Postcard to Christine Stroud from the Steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral   Dear Christine, I believe a priest might sentence me to 7×70 Hail Marys for so many decades of sinning, so, often, I take whatever absolution I can find. Your name contains Christ, after all, and how well you’ve known my impure thoughts. Besides the last time was in a church I just stared at the stained-glass windows—each another fantastic fable of some saint in mid-scene. In the sun, how like a prose poem those self-contained rectangles of prismatic light. I’ve been penitent and petulant at different times, and salvation still no closer. All over, churches are being sold…

The Sighting   I knew it would start as soon as your last breath –I’d see you in a parking lot somewhere,suspenders, cap and glasses, thin white hair –I knew from what I’ve known so far of deaththese intermittent sightings would begin,I’d glimpse your denim shirt, those sloping shouldersslipping through the automatic doors,vanishing into Walmart’s crowd again.But today you took me by surpriseat the market, shuffling down an aisleso close I could turn and hug you, but your eyeswithout that glint, your face devoid of smile.No wind’s brief touch, no whispered message as youjust headed toward check-out, passing behind me, not through.     Elise Hempel‘s poems have appeared in…

Such a Human Gesture   Suppose I lived another hundred years:Still I might lack the necessary skillsTo put to words the way his ten–speed’s gears, With brown metallic teeth and oil–smooth spillsOf chain, compose a beatific roseLike Dante’s, but mechanical and gritty— The sort of vision everybody knowsWill one day find no place in the Just City,Making him homeless then, as he is now, As his unlaundered clothes and plastic bagsOf nothing can attest. Could grace allowThis rancid grease–splotched rabblement of rags A lasting spot in what, perforce, is fair?Where is there room for how he reaches backTo touch the black bag bungeed to his rack, To make sure all…

Home Is the Undercarriage   there were no birdsongs. in blue-black dawns a torque wrench clicked:mechanical mating call. a language not of tongues. chris on oil spotted concrete, beneath a rusted supra, lived by heineken and halogen. timemeant nothing. every night it shined through my blinds and striped my bedroom wall. there were no birdsongs: his wife begged him to leavethe car alone. it’s my job, he always replied. the clicks continued. sandals slapped as she trailed home to an empty bed. time meant nothing: exceptwhen nia announced her pregnancy to the complex. the supra sold. we slept for the rst time in years. there were birdsongs. a week after,…

Let the complicated times roll for my mother who is schizophrenic We’ve been lost for so long in mysticism, fighting madness with the slender blade of lucidity, feeling the steel needles of panic, emerging from swamps of outrageous laughter, or marooned on the island of absurdity. Sometimes I think that sanity lounges on a tree branch right above us, like a puma, but we are only allowed to see the tip of its tail. Who knows what trees dream of? she asks. I dream of the fear I have of myself. And of her. It’s something about the blending of tenderness and cruelty around her mouth. Although I love her,…

The Evacuation of Limbo Someone has probably already told you about the new decrees and old miscalculations, the redefined edges of things, the this, then this, then this, then this, then this, reaching no conclusion as to cause or effect and finding little of interest along the way: nothing to consider really and nothing to imagine or read about or learn. It was a circle of a place, beyond knowing, since almost all of what a circle is is outside it anyway. Beyond it spun another circle, the unhappy world of love and hot air. Something like a sky was left and under it the remains of a plain where…

Even the Dead   I called the number you gave me; No voice bothered to respond. It wouldn’t be the first time I tried contacting a kindred spirit, Who could care less for communication, Or me, if the truth be told. I seem to suffer, quite often, From a low grade personality— Disorder, so far over the border, My citizenship has been revoked On more than a few occasions. I take scores of assorted pills To keep me steady as sin, But always find myself flopping This way or the other, Without any wind at my back. Face it; I’m a hot mess and a half— Too frightfully cold to…

How it was Wake:             Feel full             weight of body.                           Feel pressure on my chest from           purring cats named Anxiety and Depression. Miss:           Being an early riser.                       Force myself                                 through morning routine           because that’s what moms do. Surge:           Temporarily feel something like           …

This Morning I Ate the Holes left by tiny snails in my Tuscan kale, wrinkled holder of holes. I’d gone to the garden and knelt to cut but couldn’t after finding on the underside a creature with a spiral galaxy riding its back. I left it on the leaf, ten-thousand-times the snail’s size, where the little alien opened portals with its twelve-thousand teeth. Glad it didn’t end up one of my regrets. I returned to the kitchen with some greens, guest-free, and hoped nothing would swoop down or crawl up to swallow the mini designer who offered me new world views, one after another and proof we are not alone.…

Music Minus One Sometimes I practiced using Music Minus One: Telemann’s Trio Sonata in C Major. The harpsichord accompaniment unflappable whenever I stumbled. I wished the recording would pause on its own, wait for me to catch up. Slow does not mean easy. I learned to count in 8th notes. Challenging, as I was never good in math. A woodwind instrument strengthened my lungs, helping my asthma, as I summoned the will to regulate my breath. Now. as my husband loses words, he scrambles, growing more and more frustrated. My own responses speed up, irritation mounting. “Think about the connections between the notes” my music teacher once said. I tried…