December and Retail Therapy

The thing with November, especially this year, is that it was weird. Very weird. I had eye surgery again (3rd time in one year). My ex-husband died, I was nominated for another Pushcart (which I thought was a fluke last year) and well, the country decided to vote for a felon. I wrote a poem about the weirdness and I'm not going to submit it anywhere so here it is for you. I shared it at the 30 Days of Poetry reading live (always a challenge for an introvert). The CNAM fundraiser folks booked a venue at Smith College just the other night and as I stood there reading, I heard people laugh. I always appreciate a good laugh if I think I'm being funny. Here goes:

Retail therapy (working title)

everything’s weird
in that nightmarish way

where one thing cascades
into another --- and d o w n 

go the dominoes
the dots themselves

ovalized the way pores 
appear swollen on sunburned skin

one scene shifting into another 
what was and is -- and has always been

now this flimsy gauzy thing and at the same time
   --hammered down -- made of unshiny tin or copper gone dark

great gaps coming alongside the way rowboats don’t fit
together -- their curves so beautiful and apart

I haven’t any way to wrench it back –restart
who am I -- where will I go -- can I sit

when I need to stand - may I please rewind
and take the rough sandpaper of me

scrape it all loose I am the caboose--
 I am the lost wheel of the who I used to be

I used up -- all the all -- of me - and yet I’m full of all the stories 
God, please --- let me have my favorite orange cheese

and those shoes at REI -- Howser slide with herringbone 
in obtuse stripes –lining up like they should - like I can’t--

maybe I could shake loose like you see birds do when they’re wet--
    where the feathers fling right around 

I need those shoes - I’m sure I could step right into 
    the who I was        (before weirdness set in)