It's feeling like a hot stove life these days. I don't know who to talk to. I don't know who to trade.

I'm waiting for the Mitchell Report to blow it all up.

Today it is difficult not to drink. I mean not to drink early. This morning with ice over everything and no cream for coffee, like a sign or something that whiskey would do or bourbon or scotch or anything but coffee with no cream.

There is a smell in the house, a bad smell, like lost sippy cup or worse. Keep doing laundry. Close the gate upstairs and mop the floor. Replace the bad smell with the bad smell of bleach. Strip the beds.

Wash Sam's chair. Scrub yogurt from the grooves in the table. Bring the garbage outside. Knock the ice off the lid. Shovel the steps, the walk. Throw salt on it.

Watch the crows fly away. I forgot about winter, this way things have of freezing shut. The way windex freezes on a window.

At one o'clock Jane brings me cream. I give her soup. I set oranges and cloves to boil on the stove.

It is after noon and I haven't had a drink.

My streak stands unbroken.

My house is filled with balloons. The kitchen cabinet is falling off of the wall. My living room is filled with fabric from another of my mother's closets.

Today she watched Sam while I put parts of her life in boxes and into my car. She sat him on the counter and fed him pieces of bagel. She gave him antiques dolls to play. And when her dog snapped at him she pulled Sam up quickly and cried with him.

She cried and was sorry and couldn't talk. She wandered around and couldn't find her things and cried and said she was sorry. I told her not to worry. Everything is fine.

I would lie through my teeth to make her happy.

Funny to watch Joe standing, his chin up just like Celeste's.

A little heart-broken today. The tone of my mother's voice. The girl at the bar Monday night. The way parts of the house feel cold even with the heat on.

I have been spending my days making things for other people to buy. I have been working until my fingers are sore.

It is another form of love: letting these things that are a part of me go.

Trying to get back to it, to get my wits about me. Today the snow and the rain fell around me and landed like crystals and tears.

I can't remember when I stopped singing my lover to sleep.

Driving home in the midnight light, stars bright above us and the moon a yellow shock behind Stage Fort. Every other car is a cab or a cop. Drive through the Fort, to find the moon again.

My city at night. It is quieter after I drop Jane off, up over Beacon Street and onto Washington. The cabs are driving like there are no lines and the streets are empty. The night shines down on City Hall. On Main Street. On the steamy laundromat on Maplewood Ave.

I miss you.

Water main broken down town. No laundry, no dishes. No baths for the kids. The water's brown. So dirty it leaves a ring in the bathroom sink. I can't make coffee.

At the market my mother tries to talk to everyone. She mistakes their wanting her to move her carriage for a more pleasant eye contact. She doesn't understand.

At the check-out the man looks at each thing. Says its name. Says its size. 28 ounce can of 'Kitchen Ready' tomatoes. Rings it in. Looks at the computer and reads what it says. 28 ounces. Kitchen-ready tomatoes. Artichokes. Oats-and-More cereal. Market Basket shredded chedder cheese. Martin's potato bread.

It is the longest check-out. Sam is crying. My mother puts him on the conveyor belt. He is happy. I bag my groceries as they come down. The man doesn't turn the second belt on and I have to reach for the tomatoes and the cereal and the cheese.

My mother is minding Sam. She doesn't put her groceries up. By the time I notice this the man behind her has his out, blue divider between his and mine. I pick Sam up and put her food where he was.

The man puts a pen in front of Sam. He picks it up. He gives Sam the receipt to sign. The man looks at my groceries and wants to bag the rest.

Sam is crying again. I ask the man to please ring her food in. He wants to bag. I ask again. I promise I can keep them seperate. He yields. By the time he is done naming her food it is almost all bagged. He tells her the total: $43. She only has $40. My card is already in my bag beneath the groceries. I dig it out. Take her $40. Pay for her food.

On the way home we stop for a cup of coffee. She digs in her purse for money to pay for it. I tell her it's my turn.

Hard this week, the days of it all together with the days that have come before them. Those two houses. They make me remember. Standing in line for hours. Looking at bodies and trinkets. The delirious feeling after hours in one room. Saying I'm sorry and hearing I'm sorry and being sorry. The way faces all look the same. The way make-up cakes at the edge of a bullet hole.

Today everybody is tired. Our feet are sore from standing in lines. Our babies are grumpy from lack of sleep.

We are the lucky ones.

Outside on the smoking deck blues inside and they're joking show it they say and he lifts his shirt under his arm the tatoo the numbers sniper's numbers and I can't help but think of what they mean what sniper means what marines means and I say something about peace and go inside and I am standing there standing my eyes are tearing and an older man talks to me tries to cheer me up tells me not to change the world not to try and says its okay but I'm thinking about numbers and snipers and murder and death and I'm thinking about babies and children and parents and I'm thinking about parents and dead children and death and I'm crying and the band is playing and the whiskey's gone and I'm crying I go outside I go back outside and talk to him and he's fine it's okay and I'm crying about number and dead children and he knows he agrees and he shows me a picture of his boy twelve years old and he talks about war and about being young and about politics and love and green energy and in the end we're talking about Colorado and the weather and in the end we are talking about baseball.

Stepping outside this morning it feels like spring. The birds singing in the bushes, a lightness in the air, a new crop of peas coming up in the pot by the stairs.

We are dancing in the kitchen, a baby on each hip, singing in full voice. We are eating root vegetables and ripe pears.

I am remembering how important it is to hear your name spoken out loud.

The day is half-way done and I am starting to slow. We are drinking tea to stay warm. We are remembering how to layer our clothing.

Around every corner there's another thing to do. Trying to keep up with it, trying to be productive. I have a picture in my mind and I doubt I'll get to it.

I am holding my head high. Trying to find value in matching socks. I'll have to turn the heat on soon.

Waking up every morning to the price of oil rising. The sunflowers outside have all turned brown. The birds are making the most of them.

Everything is one step away from desperation.

The house is cold again, today like yesterday and the day before. I won't turn the heat on.

An hour at the market and at the end of it the fear of not being able to pay. Electrical glitch last week, expected money absent all weekend. I packed the cold things together in case my card didn't work. Crossed fingers. It did.

Leeks from Friday at Appleton Farm and potatoes from last week's sale on the stove. Everything I do gets quickly undone and I do it again. All day this way. Clean up the blocks. Sweep the floor. Fold laundry. Repeat.

I'm listening to songs I shouldn't bother listening to. They fit the futility of the day. Only recently familiar and already like old friends.

The sheets are in the wash. This is recycling week. The soup on the stove is warming the kitchen a little and there's coffee almost ready to drink. I might slip away and ignore the whole thing.

If you think I'm crying for you today you are less than half right.

On the way to the doctor she says she is going to throw up. She is wringing her hands. She says she is going to be bad.

She has new buttons on her jacket. Buttons all over the front. Where the top button should be is a string of five or six buttons that jingles when she walks. There are buttons on the side with button holes. Silver and gold, silver and gold. One with a pearl center. She has sewn antique buttons all over the front of her jacket.

When we get to the door she starts to run away. I grab her, hold her. She screams at me and tries to shake her way out. The buttons on her jacket jingle. She frees her arms and swings at me. Let me go let me go no way no way no way. I hold her again and tell her I love you mom I love you. She is crying.

I ask her if she remembers last year. She doesn't. I tell her how dark it was. How she couldn't talk or paint or sew. How she wanted to die. I ask her if she is happy now. She says yes. She lets me bring her in.

When the Mormons came this week they tried to answer my questions by the book. They told me I need the milk before the meat. They sat and knit and let me ask about celestial marriage and sexism and the spirit mother. We talked about love and god. In trying to tell me that love is god the talking one read a passage that made me an antichrist. She was so sad when I pointed it out.

Before they left they sang a song for me and said a prayer for my mother.

Inside the doctor's office she is mad and she is crying and she says no no no. She doesn't want to be there. She won't let him touch her. By the end she has answered his questions. She is mostly quiet. She is resigned.

Driving down Washington Street bringing her home she says I take good care of her. She says she loves me. She says thank you.

Every time I have to tell someone it becomes new again. When I say it I can see the parts of her brain going away. The dark spots on the scan. When they start to cry I cry too.

Tomorrow when the Mormons come back to talk to me about heaven I will ask them. Is there a place in heaven for the parts of a person that go away?

When the Mormons come I don't know what to do with them. So I teach them how to knit. They sit with the kids while I look for yarn. They pick shiny metal needles from my extras. They chose colors.

I cast on for them. They are nervous. They fumble with the wool and it slides all over the place.

The quiet one gets it right away. Her hands know what to do. The one who talks about blessings and the prophet and the book is having a hard time. Her stitches are tight. She splits the yarn.

I ask them what they are doing. Four hours of service a week. They came to my house to weed-whack my lawn and I start them knitting hats for Afghans. They ask if I was raised in a church. I ask why circumstances of class and connections are called blessings.

The quiet one finishes a row. She says something thoughtful every so often. The one who talks has trouble with her tight stitches. She keeps returning to the book. She tells me about rules and blessings. About following laws even if you don't know them. I talk to them about anarchy and Jane Eyre.

I lend them a book of knitting instructions. I know they will be back to return it. The one who talks asks me to write down my questions so she can research them. She says she's no genius. They leave me with the Book of Mormon. With passages to read.

They say I must be obediant to have the blessing of my home and children.

They have no idea.

I called this morning to tell her I would be late. Just after noon. When I got there she was upset. She didn't know where I was. It continued like that today. Missed cues, little complications. Typical for a Tuesday.

There are things I want from a Monday. Sometimes they come, sometimes not. I have no right to them but I want them just the same. A little music to dance to, some Monday night words. The best I got last night was reading My Vote Counts to a most offensive mayoral candidate.

Sometimes these days of the week have minds of their own.

Reading translations in the tub after everyone else is asleep. I'm not sure where I fit into it all, the elbows and the wool. But the peace of it.

I have been ignoring my mother lately. That is not true. What I should say is that sometimes when I wake at night I let myself think of something else and I am happy.

The thing about letting everything go to seed is that the birds love it. They hop about the yard, past the mustard and the thistle. The whole things is a place to hide.

I can't stop thinking of those children watching their mother die. Waiting as her body slowly gives up. Remembering my father as his body stopped working. Watching the pieces go.

Sitting at N.'s counter, her feeding me cookies and pouring me tea. Talking about our lives, our families. Her children doing well, playing music, applying for school. Mine still in my belly.

Potatoes were on sale yesterday at the market. Buy one bag get two free. Spinach too, buy one and get one free. We'll be having spinach-oatmeal soup soon, and shepherd's pie. Potatoes roasted with salt and pepper and rosemary from the garden if I can find any.

I wonder if her family came, if they figured it out.

Yesterday's spider came back, crawling up the kitchen cabinet this morning. Up and down with his seven legs. Abigail didn't want him there. Wanted to use a napkin to shoosh him away. Instead I caught him in a cup and left him outside.

N.'s copy of Bartok for Children is still on my piano. The spine taped where I said I would fix it.

I will bake something to leave there at their door. I can't expect them to get it. I can't expect it will matter.

There is love we put into things. We can never get it back.

It had beena good day. The kind of day that makes you wonder why sometimes it is so hard. The kind of day that makes you think you are good. And then it happened. Nothing major, a run-in with the recycling man, about what numbers mean, number two and number six.

I have been wrong. For months I have been putting plastic bags and styrofoam in my bin. I believed the numbers. I should have known better.

My horoscope warned me about this, about being comfortable. On the way to the park I couldn't get coffee. I couldn't get a styrofoam cup I couldn't recycle.

What else am I doing that is wrong?

Cleaning the living room this evevning I came out from under my desk to find myself staring at the spider with seven legs. I must have severed his line from the ceiling. I didn't want him there but days ago I had decided that he, with his seven legs, had the right to live on my ceiling. I didn't know what to do.

I got up to put a bowl in the sink. A sock in the hamper.

When I came back he was gone.

It's funny, tonight, how much I want to talk to someone. I wish I could talk on the phone. I wish I had something to say.

I meant to tell you about my long day last week. The phone call inthe morning asking me to call if my mother died. Crying in the tunnel over everything lost. Bringing the kids to Boston Medical to see Other Grammie with her broken neck. Parking on the top floor just to see the sky. Red Jello spilled all over the car. Lunch at Real Taco with a funeral on TV. An hour and a half of traffic on the way home. Counting at the supermarket. Rissoto with mushrooms and carmelized onions and spinach. Salmon with mustard dill sauce. Driving the kids to sleep.

It struck me that day, watching the people come and go. People in uniforms, people in hospital beds, people in cars, how odd it is that we love the people we love. That frail man in the next bed. The driver of the truck that cut me off. The older woman talking to me in line. How funny it is that with a different twist of fate they could be the people I love.

I am still amazed that it worked. I had sorrows. And I drank. And they went away.

For the first time inmy life I drank my sorrows away.

I am still shocked at the effect. Falling asleep without thinking at all. Sleeping deeply without a care.

It was a delicious few hours. But the next day was no better.

Driven home tonight in a '67 Dodge Dart convertible. The one Joe slowed so suddenly to look at. With Iggy Pop and the Stooges playing.

It was alright.

I am looking for self-confidence this morning.

I can't say quite what it is, quite why it is. A pile of fabric scraps on the kitchen floor. Chicken that should be cooked tonight. But there is something wavering about the day, a little breeze of uncertainty.

Maybe it is because I can't really read you. Or that the weed whacker is broken. Or that yesterday's mail sits unopened. I feel like I've been giving too much away.

I still want to open the windows to the morning air.

She was well on Sunday, a ride for coffee and to look at the water.

On Monday a morning visit to give her her pills. She had made coffee herself. After Sam's appointment we went again, this time a ride to Newburyport. Lunch at the diner. A little walk around. A ride to Plum Island.

Tuesday morning, her birthday, a quick get-ready then coffee with her father. A card with a picture of her as a girl holding her baby sister, now dead. She doesn't cry. She didn't sleep well, thunder and all. Has a hard time following conversation.

Wednesday morning and she is tired. She can't sleep without him, where is he? I explain again: He'll be home soon. Coffee with her aunt and uncle. She can't find her words. Stutters. Says the wrong things. Sam, just walking, keeps stumbling into Bernie's paintings. Left out for an agent to look at later. By the time we leave she doesn't make sense but she is comfortable. You can hear it in her voice.

I bring her to her friend's house. Stopping in the art store the man asks how she is, if she's better. He's know her for years. And I tell him no, she's not better. She is not going to get better. I pay for my paper and leave.

That evening I bring her to the hospital to meet her newest grandchild. She manages the crowd, laughs at the wrong times. She is quiet on the way home.

This is how our hearts break. We watch the people we love hurt and nobody can say a thing.

Tonight I am despondent, quiet in the face of it. Days go by and I can ignore the way thngs are, the way they will be.

I thank every one of you who distracts me.

There is a rash on her side, a sore on her face. One is caused by bugs crawling out of her skin. The other is from blood dripping out of her ear. I recommend a bandage and a cotton dress. More time spent looking for heart-shaped rocks, less time wandering around rooms alone.

There is a pit in my stomach, an empty feeling in my head. I'm going to try a drink.

It's horrible, the waya face looks with all of that makeup. The tokens we put in coffins.

What do you say to a woman standing alone? As alone as she'll ever be?

I wanted to say a lot here, about being back in that place. About Galen and my father and the look of death.

But I can't do it. All I can say is I'm sorry.

Hard to get up in the morning. Head groggy, noggy groggy, groggy noggin. Morning shower, telephone call, unexpected progress and unexpected bliss.

My mother was resting in the sunlight when I went in to get her. Her dogs were at her feet.

We were wasting time, sunlight on us, driving around and stopping where we could. At the chinese restaurant we waited outside for the food to be done, singing songs together. Oh, don't you cry for me. Little bits of love finding their way in.

Across the parking lot the man I feared for years and years was talking to a ward councilor. He stopped to wave to me. I waved back.

Beautiful hangover day.

Funny to see the picture of it in Abigail's little book of pictures. Me dancing with my father, his oxygen against my wedding gown. In the background is Herb Pomeroy. Herb blowing his horn.

It was just over ten years ago. Even though they said rain the sun was shining. After an argument with a superstitious minister about Wagner Herb had an idea. We agreed. A little bit later we walked up the brick-path aisle to Making Whoopie, played as a dirge. My Catholic inlaws weren't offended. They didn't know jazz. My godless family loved it.

Twelve years ago I was sitting in a jazz class atEmerson when I misheard the teacher say that Herb Pomeroy was dead. I left quickly to call my family. A chain of phone calls later we found that no, Herb was alive. It was the gig that was dead. The joke was on me for misunderstanding my crippled teacher's slur.

Today we are not so lucky. Goodbye, Herb.

I am trying hard not to be in a bad mood right now. I came home from a few days away to find my computer broken. It won't start. Won't turn on. I think it is a problem of power but who the hell knows. Oddly enough there is an extra computer here, slower and messier, lacking all content the broken one has.

It makes me sad, this losing things.

Picking raspberries in Lancaster I was thinking about my grandmother. I wanted to sing a song for her. I sang the song that made me sad after she died. I sang the song I sang at her service. Neither worked. As raspberries fell off the bushes into my hands I tried to think of a song she loved as much as she loved her raspberries. Nothing came. I started to sing the song I sang when my grandfather remarried. I felt like a traitor.

This keyboard makes different mistakes than my own. When does a house take over? Their house was always filled with his music. Even what she liked was his. I know she loved Bergman films and watching tennis and seeing schoolchildren when they were abroad. I can't thinkof one song sthat was hers.

I am in a sour mood and it is hard to explain. Even to myself. Sam has climbed the stairs and will cry when I get him. Maybe if I do something good I will feel better. Bake muffins for the neighbors. All the stories in my new book were sad about love. I'm beginning tothink that's all the Irish write about: sad love.

Maybe I'll do something bad. Bake little unzippered gingermen. Serve them with whiskey and fuck it all.

Tonight I am killing flies. They have taken over the kitchen. Little fruit flies landing on the sink and the cabinets and the mirror my grandfather's uncle made. I have cleaned everything: the sink, the dish drain, the pitcher from on top of my grandmother's piano. I have set glasses of wine all over the kitchen. Quarter-full of old white wine, a drop of dish soap in each. Poisoned wine for unwanted guests.

There is so much to go through. Satin ribbon, rickrack, embroidery floss and piping all jumbled together. Rayon seam binding. Hundreds of zippers. I try my best to sort it out, untangle the ends. I will never use all these zippers. It is impossible to know which ones I will.

In the back of the car is a trash bag full of jingle bells. Hundreds and thousands of jingle bells. You should hear the sound they make.

She came back from California and spent the next day in bed not eating or drinking. When we saw her she looked thin. She was shaking. Even the kids couldn't make her smile.

By the next day she was fine.

;/. There are so many people to think of in a day. Looking through her things, trying to get them in some order. Piecing together her story.

In a plastic bag her silver beads are held together by white acrylic paint, the tube left open. And the earrings I bought her in Cobh. A tin painted with enamels, black with green dots and a white dove. An olive branch. Old bank statements and lots of socks, covered in dog hair, never matching. Glittery gold tights.

A closet full of raw silk scraps. Each color in its own bags, each bag used before for something else. Rusts and browns bagged together. A bag of black the size of a laundry basket, baby blue the size of a loaf of bread. For years her palette, somebody else's scraps. Hours spent cutting and ironing and piecing together. I pack the bags in plastic bins to be put in storage and probably never seen again.

I couldn't take it home.

Pictures from my freshman year of high school, hair long and blonde, next to a boy who loved me. He spent hours sunbathing in my driveway, talking to the neighbors, waiting for me to come home. Brought me to watch the sun rise. Waited for me for hours.

Anne Marie across the street sees me and calls me in. She has had a dress in her hallway closet for twenty years. Purple gingham, made by my mother, worn by my sister, then me, then her daughter. She gives it to me for Abby. The finishing is perfect.

Today Sam took four steps. It should be noted.

These days I am baking scones for neighbors. Making whales of old fabric. Saving bottle caps and pull tabs.

Sunday morning the sun rose first like a pink ghost then orange with a red halo and finally bright and bold and yellow. I am making stories out of hellos and goodbyes and writing middles where nothing was before.

I am making myself giddy with thin air.

Today I locked my keys in the car and breathed reconditioned air. I ate bland food and sat through idle chatter. I bought diapers and fabric and buttons and bug spray. I didn't care through all of it because I am using my imagination. I am making characters to suit my needs.

They gather little bits of quiet exuberance and try to build a life of it.

Tuesday morning again. It always seems to come. The babies are coughing, doctor in the afternoon.

Find a hammer. Do all the chores that need a hammer. Fix the curtain rod. Pound a loose nail.

If I had twenty minutes I would pull the dried peas out of the garden. I would water the plants. Pick flowers.

Find a pen. Do all the chores that need a pen. Thank you notes. Bills. Make a list of things to do.

If I had twenty minutes I would piece together a picture of fabric. Black and white and red. Like I am thinking of you. Right angles and spirals. Black and white.

Turn the computer on. Do all the chores that require a computer. Check email. Reply to friends. Waste time.

If I had twenty minutes I would tell the birds stories that would make them grow teeth to bite the stones from cherries.

Winding yarn from a cone bought unseen, a mistake from years ago. Silk with some wool for good measure. A color called grass, it feels rough like jeans dried on the line. Tough, ropelike, on my hands. Trying to wind the perfect ball.

Apple-sized ball and the first knot appears. Break the yarn, start again. Almond-sized for the next knot. Once more, clean start, winding the yarn around my fingers then around itself and around the ball it is becoming. Right arm winding like a machine. Mind of its own. Change the axis. Keep the ball even.

Tired of the burden of product, knitting this time for the process. The pattern comes in bits, weekly, and I don't know what it will be. A stole of some kind. I don't pray. Instead of a prayer shawl I knit memories into each stitch. I can't pray. I remember into each stitch things I hope she won't forget.

Thread on bead. Cast on two stitches. The big glass jar of plastic beads we strung on fishing line, trying to make the longest string of all, up the stairs and onto the bathroom, down the hall and into every room. Knit into the front and back of each stitch. Four stitches. Making eggrolls around the kitchen table, plums and apples bubbling on the stove for a homemade duck sauce. Knit the next row. Driving down 133 in the old Singer to the White Lion. Galen throwing a piece of kielbasa with tamari out the window.

Knit one. Place bead. The birthday party after my father left. Me in my Chinese outfit, sick with the throw bug. All adults except for two girls my age. I wanted a cocktail party. Yarn over. A bowl of cheese curls. Place bead. Knit one.

Knit two, purl to last two stitches, knit two. All even rows. The smell of a bathroom frilled with coffee and cigarette smoke. Follow the chart carefully. Kids lining up for her tremendous chocolate chip cookies, no recipe, each the size of a hockey puck. All the teeth lost in those cookies. Keep the first and last two stitches in each wrong-side row in garter stitch.

The dresses she made me. Lines of yarn overs climbing the edges of the stole. Swimming in the waves after hurricanes. Legs raw from the barnacles on the rocks. Place a bead on the center stitch.

Yarn rough on my hands, the melon-sized ball showing no signs of shrinking. Following the chart carefully, trying hard not to get any of the memories wrong.

Today I have to do things my way. I have to have coffee in the morning. Dishes mostly done.

Listen to the same song. Over and over. Empty the baskets she filled and sort them out. Clean laundry in one. Mail on the desk. Plastic cup in the sink.

Monday set me back weeks. Brakes gone. Everything from the car thrown into my sewing room. Feet tired from all the walking.

A month of paper recycling under my desk. I can't miss it again next week. I just can't.

The living room in nearly clean. J. is upstairs with a headache. Sam needs a nap. He won't take one.

I will make another cup of coffee. I will vacuum the living room. I will listen to sports radio for comfort. What are we coming to? A meltdown.

I am trying to make up with poetry.

Just writing this now seems full of artifice.

If I could have been alone tonight I would have stayed home, picked peas from the garden and sauteed them with ginger.

There is no hope for it.
I can only write love poems.

Going to see her the car is faltering, making a grinding noise. Around curves. When braking. The front wheel on my side.

Abby in yesterday's clothes, Sam dressed and smiling. She is crying. Take her in.

Eat together, breaking bread. The waitress pours coffee right over the baby. He ignores her. Too much food, too much to think about.

The car makes it home. Out with the car seats. Out with the carriages. Have it towed.

She is sweeping my rug. Cleaning. Folded laundry, shoes and toys in a box. Keeping busy. Helping.

She dumps my pocketbook into the toy box. Fills it with legos. Rolls it up.

The day goes by.

This is how time is spent.

There is so little to do when the sky keeps falling. Blue for hours, hang the laundry out. Rain like a curtain, hide away.

There is a game people play when they don't know what to do with themselves. A bit of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Or Operation. Put inthe pieces, quickly, where you think you have plastic holes. Don't touch the sides. Don't connect. Hope you don't hit the wall. As if that little plastic femur fills in the empty bits.

Hanging the laundry this morning a green bug fell from the tree above me and landed on my chest. I over reacted. I am sorry for it.

These days the sun comes up with birds a-twitter and babies crying for the breast. The coffee is hot and the cream is sweet. These days the greens are from the garden. These days the morning dew is just enough to keep the garden happy.

We have jobs to help us buy drinks. We have dryers to pile papers and fabric on. We have babies to sing them to sleep.

Today I may bake a cake with almonds and butter and lemon. I will drink more coffee than I mean to. I will not open the mail.

You ask me what I am looking for.

What can I possibly say?

Tired from the heat of almost-summer. Windows still shut and fans still away. Afternoon rain in car windows. Baby crying upstairs.

Clean the spiders off of the new bookcase. Clean up puzzles. Move a speaker. Listen to that song. When I go deaf. When I go deaf.

Wash the dishes. Sneak dolls and Telletubbies into the wash. Slip mother's MRI behind the new bookcase. Think of that song. When I go deaf.

Pick up newspapers. Consider gardening at night. Doll's head against the washer. Think about water. Deep water. Hang clothes to dry.

Find a box. Fold a blanket. Try to find things I don't need. When I go deaf.

Biographers will accuse me of trying to reconstruct the people I have lost.

It's all a patchwork.

A cool morning, rain falling on yesterday's laundry. Last night the air was full of blossoms. It made a kind of mischief in me, like May Day girls dancing in white. It felt like cherry blossoms and cherry blossoms feel like you.

I tried to call you. Dropping Gerrit off as the late-morning sun broke through the rain. Looking back through his jungle, the taste of sorrel in my mouth. The air smelled like rain and earth and rain on earth and I missed you. I dialed your number. That is all that came of it.

It is late on Monday night and I am up alone. I've got that feeling that I can see evrything clearer now. Not intellectually but physically: cigarette butts on the sidewalk, streetlights up above me. I've been thinking of you all week.

It's getting close now. You know how all the rocks have names and all the marshes have mazes. You have always jumped in first while I shivered afraid on the dock. Even the glittering water of Lobster Cove makes me worry I may not come back.

I will turn 31 soon. Prime numbers have treated me well. Things could turn on a dime and I am ready for that but I think I'll go into it with optimism. Tomorrow I will bring my mother and my daughter to the beach and they will look for rocks together. We will chose which beach depending on which life we want to live. We will chose which life we want to live.

The other night I thought the fog horn was a train approaching. Funny how the sounds trade places. It's been years since I've heard a bell buoy. Last week on Front Beach there were pieces of blue beach glass everywhere. Must have been the storm that kicked them up. I haven't told anybody until now.

I had forgotten about irrational numbers but I know they have their place. Days and months and years go by and I don't think of them.

My peas have started to come up. By the time you get back they will have run their course and we will be deep in tomatoes and zucchini. The windows will be open. We will be waiting for you.

The shape of it all coming to me, coming back to me. Pilings rising from the water like the Giant's Causeway. The same thing happens over and over again.

The weather is changing again. Warm air comes in the windows and heats the rooms upstairs. The girls walk down the streets in as little as they can manage. Bass pours out of the cars. The drunks walk home at night. The city breathes with slow breaths, deep, making sure they don't lose their step.

Just got home and I'm trying not to cry. It's not that there's anything to cry about but sometimes the part of me that is you comes through and I just don't know what to do about it.

I think the old man across the street died today. Old women looking worried, coming and going with their dyed hair. Coming and going all week. And now they've stopped.

The woman in the next house down is on bed rest. So she sits on the front porch smoking cigarettes. Let's the dog out. I don't know how much longer before the baby comes but I'm worried.

I've got that fuzzy feeling in my head like I should be doing more. Or else. Like I should be doing else. Like somebody has decided my decisions aren't right.

I hate them for it.

When she got her Massachusetts liscense she took it out to show us. She took out his liscense too. She did it. She copied his smile. She got it right. Her husband, two months gone. She got his smile. Her husband. Hanged.

In the paper there is a letter from Wayne Lo. A letter addressed to the people of a well-to-do place. A letter telling them to remember. That they should have learned. That they should have learned when he killed my friend Galen.

I come home to the house smelling like a burnt-out car. The furnace is gone, running with no water. Cracked. The basement is hot. Nothing catches.

Abigail is better now. Not quite right, but better. Her lungs still making that crinkly noise. Every time she breathes in the tube I think of my father and the things he breathed. I think of my father and his lungs. His lungs.

A stone skips along the surface of the water until it stops and goes under.

Quiet omens in the night. A gate left open. The bone we found in the graveyard. A flag flapping against wrought iron.

Oh, Molly!

While they are talking I am thinking of you.

It is Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning always comes. Today when it comes I admit defeat.

This morning came with cold and sun. The house smelling like winter needs to end. Everyhere I look there are more things. More decisions. Apples in a bag left in the car for too long. Frozen and pock-marked. Paper on the floor from hours spent drawing and painting. Mustard-wine sauce in a pan on the stove.

Tuesday morning is a time for reckoning.

The man came a little after ten o'clock. He looked at the heating system. Asked if we had a dishwasher, a garbage disposal. Looked at the box in the basement. I told him the house had won. I admitted defeat. He said it was none of his business.

It is Tuesday morning. In a little whle I will try to get the kids out of the house to face Tuesday afternoon. But for now it is still morning. It is Tuesday morning and I admit defeat.

Recession

He's taken her off of one of her medications. I come home to this. He has told one doctor. Not the one that matters.

There is always laundry when you get home. And things to unpack. The mail keeps coming and trash day comes too. There is ice in the driveway and the sky is gray.

She thinks she has bugs in her fingers and she is picking them out. She is angry. Angry. He's taken her off one of her medications. She is picking them out. I am doing laundry and opening mail.

Trying to figure what it means to be remembered, why it matters. A cold morning. I remember that. A boarding pass to Shannon. A present never mailed.

Cleaning my desk, finding things I may have forgotten. A string of beads. An old violin. Letters written and not mailed. Letters recieved and not returned.

Trying to think of why it matters to be remembered. Graveyards full, full of people. Graveyards full of people I know. People I knew. People I remember. Graveyards full of forgotten people.

Smiles of a summer night. My grandmother, feet on the coffee table, drinking coffee out of a small white mug and watching old movies. I remember the swans swimming, candles growing long tails. What of this remembering? Red velveteen. Smoking on walks around the block, then only in the bathroom, then not at all. Cherries soaked in her Manhattans. Eating oranges before bed.

I tried this morning to remember my father's voice. How he answered the phone. Gave advice. I'm not sure I got it but I remembered the way he looked when there was nothing he could do. I remember his look. Sympathy. Empathy.

Looking down at my son at my breast. What does it matter more than this? Ice on the inside of the window, his body warm against mine. What does it matter to be remembered? His looking up at me, his eyes. He won't remember. But that moment will do.

Cleaning my desk of ways to be remembered. Yarn to knit a sweater. Pictures of my babies. Beads and silver. Fabric for quilts. Letters and bills and bills and bills.

The rug by the door is stained black from the shoes of the man who repaired the boiler.

Knitting a lace shawl for a friend, for her wedding. Hours and hours of sleepless nights, minutes caught between daily routines. Ten minutes here when I should be holding Abby. Ten minutes there when I should be holding Sam.

At the market tonight Abby and I put cans in the machine. Abby standing in pig slippers in the carriage dropping them in one by one, the machine gobbling them like a snake eats mice. Fifteen cans. The machine spits out a paper.

Bug-eyes has new glasses and I nearly miss him, nearly walk right into a conversation. But I hear his voice and turn away. Something about a letter to the editor. Some woman trying hard to break out of the converstaion. Trying not to be caught. The last thing I need is for him to talk to me, to talk about poetry. That was years ago, nearly eleven. I haven't kept up.

Rows taking half an hour at the end. 178 rows of easy knitting. Then 60 or so rows at half and hour each. Making holes and more holes. Making points.

The wind is howling outside. Abigail and James are asleep. Sam is asleep. I am going to have to talk to a lawyer soon. I am going to have to make decisions for her. I am going to have to talk to a lawyer to make decisions for her. The wind is coming in at the windows and the doors. The house is cold.

This binding off is taking forever. Thirteen stitches and a lace point falls off the needles. Another thirteen stitches. Another point. I am drinking red wine that should have been dumped. My breasts are full and the baby is asleep. I have eight points bound off and dozens more to go. Purl two, slip stitches back to the left needle, purl two together. Purl one. Slip stitches. Purl two together. Binding off the holes.

It is depressing to shop at that market. A girl from high school talking about Nascar. A fat woman crouched in the aisle looking at stuffing bread. Chatter at the lottery counter.

I didn't tell you about the dream I had a few weeks back. Pinochet's brain became part of my head, at the back, and a mob was leading me around the city looking for the right place to execute Pinochet. When they had me up at Willowrest I saw my sister in the crowd. I could feel his brain mixing with mine at the edges and I wanted to see him dead. All I could do was let the crowd lead me.

Candies fruit and Jewish foods are on sale. I buy chips for the party. Cream to make more egg nog. At the checkout I see a can I thought was artichokes is chick peas. The girl double-bags glass bottles of pear juice. The boy puts them in more bags before putting them in my cart.

Driving home it is still snowing. This is what it will be like for her-- white covering things she knows are there, covering them until she questions what is there, until she forgets what was there altogether and then that anything was there at all.

At home Sam is coughing like a seal. Abigail is walking in circles looking for chocolate, saying I am so lucky. I am so lucky.

She is lying on the table in a fetal position facing the wall. She looks younger this way, her skin smooth and her fancy underwear with a bow on the back. I stand at her head with my hand on the side of her face.

He feels her back, finds her spine. An inch out of place and nobody ever notices. Presses firmly here, and there, looking for the right place. He paints her back with an antiseptic sponge. Frames her spine with paper.

A shot to mask the pain. She doesn't flinch, she is sedated. The next needle shudders as it hits bone, stops and starts as it looks for a way through. I rub her cheek as she moans. It hurts, it hurts. Out and in again. Prodding.

He stops and looks for something else to stop the pain. I help him get the bottle out of the cabinet, hold it at an angle so he can fill the syringe. I was my hands afterward thinking I should have washed them first. I hold her head as he pricks her again.

The baby starts crying. We trade places, R. and I. The needle goes in again. She cries. The baby cries. Pain down her leg, her hip, her knees. I start to nurse. Blood trickles down her back. R. holds her head as she cries out, whimpers, moans. He ankles hurt. Her left leg jerks. She cries out in pain.

The baby is quiet. The needle moves in and out. R. is holding her head. She is crying. Nearly the right spot. Her legs kick. R. is holding her head. He tells her to be strong. Be strong for the babies. She is crying. Blood is trickling down her back.

Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. Nearly an hour gone and finally it comes down the needle: clear fluid, like water dripping from a leaf. She is quiet as we watch it fall, drip by drip, into the vial. One vial. He turns the needle to see if it will flow faster. Two vials. She mutters and her body starts to unfold. Three vials. Four vials full from the needle in her spine. He takes out the needle. She is still as he washes her back. Puts a bandaid on.

I want to remember this so I don't judge her too harshly.

Quiet night, reading in bed when it comes in through the window like an anthem - the theme song for M*A*S*H. Almost every day for five years after Marnie got sick it came up the stairwell to our place. Almost every night growing up it came through the wall from my mother's room. For at least half of my life, one of the steadiest things I knew.

This morning cleaning like the Queen is coming. Sam nursing and crying and sleeping, nursing and sleeping and crying. Abby walking around with her doll singing a song to herself: Don't cry, Mommy, don't cry. Kitchen and bathroom mopped, chairs scrubbed, counters clean. Soup on the stove, soup on the stove. By six o'clock the three of us are sitting in the middle of a pile of laundry to fold, one of us crying. By nine I am the only one awake and not much of the day's work shows. By ten thirty the kitchen is clean again and I am done.

To think about it wakes me up at night.

When Judy got sick they flew her east. They gave her the bedroom we had slept in and the tv room on the second floor. They scoffed at her diet of whole grains and raw vegetables.

When she got sicker they wheeled her out into the sun on a new wrought-iron chaise lounge. She sat in the sun and tanned. She sat in the sun and grew new hair as her baby girl walked on the grass of the hill. She sat in the sun while her eyes got empty. After I saw her for the last time I watched the parade from the corner in front of the art store. Two days later she was dead.

I know a man who kept his toenail clippings in a decorated pill box next to the bed. He slept under a print of two men sleeping next to eachother. His lover's daughter thought it was a picture of her father twice.

Coming home from the orchard, a car burnt out just south of exit 15. Vermont plates, fire engine, ambulance, police cars. Trees turning red around us. Coming up on October, it'll be here soon, then November and December. Months get cold and colder.

On the second floor in the tv room we sat and ate oranges before bed. Marnie would peel them and split them between us. Elizabeth in her red and white pajamas. Robert in his velour tiger suit. A hug and a bug and a love and a kiss before bed. Us in the big house with our grandparents, her home alone in an empty room that would be mine. Crying.

When she was little she would climb into the bread oven beside the fireplace in the tv room and close the door. As he was emptying the house she climbed in again, in with old postcards and lost scrabble letters, the snakeskin from Peter's move west. The room almost empty but for the pictures on the mantle and my grandfather's grandfather's cradle. Pictures cut out and glued to a board, kids in turtlenecks. Judy smiling.

Sam

firstday
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

This is Sam on his first day. Sam is now three weeks old. But here he is on the day of his birth: Samuel James Finnegan Cook.

Thank goodness there's a cop at Tony's Porn and Lotto Mart. Me with my pram and the guy in the wheelchair playing Keno, barely enough room for one of us never mind two vehicles. Talking with the guy who collects scrap metal about those immigrants. They're workaholics. Take $10 an hour even if the going rate is $23. And the Americans are so lazy-- they win a few bucks on a scratch ticket, go out and get drunk, don't show up the next day. The cop directs me to the ramp, exit 12, he says, Seabrook, New Hampshire. Crosses his fingers in prayer for Samuel's health. Calls me Good Girl for my Moxie.

Heat everywhere. Cars dive by with radios blaring. Kids light fireworks in the park. It is summer no matter how I try to deny it.

These are things I have meant to say:

The perfect tree on my street blossomed and then lost all of its blossoms. The little girl in the back yard has been stealing my peas. I saw the guy who looks like Jim at the market again. Small strokes.

The drive to Lynn was less rewarding than I had hoped.

Strawberres and rhubard, heavy cream. Peas with ginger and garlic. Morning sickness all over again. Tired, tired, tired. Belly big and ankles swollen. Counting down in weeks.

Baby sleeping. She's not so baby anymore, with letters and please and nipple and coffee. Trying to make this last month of just her count. Cddle, read, kiss and tickle.

World Cup fever.

Feeling like an orphan. Tired, worn out, coffee in bed, slow waking. Trying hard not to avoid things. People. Phone calls.

Mother quiet today, not hearing and not talking. The same questions again and again. I'm tired and I don't know what to do. We drive, around and around. She isn't hungry. She's starving. Just a soda. Coffee. Salad would be good. I default and spend more than I should on lunch to have an easy place, a place she knows. For the third time this year this is the first time we've gone.

Dropping her off she is tired and thankful. No words but thank you, thank you for coming. Abby says her name. I say her name. Across the street the near-blind and the drunk are waiting to catch the bus.

Wake up thirty. Cuddle in bed with the baby girl, tickle tickle wee.

Decide to take the day slowly. Sister calls, coffee then off to renew my liscence. No line no hassle. Something at the yarn store but not too much-- wool and cotton for the baby in my belly. Sister's again, a box of color, and home with the decision to do what I want. Email from Amanda and note from Zac. Father-in-law and brother-in-law. Flowers and Hamlet Machine when James gets home. Abby to Tad and Jane's, us off to sushi. Coffee.

Back to pick up Abby. Knit sushi from Jane! Home now, baby in bed, James asleep. Two messages. Birthday wishes from my brother. Stepmother calling to see if we will see her on Mother's Day.

Chuckle to myself, chuckle here. Happy to be thirty, happy to be me. Happy I can giggle thinking of who remembers and who doesn't. Happy to know what matters.

Ron

Ron
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

Been sick lately, don't get out much, but I chose my company carefully when I do.

Trash out from the back when the white truck moves. Recycling out but not the paper. Not the cardboard. Toilet broken and fixed.

Baby crying in gasps on the telephone. Cat walking on the keyboard. Laundry on the floor and dishes in the sink. Stomach upset from chemical drinks and leftover ham.

Husband away. Peas coming up. Llama in the living room and pansies in the car. Letters photocopied. Baseball game on.

List of things to do. Seeds to plant. Curtains to fix. Rooms to clean and checkbooks to balance. Lonely, lonesome or alone?

I wish things were as lovely as cherry blossoms fallen on grass.

I am trying to convince myself that snow is good for a garden. That April 5 is a fine time for snow. That I am at work anyway so I shouldn't even care.

Play Ball

Abigail at Safeco Field
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

Opening Day. 1:25, Abby down for a nap. All day preparing. Buy seeds, pansies, gloves and a trowel. Borrow wagon. Buy potting soil, composted manure.

Find extension cord. Radio outside. Batteries for the monitor. Glass of water.

Last year's tomoatoes, vines pale and dead, pull them out. Sweep sand from the top of the soil. Litter and leaves. Bamboo stakes.

Add peat moss. Add manure. Turn over, turn under. Gather seeds. Sugar Snap and Dwarf Gray Sugar peas. Bloomsdale spinach. Mesclun and mustard greens. Early Wonder beet and Cherry Belle radish. Bunching onion and Danvers Half Long carrot.

Bending over. Heart burn. Mark rows with broken stakes. Peas down the middle. Red Sox up by two. Sun gone, skin cold. Plant pansies on the stairs. Big Papi. Inside, dirty clothes off, jammies on. There's a lot to like about Lowell. Knit in bed next to a sleeping baby. Thank goodness for Coco Crisp.

You can see the smoke from Stage Fort Park. Clouds of smoke from behind the hospital. He died in Florida, his first vacation in twelve years. It is hard to tell at first where the smoke is from. Lanesville? Annisquam? He had come from seeing the Red Sox in spring training. Driving down the Boulevard and up Centennial the smoke looks like the other clouds. Hit by a car. Frank from Gloucester isn't calling any shows for a week to show his respect.

The rotary is too low, can't see the smoke. Passing Addison Gilbert I see it. Up to Wheeler's Point. They brought the World Series trophy to see him at the resturant. Uncle Moe's. Down the streets to the left there smoke between the houses but no fire. No engines. Tommy Moses, local softball legend. Turn around, up Cocaine Lane. The smoke is closer to the water. Down Cherry Street. Toward the rotary. Up over the bridge. At the resturant he called me beautiful, got me coffee. He knew how much I liked coffee. Turn around at exit twelve. Him noting Abigail getting bigger. Back up over the bridge.

There is fire, open flames on Pole's Hill.

After they tore down his house we spent our time at an old fish shack down at the cove. Fish freezers waist-high covered the floor, furniture on top, the smell of old bait in the air and clinging to me I'm sure but I don't remember that or even know that I noticed. A space heater in the winter. Low light. The sound of old trucks on dirt roads. Wind and rain and the tide going in and out. Things were going downhill and we couldn't stop them.

.

I bought roses with Gerrit on Monday. He makes me buy flowers. He makes faces at Abigail. He coos and beeps. He says people think he is her grandfather. He beeps. I am missing a father. He coos.

They put vaseline in her hair. They make her sit. They make her drink a horrible drink. She can't find his phone number.

I am cold. I have avocado to eat and dill havarti. Abigail is singing upstairs, sailing to Botony Bay. I am missing a grandfather. I don't want to do anything. I have bills to pay.

We watch the trash truck come. Our barrel is only half full. I don't believe them when they say this is spring.

The heat comes on. For the first time in years she is at appointments without me. They put vaseline in her hair without even asking. It won't come out for days. They make her sit still. Tomorrow I won't be there when they tell her what it means. I'll be getting pictures of the baby in my belly. I can't tell her they didn't hurt her. Can't help her remember my name. I can't tell them when she counts her children four. Can't tell them when I do the same.

She doesn't like the picture of herself.

She was in an argument. Someone was yelling at her. She decided to drive away.

In Hamilton she came across a work horse. A big horse, tan, with black hair. Its tail was thirty feet long. It reared, its hooves right next to her. Its back was dappled. It jumped over her. It was just inches away.

It is probaby still there.

What is the name of the baby she gets pictures of? She asked that of them, that they name him that. She asked that they name him Richard.

At the art store she has two canvases, fifteen inches by thirty inches. She needs to pay for a tube of white paint she took another day. She has some canvas she needs to have stretched. Not here, the canvas is at home.

She has a wallet full of quarters. She takes out her bills and leaves them on the counter. She takes the quarters out and hands them to the man. Four, five dollars. Another handfull. Seven, eight dollars. One more. Thirteen dollars in quarters. Sixteen dollars in bills.

He'll wait until next time, he says. I pay for the rest. It's easier to remember that way.

At the hardware store she says she wants to spend a thousand dollars today. She tells the story of the man who is always convulsing. The story of the war over trash can covers. She shows me a rock in the shape of a bird. A rock that is a heart.

We drink iced coffee. She offers me her cook books. We drive around the coast. Ah, aquamarine. She tells the story of the sixteen-foot seal she found on the rocks. Dead. She didn't smell it because the wind was the other way. Its nails were so long.

At home she has a picture of the baby hanging next to the picture of a baby from a frame. The frame dimensions written on his chest. She has a new painting. A tree of life. A new tree of life.

Yesterday clouds crouched over the city like tigers ready to pounce. Today the air is warmer and the sky is blue. This morning with a bad start, sick stomach and tired eyes, overheard conversations and a tumble down the front steps.

Trying to fill the day with knitting and cleaning. Trying to make that enough. Sweaters drying on the deck, dishes waiting in the sink. Sit on sandy steps. Watch trucks take trash.

Hope for a better afternoon. Hope it is better before noon. Hope for better.

Beehive hut, Dingle.
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

They say as she grew older she shrank into a shadow of the people around her.

Sand everywhere. Errands run, baby asleep unexpectedly and nothing to do about it but drive. Eighteen-wheeler blocking rotary traffic. Policemen and DPW blocking Washington.

Sand everywhere.

Men in expensive cars try to cut me off. Gesture when I don't yield. I don't yield. I won't yield.

Seven messages on the answering machine. Amanda? Amanda? I don't know what to do. Hang up. Amanda? Hello? Seven messages in ten minutes. I am not going home.

All morning spent paying bills. Opening mail. Budgeting and planning. All morning. Peanut butter on my shirt, out of two-cent stamps, tired in my head. Sand everywhere and I'm not going home. Men in expensive cars trying to cut me off but I keep driving.

Sweetness
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

What to make, what to bake. No Valentines out this year, not yet, but home today with little cupid and finally some room in my head. Love to you and you and you. Love to all of you.

I don't even know what to say about today.

Lottery. Purple scrunchie. Brothers Deli. Black and blue. Still lost.

Dreaming a lot lately, dreaming at night. Snakes in the gutters feet long and green. Nick Drake in an antique and yarn store at the mall, working and happy that people think he's dead. Living below my grandfather or above my grandfather and stuck there, stuck there. A deck all around the house and a dog rushing toward us, toward Abigail. Woods like where we used to play near Tide Rock.

Green. Green everywhere.

Drum Kit Abby

Drum Kit Abby
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

What are little girls made of? Sticks and stones and rock and roll.

I am sitting.

I am sitting down.

I am sitting down in a room filled with paper and books and puzzles and bags. Two pound-a-balls and a husband and a cat. Three pairs of scissors and six rolls of tape and a tree that needs watering. I am sitting down and I am not getting up.

Mililani, sun and rain, papaya tree int e back yard. Abigail asleep in a playpen in the next room. Coffee and wine and delicious turnovers. Cousins and Aunties and Uncles and Grandma. Stairs to climb. Red dirt.

Drive to Honolulu. Up to the old house. Views of the ocean, the city, the back of Diamond Head. Past the animal hospital where Dixie spent so much time. Drive to the hairdresser to see where to pick BJ up tomorrow.

Korean barbecue. Hibiscus. Double rainbow. Thank you. I love you. Thank you. Abby calling Fred Papa right away. Kisses.

Up early, downstairs, soup's out again still cold. Me dressed. Abby dressed. Forget shoes and sweaters and keys. Gather quarters and leave.

Walk downtown past the smells. Smells of caramel and bread and coffee and donuts. Past churches and chairs on the sidewalk and large appliances out for pickup. To the cafe. Espresso for me, sesame cookie for Abby. Sicilian talk of soccer and sox.

Out of money. Go home or get more? To the bank then to Two Sisters. Too many dishes at home and the instant decision not to wash them yet, not just yet. Call GL. Breakfast for me and Abby, G and G talking art and crotches. Twice as much as breakfast in the Fort.

Walk home, sometimes raining, just a drop here and there. Spitting, really. Telling Abigail the names of flowers. This is a morning glory, this is a rose. Maybe we'll eat every meal out today and I won't do any dishes. This is hibiscus. Tired of measuring my value in cleanliness. Look at the sunflowers.

Graves of sea captains with ships on them. Ben Pine, Columbia. Ordered yarn last night, super-bulky alpaca. Colors like the sunrise. Seashell pink and thistle down and starlight blue. I may not clean at all today. The sky is openning and I've had toomuch coffee. That won't keep me from drinking more. Abigail making wookie noises and watching break dancing on television. Something's got to give.

Garden thinned, leaves falling on the back deck. Wool finally feeling good in my hands, needles clicking quicker. Baby walking half-way across rooms, kicking balls and kissing dolls. Bath in the pool outside, wind whispers and neighbors chatter, bubbly hair and foam alphabet.

Soup weather. Soup season, at least. Cut the leeks under running water, clean the dirt between the layers. Baby walking and falling and crying. Too tired to be awake but not sleepy. Melt butter in a pot. Add leeks. Put Abigail upstairs and listen to her sing to herself. Sing to the cat. The window. The clothes she pulls off her father's dresser and into the crib. Coos and quiet and coos.

Today is Wednesday. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything anymore. Water the pants with water from the rain barrel. Add the bowl of vegetable ends to the compost pile. Pay the bills. At least most of them. Wash the diapers, hang them in the sun. Wash the tub. Knit a swater for the naked doll.

Abigail is quiet now, quiet for some time. The leeks smell like they may be ready for broth and potatoes. My sewing room (or laundry room) is clean now, piles for each project: the shirt quilt for G and K, the chicken quilt I have to start. Finished knitting projects. Knitting projects that just need finishing. Knitting projects just barely started. Notions. Notions! Abigail is cooing again.

So many tomatoes I am thinking of canning.

The problem with not paying for television: the pictures stay the same on the weekend. The same people drinking water, boarding buses, finding family. Nothing new to report. Nothing new.

I finally found something I can do. Quilts for refugees sleeping in air-conditioned sports arenas. Sleeping on cement floors. Finally something I can do with my own hands. There is a prayer in doing things, in caring to do them well.

President Bush, how dare you talk about Gasoline while there are still people stranded. Babies and elderly dying of neglect. Masses looking for buses to take them away.

How dare you.

Today is a day for doing things. Today is a day for getting things done. Today the toys go where they belong, with the toys they belong with. One room of the dollhouse for chairs and tables. One for musical instruments. One for blocks. One for puzzles.

Today is a day for eating well. Broccoli for the baby and rice for us both. No meat on the grill today. Too much rain. Too much meat. No cake for the baby. Not too much coffee for me.

Today is a day to do little things. Nail the carpet back onto the last step. Cut back plants and start new ones. Mark hand-me-downs for ownership.

Today is a day to ignore the past. Boxes of memories left alone. People not called. Stories not thought of. Letters not answered. Feelings denied.

Today is a day for today. Baby at the piano banging notes. Composter built on the livingroom floor. Cake for me-- ask Jane about birthdays. Colors on baby and paper and chair. Music instead of news. Bare feet and jeans.

Drive in to the meeting, game on. New place. Hard to park. Small turnout, the usual suspects, carded at the bar and a Guinness for me.

No point to the meeting. No point. The boys and I sitting around. Me trying not to mind the drive in for nothing. The boys talking about nothing. Mike Wallace. Renter’s market.

Turn to nostalgia: children’s shows, coal fires. Matt wanting to go back in time. Seven kids, two parents, coal fire and fresh fruit scones. Better then. So I try and I can’t think of a time I would want to go back to. Can’t think of a time that is better than this.

Wait at the bar, game over. I don’t know Brighton. One-way streets, no choices, cop behind me. Just keep going. I don’t know the streets. Don’t know Brighton. Keep going. Drive until things look familiar, kind of, tracks down the road and finally a sign. Beacon Street through Brookline past Coolidge Corner. Beacon Street into the heart of the monster.

Asshole fans in their SUV’s and I am too tired. Trying to think of a time. Wood stove, three kids curled up in front. Mom with her hand through the glass door. Robert crying every day, running away just out of sight. Asshole fans cutting me off and blocking the roads and honking.

Try a side street to get away, it’s blocked by fans clogging intersections. Turn around. Run away. Back up Beacon to North Harvard. Middle school. Drinking and lying and trying to get away, friends’ parents dying of heroin overdoses and men grabbing my breasts. Jane yelling at my mother and making me diet. Dad getting sick and us starting to know it.

Down North Harvard, into Allston. Familiar places all the way. Road work on the bridge , Storrow Drive instead. High School. Galen dying. Willie killing himself. Stephen dying. Always thinking someone would die and not really being far off. Restraining order and running away and looking out at the ocean crying. Staying up at friends’ houses after everyone was asleep and looking out the window. Crying. Trying to make it.

Storrow Drive down to one lane and the assholes join in. So tired my eyes are drooping when it dawns on me: I have never been happier than I am now. I love my husband. I love my baby. I don’t think anyone I love is dying. I am responsible for myself. I like my life.

Me in every period before this exploding with joy. Beaming. Me trying so hard to be happy. And now I wake up and Abigail kisses me. I don't have to do a thing. I don't have to try.

Route 1 and I am tired and hungry and thinking of course about what must be wrong. Something must always be wrong. And the saddest thing I realize is people dying unhappy. Not just sad but so far gone there is no joy. My mother. I want her to be happy. I don't want anything else for her or from her. Just to be happy. She used to beam and laugh and be happy but it's been months since I heard her cackle. And then the other saddest thing. The people I love hurt eachother.

Nearly crying now thinking of how much someone I love has hurt people. I need to stop. I need to get something to keep me awake and keep me going mind's on grand mal seizures and hospital rooms and stories not believed and whole histories being dismissed.

Drive-Thru. 24 hours. Pull over, search for change. Get to the menu and I just want something to drink but late night, limited menu. The woman doesn't understand me and I don't understand her and because I can't figure out how to get just a drink I end up with a meal.

Back on the road caffeine and fries and I really have been happy for most of my life. But I don't want to go back. Local boy, grown man now, arrested last week trying to get back to before his brother died, spray-painting mailboxes to remember. I don't want to go back. Past the malls empty lots flashing lights on the south-bound side. I was happy then. I did happy things.

Awake now, mind racing, burger uneaten. Home to sports radio left on downstairs. Hoping someone is awake for me to see for me to say I love you. I am happy. But they are upstairs asleep and my mind is racing. Each of these things so full so good and bad like swabbing my father's mouth as he died. There is comfort in everything.

These are the things I did. These are the things I remember. Tomorrow is trash day and I don't want to bring it all out tonight. I should go to sleep if I want to get it done before the truck comes tomorrow. When I was in young I would sit on the rock barely peeping through the part of our yard near the street and wait for the trashmen to come. I still love the sound of their trucks.

Sun-burnt skin in a deep v, cheeks and nose and chin. Woke with a start to a dream of morning, this morning, and all the done things still needing to be done. One hundred and twenty finger sandwiches. Iced tea. Lemonaid.

Trying to catch up all week to slow down and catch up clean up and slow down. Hoping for that time when the things that hang are done and the ideas that pass are noted. Eleven squares of thrift-store fabric, varying sizes, still quite seperate and slightly undone.

Clean the study, put the gate up. Think of notes to write. Notes to write. Try to keep the dishes clean, try to avoid ants. Wash diapers. Wash clothes. Try to think of what to say. Try to think of how to put eleven squares together.

Paper plates. Paper cups. Knife for the watermelon. Tablecloth. Trying to remember how to hide what I am thinking. Trying to figure out when I lost that skill. Buy a cake: Glosta Rocks. Bowls for chips. Four bags of ice. Kiddy pool.

Fiesta gone, Viva! Viva! Me on the beach alone in a crowd eating a sausage from Ambie. Funny to think that anybody looking at me can see what I am thinking. Watch the greasy pole, watch the crowd. Try to make note of fashion.

Is it having a baby? Never being alone? There are a good number of things in anybody's head that don't need to come out. Moments of sadness. Distraction. Frustration. Things that are no less real if they are private. Things that are no more real if they show.

Abby miserable in the heat, heat rash and sweat. Can't sleep. Won't eat. Better after the rain, waking happy and kissing me again. She is learning from me how to be. Kissing and smiling and cooing in the back of her throat.

I am trying to be alone more often. Trying to have my feelings alone. Alone being with Abigail, of course. It hasn't done anybody any good to know what I am thinking. There are so many parts to life, so much to feel about. I am red like a lobster and my skin hurts. I have talked about hats with important people and they may know I don't care. That can't be nice for them.

Keeping up appearances:

Use products. Be careful selecting them: some will break your hair or turn glass green. Be conspicuous. Say things like "Today I washed the floor with Better Person. It's the only thing I use now."

Don't watch t.v. Only watch good t.v. Only watch movies on your small t.v. Only watch good made-for-t.v. movies on your t.v. that's small. Only watch small movies.

Be creative. Do creative things with gusto. Be careful; gusto sometimes knocks things down like a strong wind and creative things are often fragile. Break things. Break things and be put-out.

Return phone calls. Good people return phone calls.

Keep up appearances. Brush and shave and wash and neaten. Neaten and wash and shave and brush. Remember to be attractive. Don't just be, be attractive. Everyone must remember to do that at least. It is very important.

Learn to say the right things. Say things like "I think this war is a sham." Don't think about the war. The war makes me sad and nobody likes it when I am sad. Say things like "The war is a sad sham." No, leave sad out. Nobody likes to hear about sad things.

Be polite about families. Comment that that is nice. Nod. Smile. Don't let your own family interfere with your life. It makes friends uncomfortable. Smile and nod. Say they are well, or that you just don't talk anymore.

Make drama. Only make drama when nobody will be put out. Say things like "I called poison control to make sure the birds really can eat red berries. I was dreadfully worried." Be dreadfully worried. Concerned is also a good thing to be. Be concerned about things that are none of your business but that people are interested in. This is useful for small talk. Small talk is useful when you are returning phone calls.

Answer the phone calmly.

Read the books your friends read but only after they have finished them. This will make them feel smarter. Keep quiet about books you don't like; nobody likes a spoil-sport. Be sure to like the books of people you might meet.

Keep your body under control. A body is something to be commented on, not enjoyed. Make sure your body is humble and slightly uncomfortable. Don't be too sure of yourself. It makes people angry. Be certain to dislike most of your body. Talk to your friends about how you would like to change yourself. It makes them feel better than you.

Don't tell people's secrets, unless conversation gets dull. Dull conversation is to be avoided at all costs. Return phone calls. Be attractive and in control. Smile. Nod.

Today is my father's birthday and I want it to be noted there are cedar timbers in my yard yes my yard and I ate a proccessed meat sandwich this evening and tried hard to enjoy sitting my peas are several iches tall. I didn't go to the cemetary. My grandfather won't go to the zoo.

Today I did the work I had to do. Today is my father's birthday. Tomorrow is Monday tomorrow I clean the house and today I leave dishes in the sink. I knit until my fingers hurt. Today I don't call people I should and I don't call people who think I should. Today I woke up tired.

Tomorrow i will clean the dog shit out of the yard. I will put the folded laundry away. I will vacuum the floor and pay the bills. Tonight I will go upstairs to the people I love. Today is my father's birthday. I want it to be noted.

Screen Door

Screen Door
Originally uploaded by Mandy K.

Spring in full bloom in Seattle hints of honeysuckle in the air. Abigail pulling her socks off to celebrate the weather. She takes ovder the job of flirting: record-store boys and resturanters fall at her feet.

I became mean the first time I mocked. I became talented when I realized I had some skill at it. I became funny when I saw that you enjoyed it.

Is this a lack of trust or just not caring? Do you mean you like my shoes or do you mean you are uncertain about the decisions you made but you know they are better than the ones I made? I am proud of myself because I can blame this on my mother. What can you blame on your mother?

I am really not interested. No, I mean I am really not interested. I mean I am the most uninterested of us all. I think it's quaint.

Would you like to come over to see what I do when I'm bored? I am never bored. Wait, I am never boring. I am often bored.

Monday morning in bed reading trying to wait for baby's morning smiles. Lists are forming (lists are always forming) things to do:
Get up! Obligations. What comes first? Try to manage priorities. Taxes, of course. Which means to the library. To the library-- a walk! A walk. Of course.

To the library. I need to find my library card first.

To do:
Find library card.
Walk to library.
Look for a book on retaining walls and building raised beds. For my garden. My yard. Yes, my yard. There is one, there, even if it is small and touching other properties. Some of us need to live right up close. Find a book on living up close and still growing things.

To do: Grows things.

Two concord grape vines in a box in the cellar. The back yard (the neighbor's front) gets sun and the property line allows for an inch or two of it. Vines could grow up to the deck. They'll need a little protection from the kids and the dog.

To do: Buy some fence.

Buy some fence, little fence. Maybe that silly scalloped wire stuff. A little something to put around the base. And maybe some soil, and maybe some railroad ties. And bricks. Bricks for a walkway and maybe a stair. I need a book on laying brick walks. And sand for under the bricks.

Mrs. Ramsey is knitting. One project finished last night, need to send it off. Sew a tag inside. Directions for another found, it nearly finished. And the back of the baby sweater from my second pregnancy. Can't bear to finish it for another child, can't take it out. I could turn it into pillow. I should finish living projects first.
To do:
Sew tag.
Knit.
Go to the post office.

Reading still, list getting longer. Abigail whimpers. Put the book down and give her my breast. Lily and her oils. I wonder what my mother's work would look like in oil. If I could paint in oil. Can I get oil paints on my walk? In my dream a few weeks back the art store only openned two days a week and sold political scarves. I am sure they have oil paints as well. Maybe Jane would paint with me. On the deck. Maybe I should paint the deck. No, it will do as it is. But the front porch needs painting.

To do:
Buy oil paints.
Call Jane.
Strip porch.
Paint.

All these lists and still in bed. Abby's asleep. I should get something done. Want to stay with her, stay in bed to get the first morning smiles. I can sneak away, put away the last of the maternity clothes, start a load of laundry, do last night's dishes.

To do:
Get up.
Put clothes away.
Do dishes.
Start laundry.

Up now, monitor on, Abby upstairs and she starts to coo. To tht-tht-tht and daa-daa-daa.

To do:
Miss morning smiles.

I don't have a dog and I don't smoke but my yard is filled with cigarette butss and dog shit. Snow melted, leaving the yard covered in sand and shit and somebody's broken trash can. Wednesday at least, trash day, fill the broken barrel and set it out.

I've been finding new uses for baby food jars. Good for trapping pale spiders. Good as shot glasses. Good for keeping things one shouldn't keep. Half the jars get cleaned, thrown in the drawer near the cat food. Half the jars end up in the recycling. One jar is open on the table on the deck, spider web down the center.

Being an expert starter I am trying to become a better finisher. My daily lists have turned to catalogs of projects I have started already. Finish blue sweater. Put laundry away. Finish paying bills. Clean up from previous projects. Yarn toys sand dishes clothing papers books music.

I have letters to write.

At the desk, preregistered, wrong day wrong date wait they'll take you they have you for today down there at down the hall at the desk Hello. Sit down get up dressing room take your purse. Shoes and socks and underwear on everything else off this one ties in the ack and this one goes over it. Sign here not pregnant ask about nursing cover ovaries lie on the table quick picture step outside wait here.

New room stand against the table on its end vertical drink this thick chaulky salty crystals on top like drinking sharp pop rocks tastes like the smell of plastic dolls one big gulp adjust lead cover breathe deep now stop breathing deep breath in table tilts back stop breathing turn to the right breathe stop breathing. On the table now horizontal turn left breathe drink this thinner strawberry flavor still chaulky still thick lying on my side stop breathing take another sip breathe again now stop.

Sit up body heavy chaulky mouth chaulky lips swing legs over find step stool. Dressing room clothes on tights and skirt and shirt and coat. Out to car and go.

There’s always too much of something and tonight I’m afraid it’s me. Winter won’t end and I don’t know what I’d do if it did. Spring is rebirth full of new and I can’t let go of the old. Old and dead ideas. Old and dead hellos. Old and dead goodbyes.

The tide is turning. The tide is always turning. Trust me, boys. What’s low now will be igh again.

Dreamt last night of an over-educated friend breaking off an engagement. Standing on the rocks overlooking the harbor, shirt off, but with cuffs and collar remaining. A stronger figure than I had guessed and, in the sun off the water, shining. An embrace somehow maternal, then confessional, then baptismal.

Move to a house along the beach, water rising, waves crashing. Waves pouring themselves over the rail of the porch and in the waves seals swimming in and out, bumping against me as I cling to the rail.

Water rushing out, seals gone, me going out with them and not by choice. Strong arms (whose arms?) hold me back and all this time the sun has been shining.