A Connecticut Poem

What did I do to deserve Connecticut?
Stevens moved here in 1916 when he was thirty-six
as I am now. It would be another seven years
before Harmonium appeared. He worked
in Hartford, an insurance man dutifully behind his desk
all day. I work in Danbury, a one-time typesetter
who now sees his work offshored to Chennai all day.
This isn’t going anywhere is it? I require help—
what about the sycamores, the maples, the oaks?
What about the robins returning each spring?
What about the nutmeg? What the hell can you make
with that anyway? I’d rather have the saffron
my grandma Keeney (né Messina) brought back with her
from Italy. She was alive then, so long ago
I was taking classes at Central Connecticut State
and wondering where all of the poetry was
as my American Lit class skipped Pound, Williams,
Stevens, Eliot, Frost, and Crane. No Olson, no Creeley,
no Ashbery or O’Hara, no Ginsberg, no Kerouac.
No Langston Hughes, Lorine Neidecker, Sylvia Plath,
nothing but a hasty reading of "Diving into the Wreck"
on the last day of class. I used the last two pages
of the final exam blue book to list the professor’s wrongs
(the same prof who went on for a good ten minutes
about exiguous, used to describe someone’s nose
in Daisy Miller; thinking it meant “large,”
he explained the Latin route, ex-, meaning “out of”—
being the thoughtful guy that I am, I didn’t correct him
in front of the class, but simply mentioned it afterwards)
for my troubles, which I thought honestly worth
a few extra points, even if some of what I wrote probably
rankled him but hey I was being timed remember,
I saw my grade knocked down to an A minus.
Connecticut is like that, whether you get to drive
to work through the cavernous shade and gentle hills
of Litchfield County or live in the traffic on I-95
but KC needs to get some files off our computer now
which she will bring with her today to the high school
where she’ll be getting her classroom ready
so I’ll be stopping here. We found a dead mouse
in our house this morning and I need to figure out what to do.

Nobody reminds me

Nobody reminds me of anything. I had something to say but then I forgot it. Oh yes, I remember now. I am eating meat loaf. Few words could be more meaningful. Dash is calling me from his toy telephone. I don't understand a word he says. It's big like a 1980's car phone. Yesterday driving home from work I wondered: Do ants have noses or don't they like to fuck? It's a long drive home and the radio reception is awful. Candlewood Lake was black and blue with evening coming down. I wondered how KC's day went at the high school. Not teaching but observing. When I get home she reminds me of something that I'm so thankful for but now I don't remember what it was. The best writing often contains an unsurpassable attention to detail. A strong memory is helpful. This reminds me of Jack Kerouac. I used to drink with him. It was just before I stopped. No, it was just before I went mad. He plunged me in and then he saved me. The pages were yellow and it made me sneeze, but it was alright. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am nobody who will remind you of anything. They took me to the hospital. It was a garden of wandering minds. There was an old woman in a wheelchair who sang “God bless my underwear” followed by words I couldn't make out, her verses punctuated with “fuck” and “shit” and “assholes.” There was a twenty-something, very masculine-looking gay Hispanic man with the saddest eyes I'll ever see who had tried to kill himself by drinking cleaning products, I don't remember what exactly, to get away from his family. There was a surly but friendly overweight redhead who used to be a thin, sane psychiatric nurse until she was attacked by a patient; she had been stabbed by many things, syringes, I never got the full story. She had just had a spinal tap when I met her, or maybe she was just about to go for one. She taught me how to play spades. A few days before I left, a young Hispanic woman with slashed wrists arrived. The older manic-depressive woman who had stopped taking her Lithium, or maybe it was that it had stopped working, called her “a real spitfire,” so I learned a new word that day. I don't know why but she was crazy about me: not the older manic-depressive, whose name I think I remember was June, the young Hispanic. I would have gladly fled the country with June had she been forty years younger and shown the same kind of interest. For a few days I had a roommate who practiced karate; he was a veteran who had been stationed in Beirut where he lost some friends. He was from Michigan originally and liked to tell me about how that was the headquarters for so many of our national chains. The craziest of us was this middle-aged woman with a broken arm. We all called her The Debutante, the way she wandered so lightly around, head tilted back over her tall, bony frame, nose to the stars that weren't there. At one point she threatened to kill the redhead. One day when I was sitting in the lounge she came in and sat across from me. I wasn't looking at her but I could feel her attention. “So you're one of those, too,” she said. After a pause I did look at her. “Some send and some receive,” she said. Then she smiled and left the room, leaving me here.

Dash's Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,
please don't take my
cheese,
no, no, no.
Don't eat the candle,
no, no, no.
Candle light up,
oh!

KC was singing “Jolene” this morning when Dash took over. From the “cheese” on, it's all him. Here's the original version by Dolly Patron:

Stumble through the hall

Stumble through the hall of morning's first moments. Familiar rumble outside from the construction across the street. Into and out of the bathroom. Into and out of the dream. Into and out of the thoughts that aren't there. There might have been a dream, sitting in a cell block, looking at a clock through iron bars. Some chubby guard with a dumb grin, fuzzy eyebrows, and big blue clothes. Big ol' Hollywood keychain hooked to his big black belt. Pacing the hall in his big black boots. Down into the morning, Vaughn at her desk in the kitchen, cranking out the multi-colored Play-Doh. Dash tottering between Vaughn and his mom as he learns how to walk. Magnets across the floor—an orange g, a green o—and tupperware and toy silverware, and toy-sized tins that either are or aren't toys I have no idea. Sometimes my guts want to give up and seep back into the earth. The little noises too much. The excesses, the effusions, the never enoughs. Vague and dizzy feelings cradling objects. "The sky / is a black / sudden cloud, / a sun. / Speak / to me, say / what things / were forgotten." (Creeley, from "The Shame")

bits

Sitting at the dining room table feeding Dash bits of peaches and whole wheat bread. Curtains drawn to shade the room. Vaughn seated at the chair behind me, working on a grilled cheese sandwich. She starts singing, "Higher, higher / the room's on fire." I ask her where she picked up that song. She says "It's from London." "From a movie?" I ask her, thinking Mary Poppins or something. "None movie," she says, "I made it up for you. And Dashiell-do."
      —•—
Took a book from the shelf, last night. Opened it to a little brown bug. Closed it back up and put it back on the shelf. Wonder what he's doing today.
      —•—
Vaughn at her desk in the kitchen, kneading a Play-Doh sky. The whistle of a truck blowing by outside, not quite as loud as summer's seething insects. Grumbling construction across the street. The rumbling stomach won't settle down.
      —•—
Vaughn: "Ow, the chair went on my toe. Ow!"
KC: "I'm sorry you got hurt, honey."
V: "Oh, when will I never get hurt, Mommy?"
K: "Unfortunately that's part of life, honey."
V: "When I die I'll never get hurt."
(Pause)
V: "Ow, I'm so saturated."
K: "Exasperated?"
V: "No, I'm so saturated."
K: "Saturated? You might say that if you were wet."
V: "No, I'm saturated that I'm hurt."

strange bug, etc.

Been a tough week for writing. Vaughn picked up some strange bug in Maine where she seems fine all day but wakes up in the middle of the night and throws up three or four times. Dash had it, too, the last night in Maine, and then he had, you know, that other digestive issue for most of this week. Took them both to the doctor Monday and the dr. said wait it out. Called him on Wednesday and he said call him back on Saturday if we need to. Dash did finally seem to be over it today, but if Vaughn yacks again tonight, it'll be off to the doctor again tomorrow.
      —•—
Tuesday night at work I got a call from KC saying it was our anniversary. Not your stereotypical wife-nagging-hub call. Nope, we both forget the day. Every year for four years so far. Probably something to do with being together for like seven years before that. Also maybe that we both primarily look at it as a good excuse to go out to eat. So today Meme watched the kids, and KC and I went out for lunch at the Cookhouse. KC had the lemon-butter grilled salmon, horseradish mashed potatoes, and coleslaw; I had the lemon-butter grilled salmon, horseradish mashed potatoes, and a salad. There's a reason we're together I guess. Conversation was mostly about the kids. KC mentioned a really interesting take, intertextual, on one of the Harry Potter characters (I haven't read the books at all; she tells me about them, then when the movie hits we check it out). She asked if I'd been writing political poems lately because the various notes she's seen around the house are mostly political. Not really, I tell her. No more than usual. Not as much as I'd like, perhaps. She told me how she tried some gelato they now have at the bakery on the green. We considered stopping there on our way home, but it was getting late, meaning close to the time I'd have to leave for work, and I wanted a little more time to spend with Vaughn. We'll go with her when she's feeling better. Back home, Meme, Vaughn, and I played a game of Crazy 8's that just wouldn't end. It went on so long, I ended up getting into work just on time: the latest I've gotten there in months. Vaughn won the game, just as KC was about to take my place.

Over the hills and into the spider

"Over the hills and into the spider," Vaughn says as she scribbles on her drawing pad. "Over the hills and into the spider," I repeat as I stop to stand behind her. "Don't tell my story," she instructs me, barely looking up from her little chair and table in the kitchen. In the living room, KC's holding Dash and swaying to "Sunday," borrowing from my bag of tricks. Out the dining room window I notice the mail truck is stopped at the neighbor's house past ours. It's still raining out. Our mailbox still has a hole. I walk back to my desk in the back room and sit down. Flip through Google News, then Google Reader. Vaughn skips into the back room. "Can we play a game?" she asks, then without waiting for an answer says, "I want to play Go Fish." "Sure," I say, "as soon as Mommy gets Dash asleep." We step quietly toward the living room and peak in. KC's already heading upstairs to set Dash down in his crib. Vaughn and I get out the set of card games Meme bought for her on vacation. KC heads out for this week's supplementary trip to the grocery store. Vaughn's favorite Fish card is the Pool Shark. She collects all four and we place them down next to her other sets. After she wins, we break out Crazy 8's. I shuffle up and deal, help Vaughn organize her cards, then organize mine. We both hold a Crazy 8 with a big, blue spider grinning at the five cards in his cartoon hands.

The Bridgewater Fair, 2007

                Vaughn showing Dash her new "tattoo"

Heading to the Bridgewater Fair, we have to drive like a mile-and-a-half around the fairgrounds to find the soccer field where we're supposed to park. When we finally get there we actually get a spot all the way up on the baseball field, right next to the pitcher's mound, nice and easy to remember. We unload our stuff, our kids, and head in the direction we saw others head. A woman calls out to us from a school bus: she's trying to fill more seats before shuttling folks right to the ticket booth. We think probably not, what with the stroller and all. KC asks her how far it is. "About a quarter mile," she says. I shake my head; we keep walking on. There are about a half dozen buses here—spewing their exhaust into the air because of a quarter mile? I shake my head. Eight bucks a pop for KC and me. Vaughn and Dash are free. "It smells like animals," Vaughn says. Smells like shit, I think. The first thing we see is an area roped off around some antique machines. One of them generates a mini waterfall. All of them spewing more exhaust into the air. "I'd rather smell the animals," KC says. We head over to the large white tent where the sheep are. Vaughn wants to see the black sheep. They're in the other aisle; we slowly make our way through the crowd. She says "Hi" to the black sheep, stares at them for a while. I wonder what the heck all the adults without children are doing here looking at the sheep. Make room for my kids you jerks. A sheep is bleating loudly. "I want to see the one whose baaing," she says. We follow the sound to end of the aisle. There's a white sheep being sheared. Face held still in some metal contraption. Beheheh, she bleats, mournfully, as if trying to reclaim whatever dignity she can.
      —•—
After the sheep, we head to the rabbit tent. But Vaughn's not too interested in the rabbits—she saw Uncle Joe's neighbor's two rabbits up close last week. Instead, the crowing of roosters at the other end draws her over there. We talk to a few of the roosters, but spend more time checking out the muscovy, and then listening to the very talkative African goose.
      —•—
We move on to another tent with a couple of large black horses, 1,600 pounders. They're busy eating and mostly we see their big behinds. On the other end of the tent is a small calf and a young bull. Vaughn takes to the cow, affectionately naming him Long Horns. I start to explain that the emblem on the hat I usually wear is for a college football team called the Longhorns, but I quickly realize that's much less interesting than the bull itself. And the next tent down is a whole long tent full of cows. She's really into the cows today.
      —•—
KC and Vaughn get a soft serve ice cream; we sit and they eat. Dash is good through all of this, taking in the scene, the crowds, the cooking smells, the exhaust smells, the carnival rides and game booths. Finally we head over to what was Vaughn's favorite activity last year at the fair: the sandboxes filled with dried-out corn. The boxes are crowded and Vaughn is shy. I point out places where she can squeeze in and start playing, but she's wary of the other kids. Finally, two girls, who look a bit old to be playing in corn, shake off and leave, and Vaughn gets in. She takes a shovel and fills a bucket, pats it smooth, then dumps it, and does it all over again. One boy gets really upset when his grandfather tells him it's time to go. The boy throws corn all over, flails his arms, has to be carried out. Later, a girl whose mother tells her it's time to go is met with screaming and violent whipping of the head back and forth. Vaughn won't be keen on leaving either. I think maybe they shouldn't have this attraction. I tell Vaughn we have to go soon. She says she doesn't want to. She has "finished" her most recent bucket filling. I tell her one more and then we're going. She scoops and fills, scoops and fills, and before too long smoothes out the top. She dumps it out, stands up, shakes off any pieces of corn caught in her dress, and reaches her hands up toward me. I picker her up and put her down where she can put her purple clogs back on. We head out with KC and Dash toward the women's room.
      —•—
One more thing to do before we go. We wander around and finally find the face and arm painting place. Most of the designs cost $2 or $3. Vaughn picks out the Little Mermaid, which is $7. KC talks her out of that. Vaughn's next choice is a unicorn, also $7. Lucky for us, Vaughn sees a heart in the $2 section, and she decides that's what she really wants. When the heart's dried on her arm, Vaughn asks us not to wash it out tonight. We tell her if she stays clean, we can do a sponge bath tonight and make sure the heart doesn't wash away.
      —•—
On our way out, Vaughn and KC cut through the tent where Long Horns is kept so Vaughn can say goodbye.

The eye bends the

The eye bends the horizon to see it. Nearly bereft of objects, the horizon, old professor, is not--not quite--a straight line. Long-bow horizon, arrow eye. A lighthouse to the periphery north at the end of a sleeping spine of rocks. Masts, dendrites, or a bit of spider web stuck in a corner. Sand-whipping wind over the beach late morning. Feet anchored below the ankles in the shallow surf, I hold Dash's hatted head close to my chest. The looking's slow, slow as words creeping through, into. Ocean sky. What's that? A kiss. KC lifts Vaughn by the arms to help her jump the waves. Colleen with Antonio, reckless boy, smashing the water with his three-year-old feet and shins. Rob's shaved head like a second sun against the dark marine: he seems to be the only one on this stretch of beach fully in the ocean, swimming this windy almost-chilly morning. Vaughn has fun until an almost-big wave surprises her and she decides she's had enough. There's a middle-aged couple playing bocce ball; and a very young couple, twenty yards apart, tossing a football; a father digging a big ol' hole, it's up to his waist, for his son with people gathered around; J.J. building a mountain of a sand castle complete with moat. Vaughn runs far ahead of us, eager to tell Meme about the water. A couple of women, older, cross in front of KC and me; they're watching Vaughn, smiling. As we get near our spot on the beach, I see beyond us in the rougher sand, another little girl and her parents walking among a dozen or so ring-billed gulls. The girl is trying to give them something; I don't think it's food. A shell? A rock? I look around and realize there are almost as many gulls as people here today. I hand Dash to KC. Not far to my right, a gull, disappointed that whatever he just pecked at wasn't food, keeps moving along: An eye on the ground, an eye on me; an eye on the ground, an eye on me. Vaughn leaves with Meme to collect shells and rocks. KC nurses Dash in Colleen and Rob's tent. I don't consider it odd that Dash's bathing suit and swimmy diaper have left my T-shirt wet even though he didn't go in the water. It's just a wetness that I'm sitting with, like sun screen, as I stare out at the browns and greens and whites and blues. Objects, I guess. Words? Mmm.

Drove the night

Drove the night to Maine. Rainbow north of I-84 just past Hartford. Old Testament longings, belongings--what Vaughn packed in her frog backpack that we let her pack for herself: fuzzy yellow weed flower, shrivelled; Jakers coloring book & fresh pack of Crayola crayons; her orange calculator; her frog calculator; yellow fork from her plastic kitchenette set; address book/notepad; small, rainbow-colored basketball; little sheep figurine; two post-its with "notes" on them; Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds, which I hadn't realized she packed when I said "Oh, we should have brought the bird book." Light traffic, cruising just above sea level, eighty-five under tunnels, over bridges (50+% chance of faultiness) into sunshower, a small mass of dark clouds displace the earlier backlit clouds--old cellulite of clouds on the horizon. Stop at Old Sturbridge to pee, stretch back, snack on granola bars and raisins, gulp bottled water under moving clouds, then quick back on the road, into the night. A couple hours into this trip and kids strangely still awake when a half-hour drive's enough to knock them out. Through the road construction, bumpy surface, glump-glump tires, high road noise of the Civic, lane shifts ahead just around the bend, Dash throws up, "Projectile vomit," KC says, keeping an eye on him as I slow to sixty and get over to the right lane in case we need a quick exit from this shoulderless stretch. Sour milk smell fills the car, we lower the windows, pushing on--O puddle of puke. We pull off into the next rest stop. Vaughn's finally conked out. KC and I clean the car seat with baby wipes, but we know there'll be no ridding of the smell tonight. Light sleeper like his mom, gets carsick like his mom. Just hope he keeps eating his veggies like his mom, not like me and Vaughn. Long second stretch of the ride up into Maine, Dash's whimpers alternating with his quick loud little noises, punctuating silences. O hour of nothing with your black trees, heavy lights, and heavier eyelids. Wipers on, wipers off; wipers on, wipers off. The exits in Connecticut come one right after the other but not here in Maine. Finally, we reach the exit we need, take a few turns until we're on the Post Road and find the condos where we'll be staying. Meme and Aunt Colleen are waiting for us. No parking spaces open; they say "OK to park on the grass." Vaughn wakes up and Meme carries her inside. Vaughn bounces up and down on the air mattress on the floor. We say "Quiet, your cousins are sleeping." Dash crawls all over the mattress getting himself briefly stuck under the coffee table pushed against the wall. It takes a while but finally everyone settles down. I start off on the sofa; KC, Vaughn, and Dash on the mattress. But Vaughn wants me next to her so I try the floor, and soon I'm squeezing onto the mattress. Dash gets his third or fourth wind and starts crawling all over the place again. Vaughn wants me to get between them so I move inside and she slides to the end. Then Dash crawls over me and KC follows him and I end up on the other end. Dash keeps bopping everyone on the head and laughing so KC moves up to the sofa with him, leaving Vaughn and me on the mattress. We decide to play rock-scissors-paper. We can barely see so we have to push our hands together to see who wins. We play the best of seven. I take the first "throw" with rock-breaks-scissors. The second throw is a paper-paper tie. After that Vaughn wins the next four throws doing something she had never done before: changing her throw each time. "Let's play word association," she says, and so we do. "Dog," I say; "song," she says. "Moon," I say; "flower," she says. "Sun," I say; "rain," she says. "Cloud," I say; "rain," she says. "Seagull," I say; "cardinal," she says. After this, the game devolves into nonsense syllables I can't quite recall. Soon we are tossing and turning ourselves to sleep on the lumpy air mattress. I wake up frequently with dreams I think I'll recall in the morning but of course I won't. I remember only the one bit of a dream where I was with my family in some kind of lodge with a deck out back and a sliding glass door, and pacing out there was Jordan Davis, someone I've never met and only know of as one of the editors of The Hat and someone who who written some poems I’ve enjoyed, and anyway he's out there, looking like D.H. Lawrence, wanting to kill me, but only in a nonchalant "maybe I will, maybe I wont" kind of way.

In front of the peach trees

In front of the peach trees in our front yard, Vaughn runs long looping "circles" around KC. It feels like a silent movie as I watch them from the living room, holding Dash up on the sofa so he can watch them, too. The late afternoon sun has softened, and the humidity, perhaps. Behind me the roar of a TV crowd: Tiger Woods has nailed a put for birdie, giving him a commanding five-stroke lead, well on his way to winning his thirteenth major. Hard to disagree with excellence in sports. The peach trees look heavy, almost tired of standing, longing, perhaps, for someone with proper pruning know-how. They're not there for the fruit, but for the shade and the privacy they're not really great at offering. Even on the downside of a lazy Sunday, the cars, SUVs mostly, buzz by at regular intervals. Tired of watching KC and Vaughn, Dash turns and reaches for me with his drool-webbed hands. Lets out one of his happy Hehs as I scoop him up. We wander into the dining room, where I look down at the table. Time is open to a picture of Mia Farrow; she has volunteered "to trade places with Darfur rebel Suleiman Jamous, who has been under virtual arrest at a U.N. hospital for more than 13 months. The Sudanese government has threatened to arrest Jamous if he leaves the building's confines." Dash gets bored as I stand there reading. He pushes a hand in my face. So I walk around the house. The world's sick and I'm part of the disease. My ill effects are in Iraq. Regular people's bodies blown apart every day. For a scam? Dash shoves his wet hand in my face again—Ok, ok, I'll put you down. He crawls over to the seed crate where the Duplo blocks are stored, starts taking them out, looks up at me. It's fine I say by walking to the sofa and slumping into the seat. Nearly 200,000 firearms gone missing in Iraq? And this after admitting 300,000 barrels of oil per day had done the same? And, as The Daily Show pointed out, after 380 tons of explosives and $12 billion of tax-payer money had also disappeared? Too much incompetence to be believed. The sham war's a scam, too. When will it end? A trick question. The war never ends: it turns into something else. "We are disease," an old friend once wrote, "communicable in all the wrong ways." Dash keeps taking out the Duplo blocks and tossing them every which way. Tiger Woods is down to a two-stroke lead, but he looks as in command as ever. CBS shows a clip of his wife in the clubhouse holding their two-month old daughter. Vaughn clomps up the porch stairs outside, soon she and her mom are coming into the house. Dash forgets the Duplo blocks and scrambles for KC's legs. Vaughn runs over to show me a leaf she found. "It's red," I say. "And yellow! and green! and brown! and pink!" she says, then rushes off into the kitchen to store it who knows where. Alone in the living room, I stare at the overhead view of the golf course on TV. Clashing shades of green. Can't prove a negative, yet here I am, blank lines where words should be. Tiger's back up to a three-stroke lead, about to win his thirteenth major. Only 31. Can't disagree with excellence in sports.

Up at the cry

Up at the cry of dawn. The grownup groan responds to. Discrete moments of consciousness. In and out. What are the days but shiftings between such things? Vague as the sky is clear. Quick as the eye is slow. A robin whistling solo over the little rhythm of a sucking mouth. KC nursing Dash beside me. Stray little noises, chirps. Wholesome as salad. Warm as a cotton ball. I curl into the small of KC's back. Disappear again.

Vaughn and Dash splash

Vaughn and Dash splashing in the wading pool on the front porch. KC watching over them, sitting in one of the green plastic chairs we bought years ago for the Brookfield apartment. I sit on the other side of the living room's east windows, away from the allergens outside, reclined in our home's conditioned air. Feet up on the ottoman, I read slowly Hoa Nguyen's Red Juice, lingering over the words—"like some food / to nurse / a book" and "the blue blaze of watery Earth"—though partly it's that my eyes are moving sluggishly because I'm fighting a headache for the eighth day in a row. Too much time staring at monitor screens? Or do I need new eyeglasses? Hope it's one of those and not something else. "Wore a Hemp Hat" lists some potential baby names. It makes me think of a few of the names on our list we didn't use: Auden (too soft or too trendy), Parker (if we had had another girl), Creeley (if we weren't Keeneys). I struggle through the brain-throbbing skull-pounding for a few more pages of the finely-made chapbook, then give up. Pull off my glasses, set them down on the seed crate, toss a pillow on the floor, and lie down. No sooner do I close my eyes, there's a rattling of the doorknob at the front door. The door flings open and Vaughn rushes in, "Got to go potty," she yells as she rushes through the living room and into the bathroom, where she struggles to take down her water-soaked skirt and underwear. "I need help, Daddy." I get up to help her, ask her if she wet herself at all. But no, it's all wading-pool water. Normally she plays in the wading pool with nothing on—must have wanted to go for something different this evening. While she pees, I lean my forehead against the doorframe of the bathroom. Close my eyes for a few seconds. Vaughn asks for help pulling her soaked skirt and underwear back up, tells me she's going back out. She washes her hands as I fetch her an animal cracker. "Thank you," she says as she takes it, puts it in her mouth and heads to the door. I open it for her. Poke my head out and see Dash still splashing under KC's watchful eyes. Everyone smiling. I close the door and lie back down on the floor, wondering when the Tylenol will start to work.

Woken up before ready

Woken up before ready to wake. Woken up by small voices, then a Harley rumbling by outside. Step downstairs, into the morning routine, Heart to Heart and Silk. News is horror stories of the bridge collapsed over the Mississippi River. Reactions here and abroad to Barack Obama's "tough talk," meaning air strike talk, regarding terrorists hiding out in Pakistan. I don't believe Obama's really likely to approve bombing, but any candidate with a realistic shot at being the next president has to prove himself to be "tough enough" for macho-wacko middle America. Pacifists are pussies. August 4, 2007: if he hadn't drowned so young, Shelley would be 215 today. And atheists have no morals. The good people of the U.S. of A. love their morals. Through the south windows, see the morning sky's already bright and even the leaves on the maple trees look lazy from the humidity, under the broad thumb of sunlight. Vaughn is after me to "play something," to "stop typing on [my] computer." I'm checking out typographica.org's favorite fonts of 2006, but Vaughn's getting restless and I don't want to ignore her anymore, so I wander into the living room. A wasp shadow bounces against the curtain as the wasp bounces against the window outside. I sit down with Vaughn and my mug of black tea, finally. We take out the United States puzzle from a shelf in the TV cabinet. Is it yesterday or today? She places Texas with its cowboy hat and boots and yellow star. I ask her for the state with an eagle on it and she correctly hands me Minnesota. KC comes in from outside where she was watering the plants. I get up and bring my empty mug to the kitchen sink. Vaughn announces that mommy has brought in strawberries from the front yard. A fresh, hose-rinsed snack for Vaughn. KC goes upstairs and I sit back down to our puzzle. Before long we have it completed, except for Pennsylvania. "Where in the world can Pennsylvania be?" I ask. And Vaughn sings the question over and over, drawing out "beeeeee," as we wander from room to room, wandering through the same three-and-a-half rooms. We look under the furniture and we look on top of everything, searching low, searching high. Vaughn asks if maybe the Pennsylvania piece walked outside over night. "I don't think so," I say. A new wasp shadow bounces against the curtain in the living room. Finally I suppose maybe the piece did leave in search of the real Pennsylvania, where it would set itself down, like a flat little jar. Vaughn picks up the football from the wicker basket near the door, says "Let's play that game where you say 'It's my ball, it's my ball,' and you try to get it from me." I crouch like a linebacker with poor technique and snarl at her all silly like. "I'm going to hold the ball like Tiki Barber," she says, "like you taught me." But we won't completely forget the puzzle piece any time soon. We'll look for it again later. And we'll look for it today, which was tomorrow. And we'll look for it tomorrow. And many tomorrows more.

At the familiar

At the familiar task of cradling Dash and swaying, trying to sway him into morning nap. Vaughn gone to the bank with Meme; KC drying her hair; all of us immersed in the morning routine. Sonic Youth on the stereo, "Wildflower Soul," as the words—heard or misheard—sway in mind, arrange themselves.

                        See-through child eyes
                        as old as magic
                        spinning gold
                        leaves fall in
                        to the water

Dash's head rests against my chest, softly placed under my shoulder blade. We move toward the window by the front door. The American flags that dot the neighbor's fence point to the ground. Drooping, staring down. Tired of wars. Tired of the word war. Empty rhetoric of wars against abstractions, as if abstractions could be eliminated. As if wars weren't waged against lives. As if innocents were casualties rarely or never at all. KC steps down the stairs; Dash lifts his head just enough to notice her. He won't be napping now. KC takes him and I head upstairs; my turn to shower. Turning light and water on to shave, I think of my depression-era grandmother, Mary (Messina) Keeney. How she lived detesting the slightest bit of waste, whether a single drop of water or the last bit of creamy Italian dressing in the container. Though the disposable container itself wasn't recognized as waste. Remember the excesses of the 80s when my step-father's extremism about lights being left on around the house seemed like an anachronism. Remember seeing Long Day's Journey into Night with my Aunt Marie and Uncle Sebbie. The father in the play with his obsessiveness about shutting off the lights around the house. How my Uncle had remarked what a different way of life we have now. Didn't seem so different to me, but I understood his point, how it was right at the time. But now we've gone forward into the past. Judicious use of lighting. Turn it off when you're not in the room. What we pay for water. What we pay for power. After shaving I switched off the lights before switching on the fan and stepping into the shower. Now I stand pushing the last drops of shampoo into my hair over my scalp. Suds like words pushed from a mind into a mouth. How needfully thoughts get silently worded. How subtly words get tongue-slapped into being.

Lightning splits the sky

Lightning splits the sky, crash lands behind the mountains on the horizon as we drive back from Ridgefield where we spent the day with relatives at the house KC's sister's housesitting. Long, skinny road leading to a long, skinny driveway, heavily shaded by trees tall enough that you nearly have to cock your head back all the way parallel to the ground to see their tops. KC said I would like the seclusion and, yeah, it's not bad. Vaughn gets to spend twenty minutes or so in the pool before it starts to thunder. Swims the length of the pool a few times, with the help of floaties. She already swims better than her old man. And that's not that much of a lie. She joins Papa and me in what I would probably call a den, harking back to an earlier time, but what seems to be universally referred to as a family room. We catch the end of a show on Animal Planet, some tanned, brave soul helping to save the elephants of Borneo. I'm holding Dash to keep him away from pulling on the dogs' tails while KC helps her sister with preparing supper. It's not long before Dash is about to doze off. I walk him around and check out the art on these strangers' walls. It's almost all abstract. There's something off, I think, with likening poetry to visual art when talking about its reception or the expectations of its audience, and how much more radical visual art is allowed to be. With so much contemporary poetry, the reader is expected to have a familiarity with the last fifty or so years of literary theory. As often as not it's all the reader is given, no flotation devices to strap around the arms. The art viewer doesn't need to rely on theory, doesn't need to take a stand, interpret or otherwise engage the work, all the viewer needs is to be struck by the piece, some quality of the piece, and have sufficient cash to purchase it or a print. Art and music don't invite scholars exclusively, so why should poetry? Not that poets should be making poems for those who don't like it. But it should be clear to anyone who steps outside of the insular nooks of the poetry world for even a short time that something is wrong with the way many poems are made these days. Even more wrong are the mechanisms, the industries, around the poems. We have burgers and hot dogs and pasta salad, and a special dessert, one-bowl chocolate cake, made by KC and Vaughn in the morning. Everyone loves it, except Vaughn; she likes it, but prefers the chocolate chip cookie Auntie Joss gives her. We stay long enough so that Vaughn can help feed the two dogs, scooping the dry food, and then the wet food, into their big ol' steel bowls. And then we pack up and head home, not realizing till we get there that we forgot the leftovers we were going to take. Driving north on 35, KC tells me about a house she knows in Ridgefield she wouldn't mind owning one day. If we could. I shake my head. "I don't want to live in Ridgefield," I say. "I used to have negative associations," she says, "but it's really nice. If we had a windfall," she says. "I don't want to live in Ridgefield," I say. We merge onto I-84 in Danbury, rain pouring down on the windshield, broad flashes of lightning lighting up the dark sky. "I like Washington," I say, "if we ever have a windfall." She knows this already. "Washington—or maybe Kent." She doesn't say anything, but places her left hand on my right, which I don't regard until now when I'm writing this down.

Constantly reoccurring

Constantly reoccurring sound of cars surging by outside. Hounding sound of morning breaking sleep, not unlike the cracks of sunlight through the vinyl mini-blinds, sound and light breaking sleep open. Half-reluctantly I kick the sheets off, stand up, and half-stumble to the toilet bowl, lift the seat, aim, and shut eyes for not a long while. Step downstairs, into the morning routine. Heart to Heart and Silk, read the headlines—news helicopters crash while following a car chase in Arizona, a suicide bomber is sought in Pakistan, a dubiously convicted man is executed (twenty-seven years later) in Alabama. KC upstairs getting Dash to sleep, Vaughn insists on playing. I pour hot water for tea, let it steep, sit down with Vaughn to play Candy Land. She asks me, "Which one do you want to be: blue or red?" "I'll be blue," I say. "I go first," she says, which is true, the rules clearly state the youngest player starts. She gets sad when I land on the Rainbow Trail shortcut. "I never get to take the Rainbow Trail," she whimpers. I remind her that she's landed on Gumdrop Pass many times, but she insists she "never gets to land on the shortcuts anymore." "I want to win," she says. And she will, as she always does when we play, except for a couple of times when she was happy not to win, preferring instead to hang out around Peanut Acres or Lollipop Woods. Game over, back sore from sitting on the floor, tell Vaughn I need a break, let me finish my tea. But she wants to play something else. Sitting on the sofa in the living room back to the east-side of the house, I see all the way across our main floor, to the back room, Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds facing out on one of my bookshelves. I point to it and ask Vaughn if she remember the three birds on the front cover. Excited she runs over, grabs the book and brings it over to me. "Read all the names of all the birds," she says. I ask her to first identify the ones on the cover. She knows the Cardinal, that's a given, doesn't remember the ones we learned last time—the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and the Evening Grosbeak. When we get to the Great Auk she remember this is the one that "has extinct." And when we get to the Carolina Parakeet and the Passenger Pigeon which appear on consecutive spreads (I typed "spears" at first), she asks if they're the only ones that have extinct—for each one she says "has extinct," I tell her "is extinct, is extinct," she says "ok, is extinct," but then goes back to "has extinct" next time she says it—I tell her they're the only ones in this book, but there are other birds that are no more. "Which ones?" she asks, and I pause a moment before at least one comes to my still sleepy mind, "the Dodo bird," I say. KC comes downstairs, dressed for the day, tells Vaughn it's time for her to do the same. They'll be heading downtown for the Village Fair Days. I'll be staying home with Dash who sorely needs his nap. Vaughn rushes around to get ready. I bring my empty mug to the sink.

Parts of the vacuum

Parts of the vacuum scattered about the house like pieces of Osiris. One attachment in the half-bath. Another between my office chair and a crate stuffed with old literary journals in the back room. The body of it down in the basement under the utility sink. The smaller attachments also in the basement shoved back on the low shelf of KC's old computer desk. Dash upstairs in his white crib sleeping his light sleep. Can't start the chore yet. Vaughn just picked up by Nana. They'll do lunch then spend the afternoon painting and working on crafts. Earlier, KC at the grocery store, Vaughn and I built separate towers with the Duplo blocks. A green home for the penguins, Chalk and Dot; a blue home for one Little Boy; a red home for the other; a yellow home for Sea Lion. Poor "Little Guy" missing and we didn't even notice. The Little Boys drove their red and blue cars. Went hiking Litchfield hills. Tea with Sea Lion. Checked out the cars at the Penguin place. Hit the grocery store, picked up milk and ice cream, hot dogs, hamburgers, and buns. Went back to the red house and grilled themselves some lunch. I took a break to use the potty Vaughn didn't need to, then I got some water, came back. Vaughn was watching out the window for Nana. Playing our "We're not waiting for you, you're just a stranger" game every time a car not hers drives by. But it's KC's white Saturn that pulls into the driveway. Vaughn runs to the side door. Vaughn startles her as KC pushes open the slightly-jammed door. We're there to help carry the groceries in. KC's thankful. Flurry of activity. Milks to the fridge; vegetables, too. Meat for the freezer and ice cream cones, mmm for the cabinet. Soon Nana arrives to pickup Vaughn. Hugs and kisses goodbye. Vaughn won't leave anymore without them. After a few moments of looking around, remembering the dust bunnies and tangled strands of cat hair on the floor near or under the furniture when Vaughn and I were gathering up the blocks to build with, I ask KC where the vacuum is. "All over the place," she says.

I bring my empty mug

I bring my empty mug to the kitchen sink. Through the dining room where Vaughn is eating raisins and cranberries and coloring with crayons of those same colors—purples, maroons, a deep crackling red. Soft beige light reflecting off the neighbor's vinyl siding and shining in through the north-side windows over the kitchen sink where KC is washing a plate or peeling a food. I stop beside her. She is focused on the task in hand, or more likely exhausted from baby-interrupted sleep. The whale clock ticks on the window sill. Full-nostrilled clementine smell as I lean in to kiss the Manneristic curve of the left side of her neck.

Hunter green surface

Hunter green surface of the Housatonic River. Sun not so bright on the water for some reason on this clear day. Driving south on Grove Street. Look to the other side of the street, rows of trees, rows of heavy green shade. Some guy wants to build a couple-hundred condo units on the hillside. And a convenience store. And a restaurant on the river. Makes me want to hurl the fried turkey patties, eggs, roasted potatoes and carrots I had for lunch. Not "want to," of course. Is it a privilege to want? I turn left up onto Pumpkin Hill. Good god: when's the Suburban on my Civic ass going to realize I'm not driving through the little Subaru in front me? It makes the ride that it makes the ride that much makes the ride much longer into work. I get a kick when at the stop sign I turn right onto Ironworks and the Suburban speeds straight ahead on Long Meadow, right onto the Subaru's ass as if he really didn't see the Subaru the whole time. What an ass. Driving means a lot of ass. Jesus rode an ass. I remember in third—or was it fourth?—grade when me and my friends discovered the Bible used the word ass. We went around for weeks saying ass this and ass that because "it says ass in the Bible." Proto-South Park we were. Tuning out the priest and into our stupid joys. But there's nothing on the radio for most of the drive. I settle for The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter," for the last minute or so. KC's favorite Stones' song. I can never remember what mine is. It used to be "Paint It Black," but I outgrew that. "Sympathy for the Devil?" Maybe. I liked the Jane's cover a lot. Who knows? The ride started so promisingly with the hunter green surface of the Housatonic River surprisingly not shining. But even after I shook that Suburban from my Civic ass, I noticed nothing. What the heck did I think about? I take off my sunglasses, put on my eyeglasses, grab my supper bag, and head into work. "Hey" and "Hi" and "How's it going?" Computer booting up; I am shutting down.