sedehaven

[sedehaven]

At the Book Fair (Tales Mummies Tell)

Every other child, clean sneakers squeaking over fresh-waxed linoleum, fists full of candy-bright

pencils, erasers that stank of fake strawberry, and posters of white tigers, aliens, sleek pricey cars. And books,

of course.

Covers glowing, illustrations of ancient weapons, rusty and stained with blood and sweat. Pictures of gleaming serpents

in jewelry shades of emerald, jade, and garnet. Books on ships, showing galleons with sails like clouds and battleships, all gray

gunmetal and lethal lines. I had enough for one book. I chose you, a book even the bravest left on your cardboard shelf.

The dead breathed on your pages. Mummies. Tea-colored peat bodies with stubble on their cheeks. Little children

murdered to please the gods and left in mountain crevices. Cats, wrapped in linens to join their owners when they laid

still in stone, earth, or gold. Tut's mother, and my favorite, Mummy 1770 with her fake legs and ornate sandals.

I still have you, beside my signed Spitz and Fisher, near my Maples. Honored friend, I thank you for the lessons. For the tales.

[sedehaven]

Quota

You cry as if someone numbered the tears, and gave you a goal to meet.

Like it's a job. Like someone is paying you.

Girl, do not waste your water on the dust at the feet of a man who would splash through your pain like puddles in the rain.

Be the sun in his desert -- brilliant, hot, relentless, and unforgiving.

[sedehaven]

Apologia

After I meat glued glitter- sized chunks of blood and bone, skin and sinew,

these crunchy bits still feel off.

Choke on your mea culpa.

[sedehaven]

Little Verses

1. Reverse

Turn around, see her twin braids flying, two front teeth missing. Sun kissed cheeks

spattered with freckles. Wobbly tawny fawn of a girlchild, sneaker clad hooves tearing grass as she bolts.

2. Inverse

An old man, white haired, leaving tins of cat food, antifreeze stirred in. Sour man, always smiling

to hide his busy hands, bending sharp wires to catch birds. Stuffing dog treats with strychnine.

3. Universe

Stars born and galaxies spin like dancers in the light of nebulas. The spheres sing of who I

was, and who I could never be. I live between ink and letters, between stars and earth, in these

little verses.

[sedehaven]

Macaroni Necklace

The paint has mostly flaked off, showing the dark amber, raw umber ancient elbow macaroni underneath.

The glitter fell off years ago, but I still find pieces in the creases of the white box it lives inside. Little flakes of starlight, dying.

The cracked clay flower, tacked together with school glue, faded to a dull brick color. You cried when you broke it, all kinetic energy

back then. It still smells like sunshine in your kindergarten hair. Like salt dough and tempera paint. Like semolina and a whiff of peanut butter.

Like you did, once.

[sedehaven]

Cat Photos, Ten Years Old

Old photos, soft focus, cats (long passed) snuggled, rolling in flower-patterned, pilled linen sheets. Golden

light on whiskers, turning hair to wire. Alchemy of memory, bronzing noses and paws. Painting a field

of watercolor flowers in gauzy incandescent. Little lives, stoppered, printed on Kodak paper, held to nose

and lips. I remember. I miss.

[sedehaven]

Character Building

I pull them down from their shelf, line them up, run a finger down a dusty cheek, ruffle a curly mop.

I steal from them, my sometimes friends. From her, those mossy eyes for a protagonist. A jealous boy.

His ears come from a teacher I had. Ex-boxer, left ear swollen, bunched from a wild punch.

His facial scars from a shotgun suicide survivor. Her face looked like a church window.

I touch the thin fleshy mesh as I pull it from her, from the sunlit memory. Smooth her hair and thank her as I build him.

He is ink and blood and bone. He grows as I carve pieces and baste them together. Build him

out of my shelf of curios, cameos, and dreams.

[sedehaven]

Under a Bleeding Sky

Sunset rain looks like blood, pattering the jade moss under the silvery crepe bark of

the white oak over our house. Fat drops splashing scarlet and carmine on the old

tin roof. The world is drowning in that bleeding sky. Golden hour tints it pink --

soft, tubercular, first lipstick, last menstrual smear. Falling in sheets. Dripping from open

azalea mouths, from the sunshine skirts of early jasmine. The angle of light through rain,

sweet rose gold.

[sedehaven]

The Sweetest Thing

So

I have Bono's big apology song blaring in both ears.

You know, the one with the elephant in the video.

Flappy ears and huge "I'm sorry" banner.

(Was it their anniversary or her birthday that he forgot?

I forget.)

A dopey video. Just sweet, shoot for the moon and roll around in the stars stuff.

If you have to apologize, that's the way to do it.

A catchy song, a banner, an elephant.

Shoot for the moon.

[sedehaven]

I Didn't Scream

Spider dance, a tawny fall, soft down my arm, shoulder to elbow, to kiss of wrist. An amble

or a tumble? Spider friend drops from my fingers into the brown carpet. Deep beneath the

decades old, stained canopy of poly fibers, arboreal (to a spider), she's free to ramble on.

[sedehaven]

Little Nudges

A little nudge, keys in a bowl, glance at the slinky dress, finger dance over the clothing rack, a menu left on the counter, favorite dish circled, flowers in a vase, vellum card. A little nudge, wine by the bottle, hook the back of the leg with one stockinged foot, stumble into an unfamiliar room, hotel smell, press backwards into bed. A little nudge, needy thing, his bulge he can't quite free from those nicely cut slacks. Glass door slides, three steps out into night air. Finger crooked, he follows, balcony view, kiss, press, another glass. Cheers, to love, to the moon. A little nudge, he's tipping over, the glass is falling. He screams. She drinks.

Cheers to widowhood.

[sedehaven]

Trailer Park Summer

Children basted in honey suckle sweat, green knees and punch stained tees. Thirty summers ago, I ran those same pine straw paths, the same wild onion fields. Even with glass screens and earbuds, these children of the screaming wilderness still chase each other between houses, under porches, and through the rain-swelled ditches of pollywogs and clover.

[sedehaven]

The Lighter

Flint wheel spinning, sparks fly. Golden dance, leap and twirl. Dying in the dark. Dangerous

fidget, spitting infant blazes. Little stars, falling into the night.

[sedehaven]

Two Minutes

The slow long pull of cold taffy, the slink of refrigerator honey to the spout, the creep

of snail-born seconds on a green-lit timer as the plate rotates, cooks, and scents the

air with onions, garlic, and desire.

[sedehaven]

Rope Trick

Lasso circle, kick up and swing. Dance in the slow loop of hemp, spin your partner, tumble weed. Catch the stars in your open mouth. Step through the ring, the woven welcome wagon wheel. Loop over the velvet horns of a frighted moon and draw it down to packed dirt and prairie grass.

[sedehaven]

Voting by Mail

Upside down means love,

and so

I turn my stamps around when I send my ballot in.

What is a vote but proof of love of the mail lady, the sprawling cinderblock schools, those new-smelling books in the library?

[sedehaven]

Big Dipper

Turning like the silvery hands of a clock, drawing time up from the swirl of stars and planets.

Meteor sprinkle and a dash of moonglow

This ladle forged in starlight, dipping color over autumn leaves. Kiss of crisp air as November patters the trees.