VOICEMAIL POEMS

We learned to love the birds.

The backyard bird

with her black cap and white cheeks.

The flicker so flirty

in his polka dot dress and red scarf.

The bus-stop-bird

who mocked us each morning

with a mixtape of songs

by someone else.

We learned to love the bones.

The mismatched shingles

on the mansard roof

and the pumpkin-colored door.

The wrought iron staircase and

windflower wallpaper–

the backdrop

for crushed velvet dresses

and top hats.

We learned to love the pool.

The feeling of lungs

so full of breath

we learned to live underwater.

Our fins unfurled and settled

at the bottom of the ceramic basin.

The sub-aquatic sounds,

muted and muddy,

but unmistakably mermaid.

We learned to love through

frayed feathers and

stone skin and

saltwater dreams.

We learned to love through

all the silly seriousness

of being immortal teens.

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Colette Love Hilliard called us from St. Louis, MO.

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We failed, you & I, to care for plants we potted at the start of summer—lamb’s ear & lavender, one for each pocket. You told me you loved to stroke the soft fur of the hedgenettle & the smell of your hands upon pinching a switch of lavender & I said I loved our hands together, futuring something into soil.

Then we failed in miniature each day, forgetting the attention required for something gentle to thrive, until, too late, we realized that they were barely holding on; that—whether whither or rot—something had soured as we went about separate summers; that we could not now feed them all at once without drowning; that every living thing wants for water, care, hands, and to be thought of every day.

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Tonee Mae Moll called us from Baltimore, MD.

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They say it can’t be,

but it is, perfect.

What they don’t know

is that clocks

circle the drain

like pasta water,

unasked questions

we both know

answers for. After

some time we

actually did become

psychic—I know

another life flickers

somewhere in your

mind, yet you come

home to guess at

The Price Is Right.

It says I have

seen what God does

and the endoscopy,

and I could not

find another crevice

through which to

love you—whatever

hasn’t been said

is whispered

over and again

as we hang

in the blackness

of the in-between

dotted with blue,

white, and red giants.

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Sandra Marchetti called us from Lisle, IL.

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It’s not about who made the mistake

with the wrong address in the GPS getting

us to Brooklyn an hour late, is it?

It’s about your retirement and our finances,

and a 20-something living in our house

without employment but with a car payment.

It’s about the four scrapings the dermatologist did

this summer to determine if I have another

basal cell carcinoma.

It’s about the arthritis that’s making my fingers achy

and your neck pain from past injuries stealing

your sleep and making you cranky.

It’s about the rising prices on the three bedroom houses

with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains we’ve been dreaming

about since ‘19.

It’s about Sandy who we visited Wednesday at the assisted living

facility and her forgetting the names of her grandchildren

because of that nefarious bitch, Dementia.

Getting off the elevator to see her, we were hit with the thick odor

of overripe flesh, like forgotten Georgia peaches adrift on scorched

Southern grass in August.

She was lining the hallway of patients in front of the nurse’s station,

a parade of motionless commuters waiting for a train never coming,

together simmering

in a fragrant stew of steaming blankness, backs to the wall,

heads lolling forward onto their avian chests.

But I digress.

Arguing about who did what is a distraction, yes? Blaming

and projecting emotions like anger are easier to manage

than our current circumstances.

If we end up like this, let’s promise to go to the home together

and sit next to each other touching elbows in our matching

sweatpants with elastic bands as I misdirect

your attention again by shouting Look at that! While giggling

and pointing to the left in order to snatch another fry from your

unbreakable plate and you happily letting me do it.

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Maureen Martinez called us from Bronx, NY.

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that's a euphemism—yes, i have cavities,

but it means i am bullet train, bound

for collision. i am jar of marbles broken

across a concrete floor. i am the rise

of the seas. what i lack in control i make up

for in firepower and i should not be given

an excuse to start shooting. i am landslide

tornado earthquake wildfire, ready to raise

hell, ask questions later. i put the disorder

in bpd and my nightmares like to remind me.

i close my eyes, see incisor pop softly out

of gumline. run tongue through bloody

mouth, lose teeth like i used to cut corn

off the cob. same time tomorrow night.

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nat raum called us from Baltimore, MD.

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Here we are among snow

and ash. Cracked from saw or

harsh November winds. We

are wood always moving. Bit

of flesh from birch, oak, cedar.

Stacked for burning. Once I was

home to a little ant, he swallowed

my bones. Built a little city. More

crawled in. They made me warm

in winter. Little curling

creatures. I said, soak more

from soil, make each splinter

firmer. My god we grow. Leaves

arrived fat, cradling bubbling

dew. I tell you I know what it is

to be a universe. Tonight leaves

turning ash first reach for sky then

they fall and they fall. To be

turned into nothing.

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Oisín Rowe called us from Boston, MA.

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On PCH

somewhere

Malibu—

going north not

quite yet at

Point Dume,

two biker boys,

not quite men,

stopped at

a red light.

Underneath hiero-

glyphic hand signs

a single red rose

in hand

outstretched.

Electricity wrinkled

between them,

All-American

rose received,

ugly-beautiful

bag scene.

This scene

was recalled to me

like a home-movie

dancing on the TV.

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Mattie K. Lagan called us from Seattle, WA.

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Talking shit, like you know about cracked knuckles and flamin hots with pickle juice. Or the broken heat lamps on the El, or getting high off a lakefront. Yesterday, I counted every duck at the lake and called them my woes. By hook by crook by crooked alderman, you learn that the trap that stays shut is the trap that starves.

No one will beat or bite this place out of me. Not by the skin of their enameled teeth. Not by the potholes on every major street. Not by the 312. Not by the school closures. Not by the crack of a July thunder. Like being at The Taste and getting flooded by rain. All that muddy. All that moist. Like when you were little and other kids hit you, and your mom said to hit ‘em back.

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Ola Faleti called us from Chicago, IL.

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Uncle Loser The Knight of Swords - RJ Equality Ingram by VOICEMAIL POEMS

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