June Cleaver Sends Best Wishes and a Casserole

A Poem for Carolee's Mother on the Eve of Surgery


May your apron wrap round your waist
snug as the man of your dreams at your thighs.

May your flour be content to hide its purity
in the darkened circle of a porcelain rooster,
never dusting your cheeks with traces
of another self, another pale incarnation.

May your cookies rise like hips
in heat, hold their softness on your tongue
even after the oven has cooled.

May the man in white deliver the milk
of compassion, seasonal nog and spirits
well before you prowl the morning
floorboards, a rested angel in flannel robes.

With this dish, may your gut fill
with what it needs. May you find
each ingredient at your fingertips.

Poetry Gong - Poem 27

Miss Manners Cannot Think of a More Succinct Definition of a Lady Than “Someone Who Wants To Punch Another Person in the Nose, But Doesn’t,” or: Taking Your Clothes Off While Hanging Laundry Will Not Get You Invited to the Neighborhood Party - A Found Poem From Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children


Consider instead, the likely results
of your acting like a lady.
You see her in the neighborhood
you give her a friendly wave.
See how easy it is.
You have made her feel terrible
and remorseful—and all by behaving
like a perfect lady.

Now Miss Manners asks you
to listen to a small lecture on the rights
and obligations of friendship.
Even the closest of married couples
have social engagements
in which they see people separately—
one cannot always have the same guest list,
and your friend cannot be expected
to hire another house
to spare your feelings. A lady finds
as she sails through life,
that she can spare herself
a great deal of anguish by not taking
notice of unpleasant occurrences
that were not
intended for her notice.

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I know it's a terribly long title. I kind of like it.

Poetry Gong - Poem 24

Let’s Be Blood Sisters


No sweeter words
will ever pour
from the porcelain cup
of third grades’ most popular girl.
In her perfectly pleated plaid pants
and J.C. Penney sweater vest
she is a tea party with tiny cakes,
the slight hole in the piñata,
the first lick
up the cold side
of an Eskimo pie.

You have no fear
of knives,
..........(Friends for life.)
scissors,
..........(Just you and me.)
needles
or pins.
..........(Our secret club.)
You do not cry
..........(Do you want to?)
when you scrape your knee,
when the bike skids
out from under you,
when the swing kicks
you flat on your back.
..........(Yes or no?)

You’d never be caught
dead in a plaid skirt.
Your sweaters wrap
round you like a blanket,
hang past your knobby wrists.
You can’t remember today
if she spoke your name yesterday.
Has she ever breathed
your whole name through
lips thin as spun sugar?

You love the pouch of her cheeks
the gaze of her too-wide eyes
more than the sting of hot lunch
alone at the empty lunch table,
more than the weight of
a whisper on your flaming ears.

There is blood enough for everyone,
pour yours in a tea cup,
toast your good fortune.