Winter Wedding

We’ll marry when we’re old.   Or not.

You wanted me for life when you were twenty, and I was seventeen.

But there were things I didn’t know I needed from the world.

The world had never gone beyond the shoreline,

but it offered other boys … a baby girl.

And the years went by like a flash flood in a dry canyon.

We’ll marry when we’re old.  Or not.

We’ll move to Eugene and live in a cabin in a hazelnut grove.

You’ll stitch cotton prairie dresses for me and bring ginger tea

out to the porch. We'll smile our eyes at each other,

still finding it hard to believe we’d made our way back.

We’ll marry when we’re old.   Or not.

I’ll work the gnarls out of your shoulders and we’ll laugh about

the basement and the four-way stop at Stars Corners

where you taught me to kiss.

A cool breeze will lift my skirt and tufts of your grey hair that

you’ll keep long around your ears.

We’ll have a dog and a cat, when we marry when we’re old.   Or not. 

But I’ve heard you love your dogs.  And me, I love my cats.

We’ll watch them play from the porch in the hazelnut grove.

I’ll remind you how we fit together so well. You'll tell me you

never forgot.  Your mother had my birthstone added to her ring.

Did she keep it there?  I’ll ask.

We probably won’t marry when we’re old

in the way that people do.

You’ll write a song and sing it in your sweet old voice. You’ll play your guitar

and I’ll make you a bolo tie of aspen wood.

We’ll promise ourselves to each  other forever, which won’t be very long. 

And if you die first I’ll wrap you in lavender-scented linen

and find a patch in the hazelnut grove.  The people from town

will help.  I’ll wrap myself in quilts and sleep there with you until I’m

sure you’ve found your way.

 And you would do the same for me. Because you’ve loved

me since I walked away .

Living in The Look-Back

I don’t do forward.

Forward is sagging flesh and aching limbs.

There is death and work there. There is mundane exhaustion.

Every forward day puts the Look-Back in front of me.

The lithe and happy young woman waits at the deli counter

in her tight, white jeans with  cascading waves of

strawberry blonde spilling over shoulders like the stream

that carried me in the West Virginia hills

over cold, smooth rocks as smooth as her skin.

As smooth as mine as I slid over rocks into the

glassine oval of mountain water, below

in the Look-Back.

I hear a man in a café laughing with his parents. I visit mine

in the Look-Back.  I kiss their cheeks and sit with them at the table

in the kitchen.

In the Look-Back I read the cards that came in the

mail that tell me where they are, what they’ve done, that they miss me.

I hear their voices on the phone and look forward to weekends

in the guest room and long walks at dusk, the scrub jays diving for peanuts from our hands.

The same hands.

Burgers wait on the grill and happy hour is five minutes away in the Look-Back.

I listen to a woman in the library with her little girl as she reads Goodnight

Moon aloud and I am in my daughter’s room in the Look-Back.

I am tickling her. I’m fishing a lima bean out of her nose,

the nose of my tow-headed child.

They are cruel, these laughing couples around me in the Forward.

They laugh and tease and

believe they will be together forever. They will never be old.

They will always be in love.

 In the look-back I am too.

 I am still touched there.

 And there,  and …there.

I am like Lot’s wife who had no name that filled her soul.

I do not look forward.  Forward holds no promise except that of

heartbreak, and regret.

There is shame in the Forward. There is sadness and struggle.

There is sagging flesh and aching limbs.

There is work and mundane exhaustion,

and the occasional occasion.

You tell me not to look back?

I turn hard at your command.

I turn hard toward my home.

Go forward and be pleased at your sanctimony.

Getting to Know You

It’s so fluffy comforter when things come to mind that tickle the shit out of me. 

The gods of cyberspace, algorithms, and demographics think they have me all figured out. HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Kronos is the the god of time, the All Devouring, (even of his own children). That’s also the name of the company that makes the time clock I punch every morning.  Funny, because in a very weird way I feel like I’m being devoured every time I swipe my card. By the time I go home I feel like there isn’t much flesh and bone left.  I’m a mere turd after nine hours of being digested in the belly of the beast.  I thought I was just a normal working stiff.

It turns out I’m sooooooo much more. 

The world of marketing thinks it has me pegged. I received an American Baby magazine last week.  The week before that I received an Urban Outfitters ad.  I also got my new AARP card. Marketers place us in neat boxes based on our online searches.  They should never try to box-in a writer.  We look everything up. Whether we need to or not.

Kronos has nothing on me.  I am the great and powerful OZ.  I am everyone…and no one. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

According to the demographics I am;

A senior citizen in the market for a new scooter, orange-flavored Metamucil, and the latest news in Alzheimer’s medications.  I’m  also pregnant and in need of advice from other young mothers. I get pop-ups about breast pumps. I am a male and a female because I get pop ups bout sexy babes looking for a guy like me.  I’m gay.  I’m straight and desperate to be married. I’m a college graduate.  I am a Wal-Mart shopper. I shop at Nordstroms.

I hate guns.  I love guns.  I’m a liberal fascist.

I weigh over 200 lbs. and need lap-band surgery.   I’m a hot twenty-something.  I’m almost dead.   I love cats and hate dogs.  I love dogs and hate cats. I raise hamsters and hedge hogs. I’m a Move-On member.  I’m a Rush Limbaugh ditto-head.

I’m asthmatic and suffer from bone loss.   I have heart problems.  I’m shopping for places to rock climb, work out, and dive.  I eat health foods and vitamins.  I get Cheetos samples and cigarette coupons in the mail. I’m a gourmet cook.  I drink pop and eat cheeseburgers at fast-food places.

I need a face lift, neck lift, and breast reduction.    I need breast augmentation and hair transplants. I’m a family person. I am a loner and need information on agoraphobia. I qualify for trade school as an auto mechanic. I can get money quickly from Amscot. Charles Schwaab wants to talk to me about investing.

I can get my Master’s degree at Phoenix..

I can get my GED.

I have a crappy credit score.  I have an amazing credit score.

I own a home and shop for furnishings from all over the word. I need siding and Behr paint for my Cape Cod in the Hamptons.

I should consider disability and a low-rent housing for seniors.

I’m single and need to find my one, true love online.  I’m married and need to think about a cemetery plot for the two of us.

I love punk rock and Barry Manilow and the Three Tenors. (What the F***?)

I’m an Etsy girl and a Good Housekeeping matron.

There are even more that I could tell you about, but apparently I have very little time to spare from my busy social life, or more time than I know what to do with but I’m too depressed to go on.

You know what’s going to be cool?   When I post this on my blog the ads are going to go all over the place.

  I can’t wait.