Serene of the Oakland Serenes

Poem-a-day challenge for April 4, 2015
(Prompt: "write a departure poem." I used an old poem that fits the theme; I don't think I've ever posted it before.)

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I was gone for a week, so I'm catching up.

Memory

It doesn't take much to call it back
the twinge of pain, the total lack
of grace, the beating of my heart
when fourth grade was about to start

I thought I'd come to the wrong class
it said "Miss Friedman" on my pass
but this was Mrs. Something Else
a substitute, the hired help

I'd come three thousand miles or more
to stand all awkward at her door
she had a chance to woo me then
to make it easy to come in

Instead, she sneered and rolled her eyes
she almost hid her heavy sighs
I made it through; fifth grade was better
but she wounded me, and yes, I let her.

I'm not especially fond of today's challenge poem, but here it is:

she says she likes it that way
clutter everywhere, piles akimbo
and everything, she says,
is where she knows how to find it

we've noplace to sit
so she thinks we're unsociable
and her bathroom scares us
so we don't stay as long as we might

but I've seen her in other people's houses
when she thinks I'm not watching
looking around with joy and wonder
at the clean and tidy landscape
and I know
that she tells herself this fiction
because we love our prisons
to keep from hating ourselves

(Today's poem-a-day challenge prompt was to write about a landmark.)


We will meet at your house,
drive together to the airport,
hop a plane for France

We will go to the hotel,
sleep together in a strange bed,
make lazy love,
talk about Paris and our next stop,
Amsterdam

We will stroll along the streets
eat together in a small cafe
wonder if we've ever had coffee this good,
or bread

We will walk to the Arc de Triomphe
together
and I will leave you
to roll down the Avenue
des Champs-Élysées
alone
the way you've always seen it
and then, at the eastern end, at the
Place de la Concorde
we will meet again
to continue our journey
together

The Problem with Beans and Rice

The problem with beans and rice
is not that it's boring
or cheap
or that it's not meat

The problem with beans and rice
is that it spoils me
for warmth
and comfort
and the feeling that you and I,
alone together,
could survive a disaster
like nuclear winter
or a terrorist attack
or a cliche california earthquake

You knew this already, but my friends are geniuses.

Happy National Poetry Month. Here's another poem, the one I did for the poem-a-day challenge today. I will, of course, be sending a copy to my mother:

I haven't got anything
that didn't come from you
my cells, earthen knitting
minerals and sunlight
the spit on a thousand tissues
the voice in my head that wonders

you wanted me,
always,
and danced at the news of me
I don't have to stretch to find
the source of my joy
that I am in the world

I haven't got anything
that didn't come from you