Quarter of a million words
In any dictionary here
Three that you sometimes heard
In your city of birds
Larks and doves of song, fear
Quarter of a million words
The first, the second, the third—
Words we held like cards, my dear
Three that I sometimes heard
I recall it all: red dog, furred,
Flannel warmth, listening ear
Quarter of a million words
Were those three too soft, too slurred?
Too infrequent? Sweet, but sheer?
Three that we sometimes heard
I would give my heart: one word
To heal, to mend. One: strong, clear.
Quarter of a million words
Three that we sometimes heard

On the 4th of July, a stray dog was brought into the Brooklyn Center for Animal Care and Control. She had escaped from a burning building. The pads on her feet were burned off completely, her fur was singed all over, and she was covered in lacerations. No collar.

No one came forward for her.

Email came in from Nanette, dog rescue queen and friend of mine. She had seen this little girl’s face, and thought of our little family, our love of underdogs. Did we want to pull her before they euthanized her?

Those eyes told me all I needed to know. Those eyes, and the fact that she’d been nothing but sweet and gentle with everyone who had to treat her painful wounds.

Yes. Yes, we did, we would.

And yes, we did.

Meet Fanny, whose July 2010 has been pretty appalling. Burns, lacerations, no home, almost put down, reeking of soot, got kennel cough, wound up in a kind halfway home for dogs waiting for their real homes (thank you, Lawanna), got spayed, then onto a transport headed to New England. This little girl has been through the ringer. Her back is pretty mangled, as if she might have crawled through a broken window:

Sophie went with me yesterday to the Bennington Friendly’s parking lot, where we scooped up Fanny and her friend Molly from the transport van. Molly will be fostered by Sophie’s best friend’s family.

We were technically a “foster-to-adopt” family. Yeah.

A little more than 24 hours later, and we are never letting go of Fanny girl. Some things are just meant to be. I’m going to stop asking why.

Caught myself smiling.
To think I thought forty was
an end. Shame on me.

Skull of squirrel, shorn bare, bloodless. Pale bone
against concrete steps. An offering? Hex?
I move the fragile skull to porch. Atone.
I cast other things aside, but won’t vex

the soul—animal or human—who left
this as totem or taboo. Thus I learn,
inspecting sharp fang, the delicate heft,
barely there. Yet I can clearly discern

the what-was: cracked nutshells, two frightened eyes.
The girls want no part of this ghost. One glance,
and they flee inside. I bid you to rise,
rejoin your body, bite, show me the dance

that led you here as omen—or null set.
I never meant you harm, my dear, my pet.

for HB

Click here to be magically transported by sparkly single-mother unicorns.

For those of you who couldn’t make it:

This just in from my dear Kelly at The Reading Nest. Thank you, Kelly and ZenMaster B! Such a beautiful night that was. Beautifully, beautifully unlikely, indeed.

WWHOHD?

What would Hestia or Hera do?

Oh, these H-gals are on ON MY MIND. It turns out that Hestia, not Hera, is the goddess of hearth and home. Hera is the goddess of marriage, motherhood, children. But I am grooving hard on both of these goddesses, at the moment.

I realize I have not cleaned the cat litter box for some time. Some kitty litter is scattered beside it, and the trail extends into the hallway outside the bathroom. I swallow the unpleasant conclusion: Eli has been, er, helping me keep it clean. Ugh. Clearly, I am no goddess of the hearth and home—not yet—although I love home with a passion, and I pine for a hearth with the fervor of Hestia. I yearn for a lasting marriage like Hera, even with a husband that tosses a lightning bolt now and then.

After a scary start to the beginning of 2010, my health is under control now. Now I want to change that ‘l’ to an ‘r’. I want me some hearthy goodness, stat.

My mom dispatched a friend of hers to help me with the air conditioners yesterday, after I nearly careened down the front porch roof on my stomach, chasing a runaway AC unit I tried to install myself. I managed to drag the unit and myself back through the bedroom window, but not without scraping up my decolletage and yelling bloody murder for the entire neighborhood to hear.

As mom’s pal put in a new electrical outlet (whaaaa? really? it’s that easy? would you like me to do you now? bed or floor?) so Sophie’s air conditioner could be plugged in correctly (too hard to explain coherently), I again had that intense urge to bake or knit some gratitude for the guy. Bring him a dirty martini on a silver tray. Sew him a monogrammed hankie with a Jesus fish on it. (He is a God-fearin’ man, with a God-fearin’ wife at home to do these things for him, but still.)

You know things are changing for me if I am having intense urges to bake or knit or sew, or use a cocktail shaker. Well, maybe the cocktail shaker reverie is nothing new. I just don’t have one.

If Women’s Studies 101 was all about women’s choices, then my liberal education was perhaps not lost on me. I am simply entering a new phase of life that happens, on the surface, to resemble the 1950s. But my innards are totally 2010, full of dark smarts and bloody wisdom.

As I was on my belly on the roof two days ago, clutching the tail of the air conditioner—swearing like a beached sailor whose ship is disappearing into the distance—I realized I was idiotically willing to go down with the air conditioner, skull first, before I let go of it. I was not going to be That Woman: the woman who, without the assistance of a husband’s biceps, loses the air conditioner and dents the roof of her car with it, spectacularly.

I needed help, I really did. And I pretty much suck at asking for help. See: Exhibit A, Friends Who Can Attest to My Hermetic Existence When the Going Gets Rough.

I want a partner in this life, for the rest of my days, because that is how I roll. Like the German shepherds I’m so crazy about, I’m a one-person creature, at heart. My inner circle of friends is small, tight, loyal. Most of them are one-person creatures too, and they don’t judge. I have never been a socialite. I can stretch myself, sometimes, but it will never be my way.

I am tired of worrying about creative success, financial success. I am tired of worrying about books that never seem to get written, or—once written—never get published. I am tired of query letters. I am tired of trying to drum up freelance writing and editing work. I am tired of my successful-enough (except for air conditioner installments) independentish single life.

I want to make crazy swinging-from-the-ceiling love to a sweaty, grinning husband who’s just mowed the lawn, just weed-whacked our property into tiptop shape, and re-entered our home through the new back door he installed. I want to bake brownies for him and the kids, from scratch. I want to buy one of those little torchie things and caramelize the top of a creme brulee for him, for his birthday. I want to knit him warm Icelandic wool hats that I line lovingly with fleece. I want to clean toilets, I want to keep track of our social calendar, I want to mend tears before they turn into rips. I want to research the difference between lemon oil and Murphy’s oil soap. I want to help with the family business, whatever that might be. I want to send Christmas cards and birthday cards, on time. I want to plan wonderful trips that end with us sighing and happy to be back home, framing and hanging photos of our adventures on freshly painted walls. I want to do laundry for days, listening to love songs, humming dreamily, writing poems in my head, while all my former dreams of grandeur and fame fly away like dark birds and disappear into trees. I want to immerse myself in a warm, milky bath of gorgeously outdated gender roles. I allow myself these fantasies, now.

At 40, I will dream what I want, without fear of chastisement or scorn. Nobody went around dissing Hera or Hestia. Uh-uh. Hellz, no.

I want to wake up with someone again. More days than not. When the dog barks at something in the backyard at 3 a.m., I want someone with me when I go to investigate. The people who have truly seen me, really seen me in this lifetime, are for the most part the ones I’ve woken up with, gone to bed with, snuggled for hours. Sex is fun and fine, sure, but real intimacy lies in listening to someone’s slow, sweet breathing as he falls asleep beside me.

I am Hestia. The pumpkin bread is on the counter. All yours, honey.

I am Hera, hear me roar. Put away your lightning bolts, and let’s play.

But first, excuse me while I polish the banister.

I dream of reunion.
Always and forever, I dream
of reunion, all that has been
lost becoming found.

At least, I dream of the
seeking. I rarely find what
I am looking for. I fear
this still, in my vertical,
blinking life.

Last night, I sought you.
You, who would never
expect a starring role
in these dreams—
not anymore,
not after so long.

I imagine you would smile
with some satisfaction,
reading this, if you thought
you’d spotted yourself, the
flash of your own bright
teeth, your emerald gaze.

I sought you in last night’s
darkness, I tried to make
you understand. I slowed you
long enough to consider, to
consider this, consider us,
consider what was and what
could be, instead.

Not unlike what I did, then.
And again, later in life.
Others. I have a way. I wish
I had a different way. I am
still learning. You have heard.

There were others,
had been others, for you, for me.
Pale blonde hair, yours, the
sun-bleached savannah
of which we’d joked,
once, many times.

You were surprised by
my others, in the dream.
Yet just when I despaired,
you grinned.

You reached for me,
reached for me as if
you had known all along
it would all be all right.

But, see, old love of mine,
it was not all right. Our
watches were out of sync.
Even in a dream. Know I
tried to stay with you.

But I could not help it.
Nothing for it.
I slipped from you,
into morning and
aqua sheets.

We did not ripen, sweeten,
side by side on the good vine.
Different vintages, but good.
Good, once. A good pair,
while we were. No better
word presents itself. Good.

Thank you for that. Thank you
for what I remember and for
what I don’t. I sip of you, still,
sometimes, and am grateful.

4:26 a.m. I am mired here: the same wanting,
wanting happiness at no one’s expense.

Impossible.

9:32 p.m.:
What is a heartbreaker?
S wanted to know,
days ago.

I said it was a word that people
used when they were being lazy, when they
refused to step outside of themselves, when
they stopped asking why might he and why
might she. That love is love and hearts are
bound to break.

Did anybody ever call you a heartbreaker?
she asked.

Probably, it has probably happened.
Blame is easy, I told her. It takes courage to
trace steps that lead to oneself and not away.
I never give my love without wanting to be the best
person I can be. It’s a tricky balance, looking out
for yourself and someone else at the same time.

She nodded.

Love can hurt, even when everyone plays
fair enough. She can see that in her
mother’s eyes.

4:26 a.m. Conversations, hours upon hours,
of what should have been said before, to
others, to ourselves. Yes.

You, hey, you there,
4:26 a.m. you,
you are more
evolved than I.

You say you are not cocky,
but I have made a life and
saved a life by reading faces
the way some people read
palms. I know me some
cocky, sometimes:
the hard uptilt of a jaw,
the slippery slope of intellect,
curling at the corner of a full,
set mouth.

You are patient. I am impatient
with your patience, because I
cannot say what I mean, not
yet, not like this.

We muddle, we grope for the
right words, gather them damply
from the miles and miles of paths
that have led us to This Here, we
offer them up in upturned palms,
pick through our abominations,
the necessary foolishnesses that
have led us to this.

4:26 a.m. You are not here but
you are. You linger as if you spent
the day here, in this bed, though
of course you did not. I could not
find the words tonight, only the
tears. The child me, she was too close
to the surface tonight, pricked her
finger on the edge of your worry,
the worry over my worry.

4:26 a.m., and all I can do
is send you something that
fits, something I hope will
keep you warm, someday.

I would tell you I know,
really know,
and I would not be lying.

I hope you would not find me
presumptious, precious. It is
messy inside this head and
this heart. You have seen
the chaos of the evidence:
the metaphor.

You have not seen the cellulite,
the crooked teeth, the wracked
sobbing, the fear, the pills—
some things do not travel
as well as others.
FDA regulations do not
permit reality in checked
or hand luggage.

I want to squeeze your hand.
I want to tell you I know about
two-sided coins, fine print, good
intentions, cracked glass, what-ifs.

I have driven this far in life
squinting more often than not
into the rear-view mirror,
moving forward only
in reverse.

I am circling my vehicle now,
climbing back inside. I have
removed the rear-view mirror,
discarded it on the side of
the new road. Animals will
marvel.

There is only so
much hindsight that
one can bear. I have
died of hindsight and
come back to tell.

You understand I am writing
to you. The rose. The pearl.
The moon. A shared ours:
The tides that we pull to us, hard
and fast and sure, then release
with shaking hands. Yes.
Saltwater is ours. No one
can tell me otherwise.

No one ever taught me this:
simple catch-and-release. You?
I envy those who pretend to know
the skill, those who swagger
away from their once-was,
no furtive glance over
a scraped, bloody shoulder.

Catch me looking. It’s all right.
I will catch you looking. We can
catch each other looking. I trust
those who share their lives
with a few ghosts.

I want happiness at no one’s
expense. Joy happens when we
are not paying attention to who’s
picking up the tab. I want it
to be otherwise. On TV, radiant
creatures suggest that it is
possible, that all is surmountable,
with enough commercial breaks.

I see you. A little. May I say that
I think you are beautiful?

I know that what you have created
and nurtured is beautiful.

I know the same warmth:
the weight of a child,
the calm after the ever-no storm,
a pair of tiny pajamas
fished from a hot dryer.
Pawprints and footprints,
fur and skin.

Maybe we could split the check?
Share the travel expenses
to this brave new world of promise
and pain and parting and so many
dare-I questions?

I speak the language enough
to make sure our coffee is always
hot and our wine is always red.
And if you can ask the locals
which way to the beach,
we’ll be set.

We can watch the
waves catch and release,
catch and release the shoreline.

Ah! Did I catch you laughing?
What? You caught me first?
Yes.

We both know that the
wind-tossed sand
always assumes
it’s the one doing
all that catching
and releasing.