I play your CDs, wandering

among your wanting

drugs and love and God

and knees that worked...

As each day's beat beneath me subsides,

it requires a bell-pull at my brain

to schedule for tomorrow's June day

sense with dashes of sensibility,

each day no longer a medieval cathedral

buttressed by my engaged and engaging

students of Romantic and modern music history...

I wanted a child,

But she didnʼt come. 

You have a lovely little girl here.

They didnʼt tell me youʼd be deaf and

Fucked up...

It was Margaret Atwood, Canadaʼs best-known author, who said in an interview with TVOʼs Allen Gregg; “Most letters to the editor are written by retarded people, because they donʼt have to worry about losing their jobs.”

This was broadcast and repeated earlier this year.

Over the last year there have been one or two columns in the local daily paper where the writers stated, “We have the right to offend one another.”

The way they talk – seems to say – she’s damaged goods—of course she’s on sale – because I’m pretty –I’m considerate – I’m a size 0 – and if I had long hair – and less hardware – I’d be a ten – but a couple pieces of molded plastic – a few scars – and suddenly – the only reason I’m not a relentless uncompromising bitch – is because I’m disabled...

April, 1973. The summer-like early night seemed breathless and clammy, truly, the last legs of that day, as Claudine Maine pulled the diner door open, stepped out. Break time.

She grasped her waitress cap/hairnet with one hand, tussling free long thick black waves at the sides of her face, while her other hand snatched a scrap paper sign loosed from the glass as she'd passed. “New Management” read red crayon letters. Tape gave up, it'd been there a month. She crumpled the paper, tossed it in the trash can beside her, then sat on the curb of the entryway walk.

It’s the early sixties

On an island smack

In the middle of

The Mississippi

And Minneapolis...

The Mennonite boys came

with a mother, this time. Her gold

disk earrings molten in cold spring.

Dusk hovering long enough

to gather spent milkweed...

Gabriel lifted his glass, offered a birthday toast, and leaned closer to kiss me, whispering something in my ear that was as dirty as his martini. The innuendo raised my eye brows and the corners of my mouth, and as the server returned, my blush lingered.

"It looks like the two of you are having a good time in the Keys," she teased.