The Accidental Seeker

The violets that remind you of your dear
great grandmother’s dining room
on Oakdale Avenue
African violets in purple, lilac, lavender, and pink on a plant stand near a dark window by the olive green telephone on the wall

The Violets that remind you of your first, truest love’s breath
Lavender-perfumed chalky candy squares
Choward’s Mints in dark purple foil sleeves
from the corner store

/

But you were not one of their truest loves

//

the once-loving matriarch forgot you when the child stolen from El Salvador arrived
a baby smuggled across nations
yet, this was not a rescue mission for an orphan, no, this boy had a living mami

instead, it was a long distance shopping trip for a wom[b][an] whose insides were spoiled by lust and greed
For one who coveted, but then drowned in the role of motherhood
yet she still swam deep in men,
floated in luxurious possessions;

the old woman was no longer your “grammaw”
but the boy’s “Mimi” – solely, wholly his

she once accused you,
of lifting $20 from her purse on the night you ran away from home
& snuck in her house
to
pee

an unfathomable indictment
while her [other] [grand]daughter
poached a baby, kited checks, pocketed jewelry and defrauded the Chicago Housing Authority
Mimi was silent, or complicit all those times

You, on the other hand, never stole a coin, or a child – or a permanent part of anyone’s heart

in 1999,
you still went to her home, anointed her hands and face with oil and tenderness,
preparing her living body for the
grave,
while telling her you loved her so much, truthfully.
You went because you knew
Instinctively
that she was dying alone
her violets were wilting fast
she foreseeing her ghostly humiliation before the coroner’s eyes
violets thirsty and unpruned from the neglect of her intentionally chosen beloveds and heirs – those who shared

her house and purse and heart

She died the very next day

///

The Violets that remind you of Him,
your first love,
of his breath and kisses in a dark gangway or anywhere hidden
that sweet ingredient imbued in the deep amalgam of his scent
a pheromonic candy –

veritably, His signature

His seduction

yet those same Violets remind Him only
of his first, unrequited, true love
he, pining for a brown-eyed, olive-skinned , spaniard, brunette girl
who virginally metamorphised into a pregnant, 16 year-old sacred cow
She only loved boys with slicked-back, jet black hair, the ones who wore silky shirts and baggies
she parted her lips and hips wide O P E N
but only for boys with names like Erasmo, Jorgey, Hector

She made Him godfather to the baby boy instead of the father or stepfather
He wanted to be,
despite his bended knee, promises,
and all the begging, lusting, cuckolding, and undying loving

Silly [yt] rabbit.

He still scours corner and liquor stores for the rare Violets to send to Her by mail, innocently asking the substitute “her” for postage, a box, and oh, some packing tape?

The first Her is slick, sick, broke(n) and old

but She is still the most beautiful of face, skin, voice and heart – to Him

He keeps ancient yarn ribbons from Her hair in a treasure box in their now broken home

photos of their adventures and of their Golden Boy texted to Her in the moment – instantly sent to the Gulf Coast –
to garner Her sunny emoji smiles and shallow sentiments xoxoxo ♥️♥️♥️😊🙂😘

While the substitute her bares her real teeth and her cloudy emotions in the moments lost;

“smile — you’re joyless”; insult to injury

now, she just looks and laughs
at the pathetic rabbit – holding his smartphone
a pseudo-Nicholas Sparks romantic with Her,
but He forgot the poem you wrote Him just last year, on his birthday – Agape

////

To the one dead and to the one living :
Violets remind me of you

/////

(Pray that ash takes its place, soon
Or that I relocate in space, soon)

She was nearing 70 years, she said

She grew up poor, elsewhere, she said

And moved to a city

near the Great Lakes

She had small talk

to match her limited, incurious mind

She had a wide, open mouth with sharp teeth

her ears closed

except to gossip

her eyes closed

except to covet

her venomous and biting speech

poisons hearts

by choice, deaf to injustice

[except what injures her]

and, also to justice

by choice, blind to truth,

and also to untruths

by choice, she had no grace

no humility

no gratitude

she spoke of how to terminate life

before sharing how life comes to be

hardened to the point of petrification

in less than seven decades, a fossil,

she was not a saintly relic-in-situ

she was not a Grandmother

although her daughters may’ve had daughters

and her unborn sons may’ve fathered sons sons

she spoiled the sand on a silver beach with her rusted barbs

she defiled the clear lake with her incontinence

the discontent of the chronically thirsty emanated from her rank breath

she despoiled humanity merely by her continued existence

she was not a Grandmother, nor a Crone

but,

She will die

she will, she will, she will

and she will become a gull

devouring and scavenging on barren beach

in the next life

 

 

 

I went looking for a vintage paperback copy of a book I’d never read, but always meant to – Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time”

 

I never even read its jacket
– not wanting to spoil it until I was ready to imbibe in one sitting
I may have never read it
or, I may have sat down, a glorious crone in black leggings and a long-sleeved, black top, sitting in white club chair, with a magnifying glass – and a gin&tonic with extra lime,

dog at my feet
– one day, I’d’ve actually gotten to it

I’d say I had the book for decades –
where I got it – in an alley, from a thrift store or yard sale or flea market, I’m not certain anymore

and that’s saying something for someone who was once known for her photographic memory – every passing day more like a cracked Polaroid picture

A need to read the book before the new film trailers imprint and my imagination loses its chance to create and visualize the characters’ faces and the places, if not their essences. Oprah. Reese. Mindy.

I came upon vintage paperback editions of C.S. Lewis’s “The Magician’s Nephew” and L’Engle’s “A Swiftly Tilting Planet” in my library, but I could not find “A Wrinkle in Time”

Looking through still-unpacked boxes
of books
and things,
I quickly ran out of options, so few boxes, drawers and shelves

And then, it struck me:

how little I had actually kept in the move from Portage Park, Chicago, Illinois

to rural Michigan

yes, I had wanted to
downsize, declutter, minimalist[m]ystify my life

for years

and yes, there are still several cubic yards of tools, equipment, linens, books, appliances, decor, clothes, furniture, implements, electronics, dishware, cookware, bicycles, art, garden supplies, documents, photos and momentos here

but, I purged so much of my own personal possessions
that there are very few boxes and places for me to look to find that book, and I’m running out of options for finding what I seek

which leads me to this:

No,

I did not flee my home

in a fire

or in the dark of night

or as a battered woman

an indigent elder

a fixed income senior or widow

as a victim of natural disaster
or famine, conflict or war
or of settler colonialism
or imperialism, eminent domain

as a refugee
or evicted by a county sheriff
or by city order tossed from a viaduct|

but in my mind and heart
I still very much fled
I evicted myself [and them, along with me]

I might’ve stayed in the city for at least a few more years, another decade even;
but where my feet were once slowly shuffling and comfortably walking in apathy

and though I stepped on tacks I’d dropped and in the syrup I’d spilled
and on glass I didn’t break and in bleach I didn’t spill
I pressed my feet in for a while
a little blood, stinging and sticky annoyance, discomfort and pain felt like
a necessary acupuncture of life – for a while

social media moleskin and strategically placed rugs conceal
the pain and imperfections

lies, sighs and smiles

but
slowly simmering coals became red hot and smoldering white ash underfoot

when it was more than I could tolerate
I ran through it as fast as I could
blistering rage and pain and shame
and emotional evacuation and escape

oh,
I left so much behind
but, at least I had a place to run to

my Michigan salvation.

the house was sold and emptied
– in sorrow and anger –
there was no last, sweet summer in the garden
or last holiday memories to hold
no last supper
no collective reminiscing
no long goodbyes
my son grew
my dad got sick
my mom got sick
my dad died
my mom got sick again
he lied, creeped, lied, snuck
my son graduated and graduated and graduated

there was no sacrament of goodbye

no ceremony, at all

hell, there wasn’t even a sign that said, “for sale” [by owner]

I didn’t say goodbye or ‘til we meet again to many whom I respected or loved
escapes, facades and shame don’t permit proper goodbyes and “I love you’s”

or, do they?

I ran into some by chance

I cannot tell a lie

most know this, so they query carefully

but I confess, too.

I was so disrupted and disoriented
that I then also disrupted
and disoriented them

I was guilty of disruption myself over the years, no doubt, but
in a different way, though

there is always a reckoning

of betrayal, revenge and abuses of advantage
– always

imperatively, facing my own demons
to rewrite a truer history
of myself
and of my experience of my life

I had disrupted
and so had he
and so had I
so had he
so had he
so had he
and so had I
and so had he
and so had he, first

and so had she
so had he
so had he
so had he
so had she
so had he
so had she
and so had he
so had they
and so had they
and
they
they
they
and
they

And here I am at the end of a long lineage of disruption, eviction and destruction

betrayal, dysfunction, mistrust, revenge, distrust, abuse of advantage or outright abuse

I’m ready to calm and nest
for the first time in my life

I think the book may be in the last place I look
and
my realest love may be there too
in the last place I look, by definition

or maybe I thought I had that book in my library, but I never really did
and maybe I thought we really loved, but we never really did
maybe love and truth and the lost book – may have never even existed

except in my mind

we read fiction
and write it
it’s blurry now
it’s clear now

it’s muddled now

it’s fading now

“In the end, you will find yourself at the beginning”

wrinkling time