2/15.

what a whale she became. thank god we made it out of the ocean, away from her grasp, her fingers lips and tongue. thank god for land, for this woman skin of olive tone. for this woman an her hour glass, of this woman her fingers lips tongue and hips that sway.

we the two but she the breeze causes i tree to dance in the parks of this town where children play on wooden structures two story tall. where children laugh, throw pine cones and cause their parents to scuttle after pushing their parent glasses or dirtying their parental high quality sleeves. there is the sidewalk here, there is the store here there is the construction that slowly sucking them dry. whole streets lopped off as one by one pregnant buildings give birth their glass faced wombs emptied marked by 'for lease'signs an deep socket window eyes prowl for other dreamers cocksure to fill their bellies once more.

there are no balloons here. what happened to the balloons? to the laughter of children with their pink or red balloons following behind mother and her brown bags of sweater or wine bottle both. now we got the text phone, or the video phone all this noise leave no time for the silence. sad. it's in the silence we get the morse code of our heart. the rhythm to translate our desire.

'beat beat', ah i want to be a dancer.

'thump thump', ah i really love charlie.

now with all this noise all we got is our best guesses at the muted signal. all we got now is the quite tink that could be mistranslated.

'tink' huh what is that.

'tink tink' he will change.

'tink tink' stay in the cubicle, or stay in arizona or stay with the plate of hamburger and cheese.

we stumble onward. just this morning it was anger and attack. a stranger will stab you in the back a friend in the front and family will feel bad after they do it. we all got knives an scars but the joy is not the attack, no the joy of family is in the heal.

'its just its just its just,' she starts to say but where can you go?

they turned against him. 'ah, brother he tries to follow his heart, you know,' she says.

'sometimes it's a maze we gots to love in,' say i.

we know, you know. there are brick buildings here. some are taken care some are dilapidated. some house families and some the drunk. there are buildings and homes and you can never tell whose living behind what, you can never tell who is who or built for what until there is a little pressure.

i love i love i love. they say in the summer when the sky is blue and the parks are filled with picnics and joy. well anyone can do that.

in the street noise of our silence it begins to rain. in the noise i pull her close think of all the what could have beens all the mistranslations of the heart. in the rain and the cold and the breeze i pull her close, i love i love i love and don't notice the weather at all.

they say the weather will change. weathermen don't trust them. they say the wounds they will heal. the doctors don't trust them. they say that they don't got no time for you no more and start their whisper campaigns against it. seasons change and those that believe in a year of winter will either adapt or be left behind.

a man can fish the sea, he can't live there. we hold on we hold close we move forward towards whatever might come. you dig?

2/11

this chord that connects us. love in the air the small intimacies of the moment. there is the children in innocent dress there is the messes they make and there is us. we two. the face of the past. ah, we the history who speak through the bridge of whats to come. seconds are spent parenting our life away.

there are great joys here. there are things that cause tears i have never felt here. there is the laughter and celebration of recognized firsts here. then there is the animal. i the head turner, the lost to wage earner, the street walker, thinker and day dreamer.

now there is you. the mother the stay home teacher. the great patience, the hope, the heart of our home.

what we have now is the present. what we have to the linoleum floors, the encroaching walls. what we have now is the reflection on whats known and the wonder of whats to come. the moment is alive undefinable constantly leaving messy trails across the floor boards of our lives.

the present, to be here. the present, the gift of now. love lover loving loved oh we two spend our eyes only on each other's faces then whats this about a past. oh love lover loving who i will joy eternity with then whats this about what we use to do? whats this over my shoulder, over your shoulder whats this in your dreams when we both agree that to each it should be about the other's me me ME.

we gather our children. we ask of their day. we ask each other to translate what the each child says and hum the song to curious george.

we wonder if the gardener still remembers the soil as fondly when the garden blooms. we wonder does the driver remember the car when safely home. we wonder does the writer remember the first novel when they are off to number 2. mostly we wonder how in all this we of family will there be memories of me and you.

tender are the mercies of the night, when tucked to sleep we find ourselves alone. tender is the silence between us, the spaces between yawns and the inches between skin. where once is was the fire of whats to come now is the quiet of what is. where once there was the reach to touch skin to find constant tinder, fire and sex now gone quiet to the aches of workaday pain. where once there was the fury of consumption there is slow tempered art the steady hand of experience.

what we have here is a fight. this mind is one to burn and holler. this mind is one to gluttony. this mind is one to indian yelp and the wolf man's howl. the actor playing your hero is too slow. his hand too controlled. the hero himself a mess he walks with a slight drool hungry for whatever is going on. he is hungry to the pissing seconds.

you have got to find a balance. x2

i don't want to comb my hair. let it it stand or fall on it's own merit, grow wild like the idaho i remember. there were ducks there that tried to eat my toes. there was the echo of the empty suburban streets. there was the dirt road before fred meyer came. there was the sweet cherub face flushed from the excitement of love's first churning.

you see, you see i want for my children that madness. the excitement of spinning circles and chasing ghosts on table top rock. you see, you see i don't want to lose that in me. i want to consume my wife every time. want to holler and chew her hair. want to dance on a plain wedensday atop the building off st. claire. you see life is not whats to come. is not always saying no or be careful.

i got to be careful about all this, right? i got to slow it down and study the trail cause it's not just me anymore. one could think this but in my heart there comes the tremor that says, 'what about their faith?' if they believe they will come, their faith will set them free. if you got somebody and that person always talking risk or fear then don't you need to stop. shouldn't you think to yourself, 'they believe so little in me, in the joy of what is and excitement of what's to come that they fear? that they doubt? then what the hell are they going to do when times are hard, when it's do or die and they have to follow?'

it's okay to have questions about your faith, it's blasphemous to have those questions of god. it's okay to have those questions about your ability, it's destructive to have those questions about your partner.

so where do we go? there is this ridge, there is the moonlight and a clear sky. there is the burgeoning springtime and the children are asleep. where do we go? shall we stay for the night, stare out at the horizon line in reflection? shall we keep moving a child in each our arms, and head straightaway to the future?

i look over and see her asleep. i look over and memorize the moonlight tracing her skin, highlighting her lips and eye lashes. the moonlight tracing her lean athletic frame, as she holds our baby. i sigh, and look out imagine the chill in tomorrow's morning.

got to be patient, but not too patient. careful but not too careful. let's see where it takes us.

2/9

so do we have minestrone?

'no, we have lentil or vegetable' she says.

they are in the front room, standing center stage television on. mid thirties, normal, average american family. she has sneakers on, he is barefoot, the sun is fading twisting through the curtain casting shadows that creep across the walls and floor. it is 5, it is dinner time so like it or not they must eat.

i thought we had one can left? he says without looking at her.

'no, i told you what we had. what do you think i am hiding it? you think i don't want to share? that's right, i like minestrone so much that i don't want to give you one drop.' she says.

they are middle class, they are pressure and struggle and steam that does not creep it festers, it pushes until it explodes.

who knows, he thinks.

lentil, i guess, but if i knew we were out of minestrone i would have gone to the store and bought some. he says, as a twinge of pleasure passes through causing the hair on his arms to rise.

'you want i will go. anything for you, you want me to go to the store and get the damned soup i will.' she says and begins to collect her things.

he is silent just for a moment. he is silent just long enough to bring doubt to his words. they have their forks and their knives, they are on the attack. the television news is playing a story of vans. their voices slightly louder than normal. she looks at the roof, at the floor at her children playing. she sighs, and strides towards the closet for her purse.

no, no lentil is fine, he says. his register dropping below normal to a soothe. he will calm her. he will cause her to drop her defenses.

listen you are right, we should be happy with what we have. he says .

'i will go,' she says holding her keys in mid air.

i know you would. it's not about soup, who gives damn about soup, just one of those days. he says.

she is slow, uncertain, places her keys in her purse, her purse on the floor (within reach). 'you sure, your fine with lentil or vegetable?'

vegetable sounds great, probably better than minestrone. god knows i could do without the carbs. he says and rises.

the children play with plastic train wood blocks exercise mat they play with crayons or toy microphones. the television moves to educational movie about frog. he embraces her in the middle of the floor.

'i would go,' she says.

he pulls her close the sun cast their shadows on the floor. he feels an opening he feels he could attack could really do some damage with a few more words. whats the use, he thinks.

whats the use. he says.

'what do you mean,' she says.

he hovers, a teachable moment sword in hand.

we do are best, right. i mean i can't be mad about the lack of soup, even though it's your responsibility. even though i hold up my end of the bargain. even though i am going to work and never say boo about it. even though you demanded to stay home with the kids and now we went from good to broke and i work like a dog just to keep no money in my pockets. i mean you are trying your best, you have to watch kids and thats tough, though you can hand them off to your mom. right. you are too busy and it is too hard to keep food in the damn cabinets. but it is not about the food.

'i am going to get the damn soup.' she says. 'you're right, it is not easy. you're right i do have to watch the kids. you try it, for one day. you try, see how far you get.' she says.

they separate go their corners, breathe hard and stare.

'it's not like i am out shopping or laughing my day away. it's not like i am complaining about having a small house, or an old car when all my friends have new things.' she says.

he hears not good enough.

well, boo, you knew about me, you came in with your eyes open. he says but is cut off.

'i knew? i knew about everything? maybe i would have made a different decision if i knew about your credit.' she says.

well there is no lock on the door. he says.

'that's not what i mean.' she says.

they are still apart but closer. they each have picked up a child somewhere along the way. one is holding for comfort they other held to be fed.

'enough.' he says.

'no, if i am not doing a good job then tell me how i can do better. i mean if you are so good maybe you can come home and lend me a hand.' she says.

enough, he says. listen, we are doing our best. we are just worn out. we are just beat by all this stress. we are just collapsing here under the weight of it all. you are amazing. i am not sure how you do all this and not collapse.

'i don't have a off day, or a quitting time.' she says.

he watches her tears.

i know, he says and moves towards her position on the couch. it's just a bad day, right. tough we had one kid wake up so early and the other sick. lots of stress. lets just let it go. alright?

'i am so mad,' she says, 'i get one day with you, one day as a family and it always turns out like this. always ends up arguing, wasting time. i just want to enjoy your company, not feel on the clock. do family things...'

i know, me too. listen they are young...

'not worry about some damn soup,' she says.

forget the soup, forget it. you sit here...no better yet, come sit in the kitchen, take a break, let me make dinner. come sit and let's talk. what do you think?

'okay.' she says.

i ain't making no damn soup. he says.

they laugh, they embrace a quick kiss then exit lower stage right.

we are left to the sound of the television playing and one kid watching while the other sucks their fingers and bats a giraffe while laying on their back.

the loving-13

they don't stop for coffee anymore. charlie mack and his pig bellied wife suddenly took up dancing. harper and his sag faced pancake chested bitch of a wife decided the day was for golfing or pottery. susan the brown haired dike would love to come by but is just so busy with her new grandchild. all of them once would come everyday, now gone. at first i believed in their schedules but now, now i know they don't want to risk catching what debra's got. there is an anger in me that boils, that burns that causes me to pace and curse under my breath while i watch my wife try to hide her tear when drinking midmorning coffee alone.

we were all young once, but now the storm of time has rubbed away those fresh tight faces and bodies. eyes droop, hair begins to frizz and once hourglass shapes or v-shapes now become boxes and pears. there is mrs. mack, the former highschool princess, the former ms. beautiful from the college campus and a veritable calender babe as a young mother now all slop. her face over blushed, over blue eye makeup, belly over sweat pant. the bane of the elderly class, when our pants lose buttons and zippers to elastic and wool.

there are pictures of us at the big booth from mr. wangs when we were something. everybody smiling, hair combed black and white excellence. we stopped meeting there when the picture became a symbol to be cursed, avoided a embarrassing testament to how the mighty have fallen. when you were young and could use the money, had the energy to eat out to explore foreign shores and dance with your love atop the bridges of paris you had none. when you are old and could use the energy, the tender blanched skin of excitement rushing about saying 'who, what, no go go go!' you have none.

so we gone from the heart of this town. gone from whirlwinding about, celebrating our love, friendship and the milestones of our children to sitting alone in deep leather chairs contemplating history while our wives stare out the window and slowly go mad. so we go from learning about new things, new favorite authors and musicians to silence. i can't remember the last time i turned on the radio to hear something other than weather or news.

i watch debra. we have slowly stopped talking. there is the quick catch up after a phone call but mostly we are in our preferred sections of the house until a prescription or fridge needs to be replenished.

while there were newspapers for awhile, then losing out to television then losing out to television and the computer then losing out to chat sites. i make profiles while she yodels about the birds. i make sexual innuendos that i could no longer follow through on. i ask for, and receive, dirty pictures or head shots and i try to dream all the life i had into their eyes. i think of the sadness of being alone of being married for so long only to end up back where you started and that sex drive replaced with a conversation or company drive and so you go searching.

i get long emails from some woman named carol who lives in arizona and always votes republican. she tells me of her children and their 'hassels' how her son is a 'good boy but mostly lazy' and that she 'lost her charlie a few years ago to the cancer.' i tell her of my problems and ask for a picture.

carol, who lives in arizona, sends me a set of pictures. the first is of her face and then they slowly pull back to reveal her naked and twisted about her sheets like an old marylin monroe picture. her body is loose in the stomach, breasts and butt from life not gluttony. the curse of genetics. i don't answer her letters for a week then guilt ridden i respond explaining away my absence with an excuse of a child emergency.

tabitha was a big black forty year old with four children and no husband. she talks of poverty and how hard it is to raise four kids on her income. tabitha has to decide between rent and child insurance. her ex is a 'real broke son of a bitch who don't do shit for these kids' and her own parents are 'broke too, so there ain't no real help down here.' she is from idaho and works as a checker at the local grocery. they qualify for state aid but need 'some cash to help pay the lawyer for to get the insurance. it is all fucked up, excuse my language.' i send a thousand dollars and never answer another of her emails.

debra was the one who picked charlene. charlene who lives in our town. charlene has auburn hair and is twenty years my junior. it was debra who wrote back who explained, 'my wife she is dying of alzheimers.' charlene who has a husband who is also sick wrote back. debra was the one who responded, 'life is hard when you get old trusting something only to be lied to. you love and you love and in the end it feels like a cheat, like your partner failed you.' charlene was the one who wrote back, 'it is a cheat. you work to build to provide and your family is provided, is grown and secure. you work so that you can take these days to travel, to enjoy each other then this. doesn't matter. all it is, doesn't matter. shit, you love and pray try to do good things and still it comes, still they are taken away.'

debra was the one who sent the picture. charlene was the one who responded with a picture. the effort together they are building together, a relationship. it was me who discovered all this and said nothing. we never spoke about what was going on. it was debra and jack who slowly faded and it was charlene and i who spent the suffering together, over email then telephone then coffee then dinners.

we attended two funerals together. we suffered the violence of emotion from the mouths of our children. we suffered the fading and death of our loves of our partners. it was the sick beds and graveyards that built all this. it was the pain and loneliness that built all this. there are just some things so heavy you can't lift alone.

there was funerals. there was flowers and time then dinners and slow dances. there was the violence and the passage of time. there are the memories and the memories to come. there was the dating and the passage of time. there was the friendship that grows with the passage of time. there was the wedding. finally there was somethings that we could not quite identify as true love, true joy or true hope but it has to do.

the loving-12

she had told me of precious the goat. she had shown me pictures of a little girl tough faced in cowboy boots and denim holding the rope to the goat. precious the ribbon winner, precious the great trick learner, precious was top of the line.

it was the state fair during our youth, before i had even kissed her face or written a love letter. it was the state fair and the 4-h club was there. debra the younger stood holding her rope watching while precious was rubbed, while precious was judged and there was hope. while the other goats were 'baa' about precious held her head high in silence. she was a true professional. the goat never bucked or stepped away as the judges rubbed her belly evaluated the texture of her coat. debra would suck her teeth when thinking of precious, her precious and those devil goat eyes.

'it was precious the winner,' she had said.

through the pictures we were regaled. there was the great smile of the child champion. there was the ribbon being placed, the patch sewn the general crowd smiling and standing behind her as she knelt beside the animal.

now i wonder if precious is gone. burned to fade by the disease.

there is the picture of the blue mustang. the first car, the picture of her leaning against the hood in her summer dress great joy alighting her face.

debra spoke of the freedom of the drive. the freedom of the great open road the travel to big cities miles away for exploration. the night wanderings through the city when all the other girls had their boyfriends and make out lane before we had held hands or exchanged glances. she was an athlete, she was a farmer, she was always at work with her animals and she was always alone.

'boys were not that interested in me, i was a late bloomer,' she would say.

this would cause me guilt. that i never saw until everyone else had seen. that long before we found each other we had known each other in the hallways of school. i think of that school, of it's antiseptic smells. i think of the linoleum and florescent lights and loud buzzing moon faced clocks. i think of the chalk boards never completely clean, of the ghosts of past classes that had gone before and won their trophies.

in those pictures, the lonely girl and i wonder her atop the squeak wood bleachers. she is nervous about the boys seeing her eat, judging her size or worse yet not noticing her at all. i wonder if she laughs too loud with her friends or acts clumsy and bumps into boys while walking to and from her seat. i can see her, like all of us in our teens, hungry for attention and admiration ready to connect get hot blooded and explore just what is going on in our bodies.

i was always on the teams. was always playing the games, being watched unable to laugh to loud or get clumsy. i hoped that she had come and watched for me. that she had always known or felt and believed it could come true. i had hoped that she dreamed through the thick blanket of summer night heat that we were going to be together. these were the hopes of the married man who always wants to believe that his wife had only dreamed of him. in our youth we are tinder ready to be set afire by anything, by anyone. each body could set us to inferno with dreams of skin and breath and a future together we as yet fail to truly understand.

the album, all it's past visions captured. debra the singer, debra the track star and debra the student leader all black and white documented here. pages of smiling, pages of triumph, pages of hope and enthusiasms. we never photograph the bad days. we never record the times alone in our room weeping over broken heart or shame.

as i flip through her childhood, her teenage years and college days i am chilled. i wonder how far the disease has eaten, how many of the pages have faded how many memories are gone. i will not ask, i will push it away out of mind. each page lost gets closer to our pages. each page lost gets us closer to our first encounter, or first words, kiss and other intimacies. i will not think of such things as i place the album away in a safe place and head out to the deck. she is there we will sit, we will hold hands and in our silence i hope she is not disturbed by the sound of my recorder.

the loving-11

as a young man there was the hunt. always on the prowl, eyes tracing the forms of woman trotting past car window, walking past working man, chatting on the corner or any other place and way. married man i watch them down, i hungered smelt sex on the air and had visions of impropriety.

we all are born to the wandering eye, right? it only matters in the action not the thought, right?

i am watching the clock in the doctors office as they proceed through their tests. i am watching the seconds above my wife's head tick away as she sits like a child still smooth skin and knobby knee peeking out from under the hem of hospital gown. the doctor is instructing but we are both lost somewhere else in the timelines of our memory.

i would never cheat. i should say i have not cheated until this point. i have not committed the simplest form of adultery, have kept the marriage vows as well as one can. though the heat of the young hearted man has turned to the yearn of the older man. i want someone to talk to. when disease appears, when it is fatal, when you understand that death has joined the family and begun to unpack you begin to withdraw. debra is still my wife, still my love but now there is the need for space, the instinct to get away from sick things.

while the doctor mutters. as she stares away, still hauntingly beautiful i want for someone to talk to. there are support groups for the family members of those that suffer, but i am not ready. i am not ready to stand up and accept the end. i am not ready to begin to say goodbye to my wife. so i wander the halls, so i wander the streets, so i wander the bar rooms and book stores tracing the shape of woman with my eyes. i trace, study and hunger for someone to talk to.

we leave with script for prescriptions. neither one can remember much of what was said, though she has an excuse, so when hannah calls i am lectured on the art of paying attention. while she talks i hold debra's hand and yet and still my eye wander. i see a beautiful black woman of maybe twenty five chatting outside a coffee shop, i make a mental note to visit later. there is a thin latino in a smart pants suit outside the bank shaking somebody's hand i make a mental note to see about their interest rate.

the conversation ends as we move through the drive through at the local pharmacy. i see the bright eye of the auburn haired beauty dim. she has thin elegant fingers that tender the paper in her hand, her green eyes are pained when they unblinkingly look into mine, 'okay we will see you about an hour.' i make a mental note to come in, to come alone to say hello in about an hour.

'is there anywhere you want to go?' i ask and hope for no. hope she would want to go home and take a nap so that i can come back. so i will not be hurried or ashamed when i breath deep her perfume and hold/shake her hand as i get the prescription and hope for conversation.

'i was thinking of lunch earlier but i'm sorry i'm so tired. would you hate just going home?'she asks.

'no, no, not at all.'

there is a beat as she leans her head against my shoulder.

'i don't know how you do it. i would be crazy by now, dealing with this and me...'

'don't say that. we're a team. in for a penny in for a pound.'

there is a beat as she raises my hand to kiss it.

'if you want to talk, if you need to let it out you can i am here i will listen,' she says and moves so there her eyes are looking into mine.

'no, no i know. it's okay, alright, if i need to i will. you too. how are, is what are you feeling?'

'just tired mostly,' she says.

we make the slow turn down towards or home.

'i love you, you know that?' i say.

'i know, thank you, i love you too.'

'you are my best friend, thank you for this life,' i say.

there is just the sound of her breath and soft tears as we pull into the garage. we lean forward, we deep kiss and i wonder how i will break the ice. i wonder about interest rates or how coffee at that place tastes and watch another minute slip away on the dash boards digital clock. only 48 minutes to go, but really 30 if you count driving.

the loving-10

it's an indian summer. heat creeps through the cracks in the windows, underneath the door jams and onto our skin. there is an angry sun causing the sweat to come out to lay against the skin in mass prayer. she is here now. she leans against the metallic shell of the freezer trying to get some relief. she is in her thirties, she is beautiful. i watch her olive skin stretch as it sticks to the metal making a high pitch squeal as she moves across it's face.

i was wrench in hand, phone in hand cursing the luck. i was out of shirt my young man stomach hair lined and wet waiting for the air condition repair to come. while she mixed the ice into the water, as she moved against the freezer humming, as little children were outside with their feet up, or chasing footballs all with friends and neighbors all with smile and laughter.

we never had a dog. i always felt disappointed about that. i always felt sad about that in the winter when a good dog would have lay against us on the couch sighing. i always dreamed of my son rushing through the town or through the woods with his trusty dog side kick what dreams they share what laughs and secrets would never be shared. in reality the dog would have been enjoyed for it's youth then abandoned to me and now in the heat would cry and beg not to go outside and could it just once use the house as it's toilet. it's a heavy exchange, the joy of it's youth to your children and you are left to dig the grave to share the gasps and laze of it's elder days.

enough of that.

we are a young family. we are bursting at the seams of our first home. i am suffocating on the thought we are stuck. the heat like the mortgage like the housing market like the job market like the bills that come. all these consistent things that are to be satisfied and the only way to satisfy them is to work is to stay. as she spins the pitcher to seperate the lemon from the atop the ice layer i wonder the horizon and how wild things must always move. i wonder on my first family how they survive now, my dad, in his permanence in his static how he feels about where he ran out of gas.

we are thirty. we are young and take our health for granted. we take for granted that the repairman will be here soon. we take for granted that this too shall pass. while debra moves from the freeze, while she kisses as she passes to deliver water and glasses to the playing children i stare the window through.

i am a jealous man, jealous of the distance of the horizon, jealous that paris is somewhere where they can get drunk all day, jealous that there is a perfect postcard ocean beaches somewhere not here and jealous that all this working man application has got me the small house of the group. all this effort has gotten me to mid nothing. gotten me nowhere. my family will have to take the public schools, my family will have to accept this tiny home for awhile maybe forever and still they play, still they laugh and still they sing.

it is the fire of my youth. it is the fire of my innocence and i wonder how they are so innocent to such things.

it is sunday. it is hot. there is the honk of the repair van that causes them all to wave. i move to the door. i shake hands, 'got you working on the weekend?' i say.

'it's the busy season, you know,' he says.

we shake hands.

'i understand,' i say.

as i let him in. as i turn to shut the door i smell the clean air and i can feel it pass between us. freedom out there. drunk out there. the great unknown. the things to pioneer out there. i close the door and lead him to the garage to the chorus of laughter from my children and wife as they sit cross legged peaceful underneath the tree breathing it all in.