She drinks cognac on the plane
and eats chocolate chip cookies,
which calm the nerves.
The surgeon will have finished
by the time she touches down.
Time takes what it wants. She wants
to sleep through this part,
where she sits in the hospital
hour after hour watching
that worm of death.
This part kills her,
when they split her daughter open
just above the pubic bone.
Enough, really, she thinks
(sounding like prayer).
Snow’s soft thuds
on the hotel window,     
dimmed lights,
do something magical –
she’s back in Baja bumping over water     
in a black zodiac following gray whales.
There’s a baby close enough to touch,
its mother just below the surface.
Car sounds dissolve fantasy
and she sees
bright lights in the hotel driveway.
One must flush, clear trash —
this night a driver in his snowplow
nudging, pushing, piling.

- from Invention of the Moon

11/11/15

Two burka clad women
side-by-side in a ricksha,
one cradles a sleeping baby
as they ride toward you, through
the teeming streets of Old Delhi.

Two nights home:
a woman draped in black
face down in a box of stale cereal.
What is she doing in your dream?

Where does she come from—
those women in Old Delhi?
From news of the woman caught
in a shoot out with French police?
He’s not my boyfriend, she shouts
before detonating her belt.

Unlikely the shadow woman
comes from your small town.
This time of year, Thanksgiving
and Christmas decorations appear.

Is she a stand in for women
walking down the streets
of Hyderabad, draped in black,
who follow your bared face
with their dark eyes.

The hateful killings in Orlando hang heavily on me. A man next to us at breakfast in our Berlin hotel reads a sports newspaper with headlines of the German soccer win. Peter says, look, no mention of the murders. Overhearing, he shows us the middle of the paper: there in huge black print is an article. Then he holds up three more newspapers with news of the massacre, adds, “Germans feel very close to the United States.” We sit discussing life with a stranger.

We meet our friend Gunda at the Jewish Museum. Sit outside sipping coffee in their café. I watch a group of dark haired, dark skinned young people sitting across from us on a sofa laughing and whispering. One man dozes. The men are unshaven. I begin to feel uneasy and think, STOP IT.
We walk through the museum halls read signs translated from the Nazi period. Jews not wanted in this town; do not do business with Jews; Jews need not apply; Jews not allowed; armbands with the Star of David. I spot a young man who looks like one of the group in the café. He has a red and white checked scarf around his neck, a phone hangs from his belt, I watch as he puts a wad of black cloth inside a fire alarm box. He walks away from it and talks into his phone leaning against a wall. What’s this man is up to? Should I say something to my husband? Then I see a young woman with a red and white checked scarf talking to another museum goer. I ask what her scarf means. She tells me employees wear it to identify themselves. I feel great relief. Am glad to have kept those suspicions to myself.

Memory pulls me back to a gas station in Richmond, California late one night fifteen years ago. My husband and I are lost. We need to find the freeway exit to Marin. We stop at the station.
Four young African-American men are filling up their car. We feel fearful being stopped in the middle of this neighborhood. We hesitate to get out of the car, hesitate to approach these young men. One walks over to our car and raps on the window. We roll it half-way. Are you lost? Perhaps I can help. The tone of his voice –– his demeanor puts us at ease. We talk briefly. My husband gets out of the car so the man can point the way.
Driving off we smile sheepishly: discuss our relief, how foolish we feel.

Here I am in Berlin doing the same thing. I confess that I even startle when I see a Muslim woman with a head scarf in our local market. Am I overly susceptible to suggestion (a bigot) or are my reactions normal in this world where violence may strike anywhere, anytime.

Outside gray rain but grass, bushes, trees
surround us: this forest of green.
Wild turkeys, redheaded toms, waddle
uphill picking and pecking.

Inside we meditate, ponder humanness––
How do we know this cargo: know ourselves?

That bitter night under many blankets,
I dream of patterns, patterns on cloth
in a place filled with women and fabric.
There is a white card with my name on it.

The pieces of fabric become rich in color,
thick, plush as carpet. I belong here, I belong.

They fall to earth
& fish wash up on shore

Winter fire: breathing & coughing
The dry forest smokes & crackles

A clutter of destruction
elsewhere amaryllis bloom

North, South, East, West, deluge—
Floods will change our diet

Worse than drought no crops
planted on flooded plains

In my home-town next to the bay
prediction of a 1.1 feet rise by 2050

I wish to think of other things
& buy a ring of pink morganite

Summer brings a mockingbird who
sings & rises up, wings flash in our pine

We listen and watch for his display
everyday. It makes us smile!

He circles our property sits imitating
songs & flashes in the magnolias

Down by the lagoon before
Returning to the greenest pine

Mockingbird aggression chases away
Playful scrub jays, woodpeckers &

Sparrows who inhabit our trees
Wish he’d scare those raucous crows

Then one day, two days, five, no more
Mockingbird song. He must have flown on

It’s so very quiet his loud voice, his song

One can imagine what CoCo might say:

the afternoon we lie on the grass
by the blue-green lagoon, stretch out
side by side, the sun warming us.
I muse, nothing’s better than this,
She answers in a girlish voice,
I’m so bored let’s chase jays.

I ask, just to hear that girl-like voice,
who do you love more me or him?
She evenly divides her time between
our laps so she puzzles this.
What do you think, she retorts.

We watch nature programs about bats &
manatees, CoCo beside us. The announcer
says Manatees are related to elephants.
What’s an elephant, she asks. (I bring a small
sculpture of one to show her). Later he adds, Bats
are mammals, but they fly like birds says, CoCo.

We go for walks & when we cross the
street she asks, why? Like the Chicken
I answer, to get to the other side. Why do you
always bag my big business on walks but
not always at home. I don’t answer.

No more sitting quietly by the table until we
finish dinner and put a taste in her dish. She
whines, hurry, hurry, hurry under her breath.
No more sitting quietly by our bed while I
take off pillows, turn back the spread.
She mutters, you’re so slow, so slow.

When the doorbell rings she yells for us.
No more barking. At night she screams
go away, (there’s no consoling her)fearful
of noises & odors outside only she hears
& smells, until the critter moves on.

Upon reflection, I don’t want my wish granted.
I adore my dog and she me, but there’s much
to be said for a loving…………. silent companion.
We communicate with one another & dogs have
something we do not: a sixth sense about their
owner’s mood—without words to get in the way.

Radiant summer leftovers—
red begonias in large blue pots.
Rain drips from an open umbrella
that shades the patio table.
Leaves from the cherry tree
scatter across glossy grass.
Inside our dog sleeps, slumped
on window seat pillows overlooking
the garden. My husband dozes
in his favorite chair to the tune
of a dying smoke detector
work papers spread on his lap.
I’m grateful, I’m sad, all at once.

The fires that burn to the north of us,
force PG&E to extinguish our electricity.
By day sunlight fills the house—

I carry milk, bagged cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce,
eggs, other perishables out to store in our icy garage.
I cook food on our stove’s gas burners.

We park our cars on the street. We leave
freezer doors closed hoping for the best.
Those three nights in darkness—

we turn on flashlights, a camping light, burn candles
and listen for news on one small battery driven radio.
Television often steals the evening hours, now

our words fill the silence spoken in hushed tones
as if conversation, sacred.
We read by camping and candlelight at the kitchen table.

I pile two extra blankets on the bed, but should’ve known
we’d sleep bodies pressed together— make our own heat.