thirty

I cried for the three days beforehand then looked around my life threw away the clutter made peace

once and for all with every moment each decision that led me to this place.

But walking away from you stepping out of the cold wordless morning into an anemic beam of winter light I see how this was really only child's play;

that the next thirty years at least and then probably the thirty after that will be the long hard work

of learning to live peaceably and wisely among other people's choices and the

nothing and everything

they've to do with me.

Bows in arabesque.

Pristine naked loneliness

And branches like scythes.

Misgivings

William Matthews

"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses

my love although she's like a great city

to me, or a park that finds new

ways to wear each flounce of light

and investiture of weather.

Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,

planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away

by floods. And worse than what we can't

control is what we could: those drab,

scuttled marriages we shed so

gratefully may augur we're on our own

for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread

when I come through the door, "you're home."

Experience is a great teacher

of the value of experience,

its claustrophobic prudence,

its gloomy name-the-disasters-

in-advance charisma. Listen,

my wary one, it's far too late

to unlove each other. Instead let's cook

something elaborate and not

invite anyone to share it but eat it

all up very very slowly.

prayer

That I might never be pleased to see people get what they deserve.

Restoration

From sorry I will wipe clean the smudges left

by careless girls, frail and fearful men,
all the friends and relatives who meant well
right up until they were out of earshot.
Once it sparkles I will fill this word with pure
water and offer you a drink of contentment.

I'd like to strip the lacquer off sex, love, marriage
remove some of the high-gloss, the glare slapped
up there by Hollywood and people who believe
a home can rise from a stack of plywood, playing cards.
It is dirty work, this scrubbing, but look how the strong
and knotty grain of these words can shine.

It might take a crowbar, but if the rotting weight
of bad choices is torn away, the spots
where fear and mold have made you and me
unsure of our worth, the wall of brick beneath,
exposed and lovely in its rest,
will give us a place to hang the truth
we brought in from the rain.

And so, like a Tiffany lamp, a coin from Spain,
the silver candlesticks left by my great aunt,
I will polish up the words now tarnished
and dull from years of mishandle and abuse:
beautiful promise please human help dream
Set around the room, we will look on these words
and-- knowing the price of labor--
see their marvelous worth.

Upon going through old papers, she realizes she peaked at 20

Perhaps a paraphrase of St. Augustine may be useful in understanding Cummings' purposeful elusiveness. He asked, "What did God do before he made Heaven and Earth? He was preparing Hell for pryers into such mysteries." And though Cummings certainly calls for critical analysis in order to appreciate and fully understand the implications and scope of his work, a certain level of comfort with that which can not be articulated immediately is necessary. One must, like the sisters 'always' and 'sometimes,' be content to sit silently, carrying on with the moment's task, allowing the fullest meaning and impact of love and action to sink in. For as Cummings said in one of his six non-lectures at Harvard: "We can not always spend the day in explanation." Indeed.

- from 'The Happy Family: A critical look at e.e. cummings' ellipitcal narrative" by Kathryn L. Smith, 30 November, 2001.

***

Ben mutters something into the empty air. He's like Woody Allen, thinks Francesca, but without the sense of humor.

- from Happiness is a Mirage No. 43 by Kathryn L. Smith for ENG 381, 26 October, 2001.

Neither Here nor There: Under a tree, on the back of reptile

I went for a walk today because I am trying to learn to sit still. I walked until the pit in my stomach worked its way up to my heart and then walked faster so my heart pumped the knot into my throat. I arrived at a small park and climbed on the back of the stone turtle just as the lump threatened to dissolve and leak out my eyes. Boo hoo, Kate. You're sitting on giant stone turtle, under a purple crepe myrtle.

And then: HA HA! KATE!

YOU'RE SITTING ON A GIANT STONE TURTLE/

UNDER A PURPLE CREPE MYRTLE!

And in that moment, the purple of the flowers the perfect shade of my shoes, I was reminded once over how much I love rhymes; how gently the rhythm of words can carry you forward and set you down gently in a new place, even while you are learning, especially while you are learning, to sit very still and rest in the shade of a tree.

Antietam & other battles

The man on the radio starts in this morning, before there is light, listing the significances of the day.

And finally, it's the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam today. Near Sharpsburg, MD, this was the first major battle to be fought on Northern soil.

Somewhere, in between bragging about seeing the Rolling Stones in '72 and rolling up his sleeves so we could all get a better look at his 17 inch pythons, Mr. T pressed into my head that this was, why yes indeed, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

I think about the soldiers, littering the fields, on my way to work. I picture their mangled limbs, the mud and blood. It's not that cold, but I am cold.

The emergency room is strangely still when I arrive. I make beds, fold clothes. I think about soldiers, ether, and muskets, while I work. Wool blankets and whiskey.

A man my ages comes in because he's thrown up a couple times, carrying on as though he might die. When we put an IV in, he cries and threatens to faint.

I say: I know. I know. It's almost over. You're going to be okay.

What I want to say: You're lucky no one has come after you with a bayonet.

A girl my age comes in because her stomach hurts. After the doctor leaves the rooms she tells me that she can't handle being pregnant now, that both she and her husband are starting new jobs.

I say: I know. I know. It's a lot to take in. But you're going to be okay.

What I want to say: You're lucky he's not dead in a field and that you won't hemorrhage to death on a bed of dirty rags when the baby comes.

My friend brings me a cup of tea and says Are you okay? You seem sad today.

I say: I know. I know. I'm a little tired but I'm going to be okay.

What I want to say: What's wrong with the world today? I really don't think I'm fit for modern life.

But I know that what's wrong with people today is the same thing that was wrong with people then, and in the beginning.

And trying to live outside the time you're in is as bad as not knowing what to do with the time you're given.

SOME THINGS CAN NOT BE FIXED

I said it out loud today and then immediately wanted to un-say it.

This is a truth about being human, but not an absolution.

coffee shop romance

I gave in and said yes, I'd have coffee with him, because the last time he asked, the zit on my chin was at its reddest, orneriest peak and I'd already been vomited on twice that day. If he could see past that, well, maybe it was worth 45 minutes of further exploration. I pull the curtain behind me, pause, considering coffee. We've spent the past hour trying to irrigate the catheter of a demented old man with prostate cancer. He peels the gloves off his hands and throws them in the red bin by the sink without ever moving his eyes from my face. I feel the zit pulsing, projecting like a laser onto his forehead.

"C'mon. After what we've just gone through together, you're really going to say no? No matter what happens between us, there's no way that it will be more awkward than that back there."

How inaccurately he must see me - a girl who collects awkward moments like notches on bedpost.

His pager goes off. "Tomorrow? I already heard you say you're off. 4:00?"

It's impossible to find what you're looking for, or what you think you're looking for, sitting across a small unstable table, square or round, in a coffee shop. What kind of music do you like? Have you read anything by _________? People think this is the data you need to find and coffee shops play right into this type of shoddy research. How does he carry a shovel, what he does he do with the sweat on his brow? The tenderness with which he kisses his mother. This is the information I'm looking to gather. A first date in the middle of a field. Miles of fences to mend. Ask me once and I'll say yes in heartbeat.

When I called my mother earlier in the week, finally admitting that the last few months of dates with the architect had imploded into nothing, infertile ash, she went silent for a minute.

"What is it?"

"It's just...maybe you would have more success with men if you were less....," she can't finish the sentence. My mother teaches high school geometry. She is impeccably clean.

"Incongruent?"

"Well, that's one way of saying it, yes. "

"Ok. 4:00 tomorrow. I've got to go." I rush off into the room across the hall and start fiddling with the monitor even though it's not beeping and the patient isn't mine.

I get to the coffee shop early, trying to beat the rain and ending up my signature blend of windblown and sweaty. My bike falls over when I try to lock it while simultaneously looking over my shoulder to make sure he's not already sitting, expectantly, at a sidewalk table. He's not. There's a table in the back corner and I debate whether I should sit with my back to the wall or the door. I go with back to the wall and sit down, willing composure to rise up and beat back the incongruity I feel. All around me, people are typing intently into sleek machines, underlining passages, nodding in rapt agreement. It is too easy to be erudite and glib here. There is no room for awkwardness which is where I always find what I need to know.

I'm unabashedly watching the door when a girl about my age comes in, struggling to keep a 24 pack of toilet paper under the crook of her arm. She walks to the counter, dropping the toilet paper twice, and orders a large peppermint tea. She counts out the exact change, blocks the line of customers behind her while she waits, and yells "oh shit" when the light green water splashes over the lip of the cup onto her fingers. With great commotion, she gets herself, the 24 rolls of toilet paper, and a mug, half-full, of peppermint tea to the table next to me and sits down. I inspect her. Everything is a little off, a little over-ripe. Squidgy is the word we coined for girls like this in college.

A few minutes later a man walks in, and stalks through the minefield of tables. We never came up with the male equivalent for squidgy, but here he is. Without saying anything at all, he leans down and kisses the girl. He kisses her deeply. He kisses her faceoff. Then he stands up, stretches, reaching his arms high over his head, and yawns. When he's done stretching and yawning, he turns to the 24 pack of toilet paper on the chair next to the girl he's just kissed. He tears open the thick plastic, takes out a roll, and unwinds a long piece of toilet paper and blows his nose so thoroughly and loudly that everyone (unprotected by earbuds) turns to look. I, myself, stare, enraptured by the whole scene.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late." He's arrived and I hardly recognize him without his white coat and pager. The zit on my chin is gone and I'm feeling strangely hopeful about what can happen in this coffee shop, this afternoon.

He sits down in the chair that places his back to the door and cocks his head toward the couple.

"Wow. Did you see that. Kind of awkward. Hahahaha...," he laughs weakly and it trails off into my silence. Over his shoulder, I see the barista with the sparrow tattoo push play on the stereo and a song I love floods the air. I smile, betraying nothing, waiting for it to harden. He doesn't disappoint.

"Ahh! Great song!" He can not help himself as the seconds gather. "So...," he takes a sip, always looking at my face. "What kind of music do you like?"

wish

I want a good old typewriter bad.

midnight song

The cricket in the corner is quiet and steady.

The rain lashes down the drainpipe

and in the rich dark of my room,

I hear the soft tic tic tic

of my own carotid pulse;

hot blood and the cool of the pillow.

My heart keeping time for this midnight song.

Neither Here nor There: Part One

Neither Here nor There

or:

where have you been all my life?

"And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce."

- Soren Kierkegaard.

&&&

The Left Handed Captain, miraculously, comes to town on an Easter Sunday overwhelmed by dying bodies & disordered lives. He brings 18 perfect brown eggs & two bottles of champagne and, while I change out of my scrubs and into a pretty dress, whips up a midnight brunch so sublime, so glorious, I almost cry from disbelief. On the front porch we eat by candlelight, talking about this and that - Flannery O'Connor, giving up the search, lakes in Africa, the queer ability of low-fi audio recordings to pluck at our heart strings like the Holy Spirit. I tell him about my day and he says You are a good woman, Kate. He is handsome & charming, his hollandaise sauce is perfect salt & light. But my faith is so anemic, I tell him. When we talk of the people we've hurt and loved, he says Most days I wonder if I haven't made a huge mistake. We shiver as Easter Sunday fades into the start of another long week, already stacked against us. So incarnate are we -- unable to help ourselves to anything else besides more food - and yet...

(We live in this and yet... This is where we find our home)

...and yet, the early spring dew lands on our heads like a benediction; searching, feasting, together, our communion is blessed.

&&&

I lay awake these nights, deep in the dark, thinking of a man who told me once he loved me, and then told me again, and then again and then, finally, after all was said and done, once more again. In the middle of the night I would wake him, wake him just so he would say Oh Love, it's okay. Go to sleep, Kate, go to sleep. And I would. And just like that, I would.

I lay awake these nights, deep in my own mind, the knowing coursing thru my heart like blood, that love is not enough. Oh Love, it's okay. Oh Love! It's not enough! But love and sleep and passage beyond the bounds of one's own mind - is that enough? A lifetime of sleep, of love. Is that enough? Is okay enough?

&&&

I stop at the corner of 7th Street and Massachusetts Avenue and wait for the light to change. In the basket of my bike I have a bottle of Burgundy, purple grapes, dark chocolate gelato. It is Bastille Day and what I really want to bring with me (Regardez ce que j'ai apporté pour vous, mon amour!) is a gypsy man with an accordion and a wrought iron window basket exploding with red geraniums. But I am 29 now, slightly more practical, slightly less stupid, about these things (Peut-être que ce n'est pas vrai, ma chérie...).

A girl rides up next to me and startles my reverie. She is a little flushed, charmingly disheveled, with short dark hair, pink shoes, a green bike. Am I anywhere near Peregrine coffee shop? she asks and, then, before I can answer, Do I look ok? I'm going to meet a boy! I tell her, truly, that she looks lovely, that she is very close, only a few blocks away. Before she can answer I tell her that I, too, am going to meet someone. Well, you look very pretty, too! Good luck! she says and then pedals off to the place where we left off, il et moi, once upon a time. The light changes and I continue on my way, toward the guillotine, the Hall of Mirrors, an ancient stone wall, a bottle of Burgundy -- qui peut savoir, mon amour?

Zombie Insomniac

A summer of night shifts has left me strung out & wired, exhausted, lonely, slightly paranoid & delusional, with vague pains around my heart. Or: exactly the kind of person who goes to the hospital in the middle of the night.

blueberries

There is something particularly demoralizing about heading into work on a Friday evening, when the rest of the city is checking its lipstick and looking over the happy hour menu, laughing blithely over their beers.

I don't really miss that life most days, but I missed the carefree buoyancy of it all that night; wanted desperately to march right in and sit down at the first table of laughing people, to throw my head back with them and laugh like a drain, the most obnoxious girl in the bar. Instead I splashed cold water on my face, found clean scrubs, tempered my espresso with milk. I drove to the grocery store and wandered the bright, clean aisles, looking for something to ease the way through the long, dark hours. Blueberries were on sale so I grabbed a quart and a pack of chewing gum - bright, sweet antidotes for the handful of bitter pills ahead.

It is a long, shivery walk from the parking lot to the Emergency Room and I fell in step with the silent, single file line of nurses, travel mugs in hands. This winter seems colder than last - or maybe I've made an unknowing bargain in my quest for survival: the thinning of my physical skin as my emotional skin has thickened to a rough, tough hide. As the wordless line snaked deeper into the bowels of the hospital, I thought of all the similarities between my job and a miner. The changing of shifts, time clocks, union dues. We may not have the physical heft of bedrock, boulder, and crag upon us but, believe me, the weight of humanity is a physical pressure only waiting for the invention of an instrument sturdy, subtle, sophisticated enough to measure it.

I will spare you all the details between when I clocked in 7:00 pm and sometime around 2:00 am when I found myself squatting on the ground, reaching under the sterile drape to hold my patient's head steady, while the short, no-nonsense woman from the neuro team drilled through his skull with a hand drill. Right before we'd started, the man's girlfriend had rushed into the bay and thrown her weeping self across his chest. Please baby! Can you hear me! You've got to fight, baby! FIGHT for ME! I bit my tongue to keep from telling her that of course he couldn't hear her, my whole job was to make sure that the propofol was dripping steadily enough into his veins to keep him from hearing her, from fighting the ventilator, from doing anything but lying there, motionless. I regretted these thoughts as soon as I thought them. What do I know anyway about what he could or couldn't hear? There wasn't time to dwell on it, though; the bossy woman was waving the drill around and the cycling blood pressure was going up instead of down. It's now or never, she said. So I said, ok, I'm ready. This is your life now, I thought as I squatted there, my whole body aching with the strain of holding that single head still. But as I watched the blood and spinal fluid pour from above like a waterfall, congealing in a rubbery pool by my foot, I saw very clearly that it was also that man's life now, too.

By 3:30 am I'd transferred my patient to the ICU, giving his new nurse the handful of information that I had. I pushed the empty ER stretched through the quiet halls and parked it in the long line of beds waiting to be cleaned and made for tomorrow's patients. I went into the locker room and splashed water on my face, washed my hands until they were red and raw, grabbed my bag, and went and stood in ambulance bay for a few minutes. The air was cold and clear. I took a few deep breaths. Then I began popping blueberries into my mouth as fast as I could, marveling at the way their thin, taut skin holds everything inside.