Ladybug Letdown

The ladybugs they traipse the walls and drapes

the braids in the rugs that wind around follow

the yellow brick road

follow the yellow brick road

once, they flash their wings, stretch their clever

secret they can drop the myth of luck and

fly away on sighs of disappointment

because dozens of them do this, live here, inside,

at first we did not dare to pinch them up

what disaster! what revenge! (from somewhere! where?)

we convinced our children to sleep with their

canvassing to let them be to believe in

their pilgrimage to our blessed beds

Outside the sidewalk splits the air thunders skulls

stakes nail us down at home the bugs multiply blind

unfettered scrounging just stupid after all

where’s our fortune now

 

 

The Delay

My electric toothbrush died this morning.

I fiddled with the button,

press on,

press off,

press on press off press on press off

FLING IT across the counter.

It knocked over the oil sticks that smell

like Loving Sister and You Will Be Missed

and they sprinkled me like an aspergilla

on their way down.

There went that shirt, the first short-sleeved

I’d worn since last April. CHANGE.

Running after the garbage truck, screaming

over its roars of indigestion,

I tripped over a root and my knee took in

some pebbled boarders. I evicted

their craggy asses and patched up the holes.

But that truck had backed up its grinding

mouth into my mailbox. KNOCK it back in.

I braked at every light, the red circle cracking

up laughing with red hot STOP RIGHT THERE,

you funny funny girl.

Where do you think you’re going?

To that big race? Nobody’s in a big

race around here. We’ll just have you

take your sweet time and miss the goddamn

Orange Line train so that you can ENJOY YOUR WAIT

ON THE PLATFORM

IN THE GRITTY, PEEFUL BREEZE!

A Back Bay bum dragged his rustling coats

and leaking pride after me, beseeching

Ma’am? Ma’am? A dime? A dollar? A burger? A bang?

So I huddled with a smoky Grammie

inside an ATM kiosk, and we talked about her grandson,

running, sixteen years old and deaf in one ear,

until the bum’s face smeared away on the glass

and down the street.

I was supposed to watch a friend cross the line but

ALL THAT SERVES

TO FOIL YOU HAS CONVERGED!

I said goodbye

into the smells of grease and gravel

air vibrating with exhausted muscle

my feet skipping swift

over the Boston pavement

past the children balanced on the barricades.

Time wound me in its mercy that day

netted me in frustration

to hold me together

I went home

and cried into the bristles

of my dead toothbrush.