Industrialized Foodstuffs and Enjoyment

the package on the oatmeal instructs me
to add a dairy beverage
or a non-dairy beverage
natural or artificial sweetener
fruit, honey, raisins, or nuts
and enjoy.

how long have they been telling people how to eat oatmeal?
listing our options as if we didn't know,
being sure to remind us
to enjoy.

is this a valid concern?
when did we start
needing to be told
to enjoy our food?

the tech writers had to think long
and hard on that one.
you never want to mislead your consumer,
especially when it comes to oatmeal.

Star Cross'd

"Listen, darling," she said.
She sat back and stared at the sky, listlessly.
"This star here. This is mine."
She pointed at the blue sky smudged with cumulous clouds.
"And that, over there, that's yours."
She stroked his shoulder.
"It's old news; it's archetypal.
The Herd Boy and the Weaver Maid. R & J. Hamlet and Ophelia."
She shifted toward him and pulled at his white lapel with her left hand,
his grey tie with her right. Close.
"That's all there is to it: the universe."
She breathed him in, released, and arose.

On Teaching

Sugar enriched days
call for aggressive lesson planning.

I chose today,
Valentine's Day,
to run poetry stations,
exploring a few different forms.

Lyric, ballad, sonnet, tanka, free verse; I
Observed
Victory in
Excess:

fifteen
fifteen year-olds
focusing on erased papers in front of them,
holding their hands a few inches in the air,
counting syllables on their fingers.

What It Does

Starting with the hair, the mother can expect extremes.
First, there is too much--so much that ponytails
can make you cry by the end of the day,
This is followed by handfuls in the drain, on the floor, in her brush.
If her kids happen to be terrified of the blowdryer,
She quickly adjusts to just not bothering.
She has better things to do.

At her base her feet swell and ache and likely lengthen.
Her weight picks an extreme--too....something, to be sure. 

In her middle is a gaping hole that still remembers its miraculous accomplishment.

Facial features are case to case.
Her nose could grow longer or wider,
Her eyes might sink in or sag with bags--
Sleep deprivation is no beauty treatment.
And just when she thinks she might start getting real sleep, another
Tooth sprouts, someone is sick. Night terrors terrorize bloodshot eyes.

She learns within the first week to forget about jewelry;
Baby hands are remarkably strong, and toddlers are covetous and demanding.
The neck she used to dab with perfume
Is odorless if she's lucky...she becomes accustomed
to the scents of breast milk and baby wipes.

Skin is the largest organ; it of all does not forget what a mother has been through.
Lines and splotches trace the stomach, buttocks and thighs,
Reminding all of the room it made for growth.
And the breasts. Once they have swelled with sustenance for another life,
The nipples are stretched to grotesque directions, no longer symbols of sex
But limp and lifeless lumps of tissue waiting to be ignored.

A woman's blood supply increases by thirty percent during pregnancy.
Bulging veins are painful; watching others wince when they spot them is equally so.
Spider veins creep through calves and thighs.
When it becomes time to don them, however, her focus
Is on her child's survival in the water, the contents of the swim bag,
And where exactly they all can change.

For the kids

What does it mean, really, to stay together for the sake of your children?

1 out of 2 don't make it. Does that mean that an even smaller percentage stays together because they actually like each other? We had the conversation that ended with "for the kids" scads of times while the word divorce was coming up. Their big brown eyes would widen with the tension in the room. They noticed that they were being shuffled from me to him to me again. Night time was confusing. But even in the fog of emotion emitted by them and us, when they were pitching fits and acting out, the trajectory of our destruction didn't dissipate. The house we had built crumbled around them and us because of selfish desires. We sorted through the debris and found signs of life, possibility for regeneration. They hug and kiss us more now; they know things could be getting better, but they don't know why, and neither does he. 

one perk

when your husband has no interest in poetry
or in you for that matter
you can say anything you want
through poetry
and you'll never get found out
because why on earth
would he care
that you're keeping it somewhere
and writing about him
and his little girlfriend
and the men who like you more than he does?

Dear Jenny G,

for my husband's almost / maybe other lover

Please repeat after me:

"You have a wife, kids, a life.
I deserve better than to be the cereal
You opt for because you don't like
the main course anymore.

I am worth a man's full devotion,
Not frivolous texts about my sexy knees
That I so righteously do not even respond to.

Let's not meet at Lowbrau
To talk about football, your family, and my suitors.
It's wrong. It's adultery, touching or not.

I have never carried or birthed children,
So I have no idea what it really does to a woman's body.
But a woman who has,
If she's chosen a husband and he's chosen her back,
Should be allowed to work through marital issues undistracted
By the drama and threat of an "emotional affair."

And if she finds out
I will fully expect to be called
Six, seven, or eight times,
And to receive an explicit text message and a long voicemail,

Because I have been foolish enough,
Wanted attention enough,
Misunderstood true humanity enough,
And listened to the lies of culture enough

To find myself accused
Of something that I will dismiss as an innocent friendship
But acknowledge through my cowardly avoidance
Is a grave offense and debilitating blow
To a family still reeling from real loss.

I will redirect your advances, knowing you're acting
Foolishly--you are a man, after all;
That Eve story is a myth."

Now run off and be a good girl,
And hope with all your blondeness that you don't see me in hell.

Lines

They develop on skin almost overnight,
A sign of aging, the fright emphasized in ads selling serums,
But I like yours.
They tell me how long we've known

Even as we've grown behind our own lines.
They deepen as the soul deepens:

Through salt, wind, and sun,
And also water, and sometimes laughter.

The self is the accumulation of experiences and perceptions.

When I saw your steel blue eyes once
Again, more silver shimmering in your hair
Your lines pulled me in, uninvited,
Into the depths and the shallows
Of this man I've never really known.
The soul is a stairway of skin.

Whatever you are

I can't decide whether to classify you
as a rodent or a canine.

Like a rat you scavenged through
my leftovers
just trying to survive
on what little you could get.

But like a dog--I'll be more specific here....a golden retriever--
You welcomed attention
and behaved properly.
You were easy
to be around;
"man's best friend,"

accepting the crumbs from underneath the table and gobbling up compliments.

Surely I've sent you running
with your tail between your legs
regardless,
and you will probably move on
alone
to another family's home
looking for     something

but I hope that some day you'll evolve
into a woman.