If I chose fins instead of feet
I’d swim back the past
Instead of round-faced-boy
with lovely-lashes laughing-lips
asking what do you desire
behind the deli counter
he might float up close
tongue sandwich in flipper
offering me a taste of not-forget

Instead of first-date in greening-park
my Latino-will-be-lover
looking straight into my eyes
would flick his fins against my skin
and lick me with his briny lapper

Instead of glowing afternoons
spinning summer out forever
we would stroke through hidden caves
going down-down deeper-in
Instead of his phone ringing on-and-on
mystery foiled by mustached-man
of droopy lids and bulging belly
droning “bagels? salted? cream cheese? butter?”

we would what?

Swim and swim
til bellies up, expire?

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I’d like to have spent my life howling in subways in Boston, Berlin, París,
dressed in fuchsia tights with long swaying dreads, rainbow streams busting
free with each rhapsodic belt, destroying fumes and fears in tones
insistent as the barge’s endless drone.

I’d like to have spent my life in arms of waving limbs,
in crowns of trees where Eagle folds her wings and let’s me
touch her undefended heart, while the roar of autumn’s gale
sings a strong and steady hymn.

I’d like to have spent my life at the feet of El Cristo, in soundless
heights over Rio, above jagged peaks, bottomless seas,
air rarified by penitents and tiny larks, whispering peace
straight through my heart.

I’d like to have spent my life dreaming God,
while tapping out words on clicking keys.

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The grizzly tractor grunts with throttle open wide.

Dutifully drags the plow, chewing gullies, slicing worms.

Open earth swarms with a thousand gulls.

Rusty shares groan with mud.

Too wet.

The farmer curses his own bad judgement.

Overhead a gauzy cloud stretches out

softening the heat of high noon.

His jostling thighs slap against the seat

like a tambourine with a soggy beat.

Sweat seeps from his back where

vinyl rubs on creeping, clumping underwear.

His muffled Timex tries to tick an optimistic beat

but he simply cannot hear.

The post Bad Day appeared first on Marienne Kreitlow.

Music notes swarmed the back of Mrs. Kemp’s tweed coat.

Her arthritic body moored in the pew while the rest of us rose

and sat and knelt, singing stalwart hymns and liturgy. Since she

could not see the score her mouth droned on in raspy monotone.

Now, lounging on my bed, styrofoam notes splatter the ceiling

that plasterers composed years ago. High octaves fly off

broken staves. Cornice to cornice, I read them all. Helplessly.

I regret the lack of smooth surfaces. Like vines, like viruses,

notes cling to everything and multiply. Strange scales groan

inside my gut. Stick and whine in my tinnitus. Pulse and quake

inside closed eyes. The sound of discontent crying out for harmony.

Playing me.

Better to listen to the cat, whose purring lulls all sound to sleep.

The post SCORES OF SCORES appeared first on Marienne Kreitlow.

I have a key in my pocket.

I walk city streets on a holiday. Grown men in cardboard boxes make a train. “Wu Wu!” They greet a friend, making us all laugh. Underground are subway cars. Confusion. A maze of tracks. Commuters hurry just to stand in line and smell the closeness of popcorn and urine and French cologne and me wondering if I’m headed in the right direction and why I’m there at all. But up here on the skin of concrete, street lights change from tangerine to green as I walk, sniffing winter meeting spring. My face lifts towards each stranger as we share unspoken hopes and jokes.

It was the old women in the bar at the dog track at the end of the line gave me this key, so I better not lose it. Said, “Let it jiggle just a little in your pocket when you walk. Bring it back when you’re done, hon.” Then they placed their bets and had another beer.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, a sparrow sings, a pigeon dies from high cholesterol, girls play hopscotch in the park, a window washer orders out a tuna sub, and a street musician signs with Columbia.

But here, in an epileptic fit, my muscles tighten in harmony and lift me off the ground. “Wu Wu!” I watch the fellow in front of me rise up too. “Wu Wu!” we cry together and then touch back down the bottom of our man made soles. Walk a few more steps, but the joke gets bigger, too big for gales of laughter and helpless tears, so we do it all again. Conspiring neurotransmitters thrust rocket bodies five feet off the ground, and all we do is cry, “Wu Wu!”

As for me, I really must return the key. 

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