propeller, rubber band, slide it into the waiting bag and do it over again.
I listened to the same songs on a portable CD player it’s been awhile blasting in my ears crushing the machinery noise and covering the miserable hours between the arrival of the roach coach and the relief of the cigarette break whistle.
But every once and a while I would dream of the little balsa wood planes flying powered by grubby little fingers twisting the rubber bands up and laughing as the cheap trinket leaps forward and crashes to the ground.
Notes on Diapers
I.
They come in gendered colors,
as if piss and shit have sex.
II.
Astronauts use them in space,
or when they want to drive to Florida
to kill their boyfriend’s mistress.
III.
The shelves groan under cans of formula,
wondering what the diaper shelves have done
to get such a light appointment.
IV.
Environmentalists say use cloth ones on babies.
No one says use cloth ones on adults.
V.
The plush bookends of life.
VI.
People clamber to cuddle babies with clean ones
but run from babies with dirty ones.
VII.
They stand in wait
to catch humankind’s filth.
VIII.
They sit collecting dust
wondering why they cost more
than the ones at Walmart.
Marriage
I bought the pressed cardboard table
wrapped in plastic veneer,
and forced the living room
to accommodate the rectangular body.
I tried out a runner;
and set a copy of Poets and Writers
just-so on the right corner.
I liked the coffee table at first,
but then I kicked it.
And the monster started collecting:
papers and toys,
books and clothes,
plates and napkins.
I wanted to dump it,
the toe-numbing beast.
But my husband likes the table,
So now the beast sits,
pushed against the T.V.,
blocking the sensor,
waiting to violate,
my unsuspecting foot.
Love Does
Love stands looming
on the back porch
collecting the intimates
tossed out the night before.
Love requires an epidural
and a scalpel
and all manners
of medical things.
Love waits in a mental hospital
to see the mother
who checked in
instead of killing the father.
Love wakes early
to brew coffee
and stays late
to wash dishes.
Love walks past Suffolk
and thinks of the homeless
who sleep down there
in the dirty egress.
Love indulges
in fatty foods, booze,
sugar and smoke,
slowly dying.
Love is assembled
on conveyor belts
by minimum wage workers
using slave garnered chocolate.
Love changes the diaper
of an aging parent
who no longer knows
its name.
My Mother’s Pots
A family’s nourishment,
crafted by deft fingers,
in stainless steel wonders
and Teflon coated dreams
that litter every registry
at Target and Sears.
A flurry of chopping,
dicing, slicing, boiling
collections of flavor,
simmering, baking.
My mother’s pots,
those iron demigods,
sit lonely on the shelf,
above the stove.
yearning for use
alongside the T-Fal
on the ceramic cook top
too fragile to bear them.