sedehaven

[sedehaven]

At the Ear Doctor's

1.

I went outside today. A doctor's appointment, in a quiet office full of fish stickers swimming

over golden sand painted walls. An ear doctor, so mostly peds. Kids. Toys on a plastic table. No

beads on a wire maze -- maybe COVID drove the plastic bead maze makers underground?

Who knows?

2.

I only had one seizure, watching cartoon manta rays and blue tuna fish as the nurse laid me down,

checking the tilt of my eyes, looking for a stutter, a flutter. Something to show unbalanced ear crystals. Just a small seizure.

The nurse held out a lollipop, neon orange in cellophane. A little treat for someone brave. I'm five years old. I'm over

forty. I'm brave. I must be. I went outside today.

[sedehaven]

To Be an Otter

Sleek, thick-furred, plush, brown as river water, tiny hands clinging to gray rock oyster, tail swishing like

a slow, languid water snake. They hold hands when they drift in water, in sleep. Oh, to be an otter and never know

this world of cheap shoes, traffic snarls, and student debt.

[sedehaven]

Cancer of the Thyroid

Butterfly gland, stepping delicate on the throat, nesting, swelling, single wing bloated, cancer throbbing in pink, studded with carmine veins.

A quick slice, and this butterfly learns to fly with one wing.

[sedehaven]

The Ninety-Fifth Coming of Christ

She flinches away, tucked into an oversized hoodie that lays over her swollen belly. The big man smiles,

skin crawling smile, tells her she's pretty for a brown girl. Her man, sweet man, good man

says he doesn't want trouble, English broken as his teeth, kicked in by another militia man. This militia man, he lifts

the cerulean fleece

from her heavy flesh. Paws her swollen breasts, laughs when she milks herself. She's due soon. Her son, kicking like

a mule. This man. He pulls his weapon so fast. Two shots scream through the wet, cold dark. December

snow falls on her open eyes outside Bethlehem, Arkansas. Her son still kicks. The son of God dies as his mother's

ruined womb cools.

[sedehaven]

Ice Cream Man (The Whole Scoop)

1.

Your arms were so thick, years of scooping fudge ripple and strawberry and caramel swirl

roped your biceps. Your tummy was soft and friendly under your white apron, stained

like my brother's Kool- Aid sticky summer shirts.

2.

There were three of us, two girls with combed

hair and shiny shoes, and me. My hair untamed, my feet bare, my dress too big and drooping off

of one boney, milk-white shoulder. I hung back. My two friends chattered about cheesecake or

rocky road, about M&Ms and whipped cream. I stared at my feet, pink cheeked under the buzzing

light banks, trying not to track anything onto the pastel linoleum.

3.

These girls, day-old friends, they still thought my dirt (my rough edges) were cool. But maybe you had bare feet

and an empty stomach once. You asked me what I wanted, free today for little barefoot girls. I smiled, shivering

from the air conditioning and your kindness. I thanked you half a hundred times, and you smiled like sweet vanilla.

(I've never had a better cone than that peppermint fudge.)

[sedehaven]

Cloves

Whole flower buds, dried, brown and hard as seeds, drop them into boiling water and watch them

soften and bloom, with lemon and honey for a sore throat. With a stick of cinnamon bark. Oil

to soothe a toothache or spice a simmer pot, just a drop, for cloves are a strong magic. Dried buds crushed to a powder,

mixed with ginger root and allspice, heavy cinnamon and nutmeg for pies, or mixed with sweet tobacco

and rolled into cigarettes for kohl-eyed children of long nights and minor acts of cemetery vandalism.

Sweet clove, bloom for me, in fire, in oil, in cup of tea.

[sedehaven]

Cockroach

Coffee brown and darkest carmine, flittery wings.

Twitchy jointed legs, lighter in color, caramel, hairs like eyelashes

lining those legs. Graceful, curved antennae. Sleek and smooth, chitinous.

Skitter away

from careless feet, malicious shoes, and hot-breathed, drooling cats.

[sedehaven]

Maudlin February

Fingertips of maple branches grow bulbous and rose gold with spinning seeds waiting for some Wisconsin wind

to find it here, in Louisiana. Tick, tick, tick the twigs click, click, click in swirls of winter, the dregs after a long deep

drink. Flick! The dancers leap and twirl, catching the air in their hands like a car ride. They spin. Parachute day in

second grade, all breath and color and miracle, spinning. Tumbling all the way down. Dervishes, sprawled in the

tufty grass, across the rotting November leaf piles, near the bumblebees -- still tucked in and sleeping.

[sedehaven]

Red Bird

Stiff crest, glinting ruby over adolescent dirt brown, sugar maple bird -- first cardinal of

spring, chirping his indie lyrics as the seeds (maple seeds) twirl to rest on autumn's rotting

leaves.

[sedehaven]

Trail Mix

Rice, wheat, and corn woven in pillow-like baskets, baked into cereal, tumbling from

waxed paper bags in sedimentary layers. A solid base, soil-like, this grain-filled matrix

to build on. Dried grapes, wrinkled as wet fingertips. Long summer days, sun and humidity captured

in deep purple. Salted peanuts, shelled and toasted, smooth skinned, shining as if shellacked.

Chocolate candies tumbling like a rainbow, falling through outstretched fingers. Pretzels and chunks of dark Melba

toast (my favorite). Mixed in the big silver bowl for long walks through pine, maple, and twilight.

[sedehaven]

Suave

Peony and sweet pea, cool summer rain and coconut, green scent of springtime, white

water rushing past stones, moss thick with little purple flowers. My hair smells like a

grocery store bouquet. Drug store conditioner and the salt sweat of me. Cheap beauty, like a fist

full of dandelions bursting through the cracked sidewalk.

[sedehaven]

Crooks

Black and white, fine fur tuxedos, and silent pink feet, they steal into the kitchen. Noses up, tails

sending flag code as they coordinate, slipping between table legs, up on the counter. Careful

threading around the vase of tulips. Crying for attention. Jasper eyes gleaming, looking (but not looking) at the pale

milky fleshed chicken cutlets waiting raw on a porcelain plate. One swipe, the vase, crayon colored flowers scatter, glass

shatter, cat dashing fast as his sister swipes a cutlet. Knocks the plate to the floor and her brother grabs his piece. The

dog lays into what's left, taking the blame for these two criminals, sharing their catch under the kitchen table. Thieves. Crooks.

[sedehaven]

Warblers

Over the thrum of early cicadas playing a matinee show, the whine of mosquitoes and the steady buzz of bumblebees,

they sing their cheerful little ditties, chirpy and sweet. Like a child stuck on the same few notes, hopping from branch

to twig, warblers. Whistling to each other, the sky, and my own unintended ears.

[sedehaven]

Rumba Rain

The fat rain pounds the grass like drums. The jasmine and hibiscus bow, then twist, skirts flaring to the beat. Thunder

blasts brass, trumpets of the gods and angels as lightning blows kisses to the dancing wind. The lazy scent of rain

rising in the summer heat, as the children slap-slap broken concrete puddles, singing the words that the rain

taught them.

[sedehaven]

Rapids

Watching brownish green water froth and turn white, the lazy river grows teeth and leaps, sparkling in

sunlight.

It dances in rainbows around granite and shale, swirling and spitting. It sparks like a sap-wet

Yule log.

Singing to the dragonflies and screaming to the trout, "Faster! Faster! Faster!"

[sedehaven]

The Clear Diet Lament

Toast with melty butter pats, cocoa hot and eggs and cheese, bacon dripping with hot fat, English muffins with jellies.

Sandwiches stacked to the sky; cold cuts, cheddar, holey Swiss. Greasy French fries, apple pie, even humble iceberg lettuce.

Every fruit and every nut wants inside your hollow gut, but you keep your big mouth shut so someone can scope your butt.

[sedehaven]

Lagniappe

We used to buy bread in a long loaf, those extra slices called lagniappe. A little something extra.

Evangeline Maid, white as starshine on midnight snow, soft and sweet as morning dew. Extra long.

The doctor told me I'd never see thirty, his coat as white as fresh gauze, eyes red and swollen from

drinking, strawberry eyes. He took my blood and fed it to the Fortune Teller machine in the mall arcade,

"Forecast not good. Danger ahead!"

I laughed, ate my bread and slipped past thirty, forty. Out lived that doctor, the mall arcade, the mall.

A little something extra, years unexpected, like slices of sweet white bread, baked beside a cemetery, breath of life when

death falls like December. Like stars falling in snow.