I want the pumpkin to tell me something

...maybe how it is proud to be fat, 

maybe how it is willing to wait and wait 

for the right person to find it,

run their hand over it, and fall in love. 

Bumps and imperfections 

part of the deal.  Endearing, in fact. 

Maybe how it is willing to be cut, 

shaped into something new. 

Maybe how it can be scooped out, 

guts gooey and filled with seeds. 

That, actually,  the only way to get the seeds is to score it, 

force a sad toothy smile on its face. 

That the only way to make it light up, 

shine from the inside out, leaves a scar.  

That, even knowing that the squirrels will come, 

or the cold days will soften it, 

it is strong enough to sit there,  king of the stoop, 

glowing, glowing through the night. 

chlorophyll

George told me that during the fall

we see the actual color of the tree leaves,

the red, golden, pink tipped beauty,

the purple blistering, the orange.

All summer, needing to be fed,

the chlorophyll camouflages what is their true nature.

I do not need to strain or twist this fact

to make it true for me too.

In our small deaths, in the midst of the fall,

with very little to convert sunlight into sustenance,

my eyes are darker brown, my heart deep purple.

The colors I lean toward whisper the winter truth of me.

grace

I was driving home from Lakewood

late tonight, crossing town for the second time,

passing her street for the second time today,

and, yes, this time I gave in and drove past her house.

There were two cars in the driveway,

the lights were out, and I just went by,

as if it is not the place she shares with someone else,

as if it were not the place filled with memories for me:

her kissing me by the door,

her kissing me in the kitchen,

me kissing her on the steps,

crying in her bed so many times,

from joy and thanksgiving.

Even the mundane: painting her rooms,

painting her garage door, fixing her window,

baking the Oscar salami roll, delivering her chair,

eating prime rib, listening to music,

and, the most lovely,

resting on her couch, my head on her lap.

But by the time I made it to Carnegie

I was shouting, screaming above the Coldplay.

And, ten minutes later, I was crying on Cedar Hill.

The light at Fairmount was red so I pulled next to a white car,

every one it decked out from a night out on the town.

A man in the back seat was laughing and smiling,

talking to the two people in the front.

He turned and looked at me and saw my face,

twisted, troubled. I held his glance for a second longer,

then cried harder, as the light turned green.

Then something unexpected. His window lowered,

and his brown beautiful hand came out into the night.

He gave me a peace sign, then to make sure I had seen it,

he wiggled his fingers and raised it higher.

When we met again at the next light, he looked at me,

and I looked at him, and there was no shame,

there was no racial divide. No gay or straight.

There were no strangers, nothing separated him from me.

He had no idea what I was thinking or why I might be crying.

He had no inkling of what might be wrong,

and, without hesitating, he offered me the only thing he could,

and the only thing that might heal me.

He gave me peace, he wished for my peace.

And then, in that white car, my miracle drove away.

For...

...a little goat in Texas, 

trees that I can lean against, 

flat stones to skip. 

For phones that ring, 

emails that are answered, 

"shout outs" at high school soccer games. 

For running into a friend,

hugging a friend, 

having a friend sit beside me. 

For glances across the room, 

bread and wine at the table, 

eyes meeting eyes.

For the baby that holds my nose, 

the brother that makes a magnet bracelet, 

the mother who keeps them safe. 

For colored pencils, 

page 13 in my new book, 

the smell of the sheets on my bed.

For the machine that takes the pictures, 

the man who read the images, 

the doctor who knows what it all means. 

For the heater now whirring, 

the socks on my feet, 

the leaves turning purple. 

For the things that have been here, 

the ones who have gone, 

that which is yet to come.

For the butter in the scrambled eggs, 

the chickens that roost and lay, 

and a woman far away who finds and cleans them

I give thanks. 

Mowing

Yesterday, I sat in a waiting room 

with three eighty year old women, 

each waiting for her husband to finish a brain MRI. 

I was there alone, waiting for my name to be called,

so that I could wait to enter the patient area, 

wait to put on my green not-quite-big-enough gown,

wait to get my contrast dye IV, 

wait for the last person to leave the scanner, 

wait while in the scanner -- the machine, 

as close to a coffin as I will ever get -- 

banging and screeching around me

for forty long minutes, nothing to do but think. 

I thought of those women, those men, 

the brains surgeries the men were facing.

One woman, all smiles and grins, until her husband left, 

how she bowed down, how the color in her drained, 

how she held her head with both hands. 

I thought about the last time I was having an MRI, 

My love in the waiting room, driving the car. 

Everywhere for those forty minutes. 

How she was right about almost everything:

sleeping together is better than sleeping alone, 

eating a treat is better with another person, 

driving is better, shopping is better, movies are better, 

talking is better.  Yes, talking with another person 

is so much better than talking alone in your head. 

Last weekend I mowed my yard, then plowed down 

my gardens with the mower.  I was killing everything in sight. 

Angry, my mower and I reconfigured everything, 

wiped it down to its roots then I stood there, 

my hands on my hips, king of a very small kingdom. 

Today, I mowed my yard, the Sweeney's yard, Margaret's yard, 

and I would have kept going all of the way down Dellwood, 

if I had the gas and the invitation to do so. 

Not angry, but sad.  This time trying to create rows, 

perfectly crafted rows.  One row for the things I did wrong. 

Then, one row for the things I did right. 

So many for the things she knew how to do well. 

The next for the things I cannot fix, 

another for the things I will never know or feel again. 

One for the ways in which I am lonely, 

one for the things I now see and understand.  

So many, wishing I could set things straight. 

And several wondering what we might do today, together: 

drive to the country, stop in a place we have never eaten, 

buy some marbles, buy some rocks, talk about our weeks, 

her hand on my head, my hand on her knee.  

They say that it is good to cry in the shower, 

but I tell you, it is good to cry while mowing, 

the sound drowning out your tears and twists.

The sound drowning out other sounds too:

the sound of fear in a waiting room, 

the sound of just two feet in house,

the sound of the neighbors laughing, 

the sound of no one talking to you, 

the sound of death's sweet whisper, 

the sound of things breaking all around you, 

rust growing, skin wrinkling, dozen and dozens 

of lonely gray hairs popping out of your head.