Güd wrtr

(or One More Reason I Shop at Trader Joe’s)

Because, after years of seeing grocery store
signs say, “15 items or less,” these guys
get the usage right—not once,

but twice, at the same checkout stand.
And while they could be accused
of redundancy, it makes my old

grammar teacher’s heart melt like
chocolate peanut butter cups left
in the car too long

to know that someone cares
so much about accuracy that, before
I get in that line, I count the items

in my little red basket to make sure
I meet the criterion. Then I study those
artistic signs, beaming with pride

at the smarts of some other English
teacher’s star pupil who got it
so right.

•••

Quick usage tip: If you can count individual items, use “fewer”
(cookies, centipedes, peanut butter cups). If you can’t count
the items, but you can measure or quantify them, use “less”
(time, money, milk).

Sometimes, emerging from the shower,
a line flits across my mind like a gnat,
and if I don’t snatch it and set it down
where I can see it, it’s gone.

So, toweled and dripping, I let my damp
footprints pad into the nearest room
where pen and paper reside—maybe even
grab the laptop from my office—to record
what’s showing up before it darts away.

This morning, I dripped into the bedroom
with a better opening line for the poem
that began to emerge yesterday.
I knew it wasn’t quite right, but, having
no idea how to fix it, left it alone
to marinate a bit. And today, there it was,
trickling off me as if I’d been caught
in an unexpected cloudburst.

How could I ignore the gift?
How could I not stop and hold out
my cupped hands to catch even a few
precious drops before they dissolved
into the thirsty ground?

I am too old for this, I think,
open mouthed, as the technician
affixes tiny pearls to my teeth
where nearly invisible trays will attach,
adjusting my bite a half century after
my parents paid the orthodontist
$1,000 to straighten my youthful
chompers.

Now I am paying five times that amount
not for lovely teeth, but to stave off
the consequences of old teeth, of
unintentional realignment over time
that makes them prone to chipping.

I try not to think of this as torture
as the saliva slips down my throat,
reassured that this process will be
nothing like it used to be, that
my teeth will not ache for days.

I would sit in algebra class—
my throbbing jaw soothed only
by the after-school promise
of a cold scoop of ice cream—
perpetually mystified by
the variables of x and y,

learning instead that a spoonful
of creamy sweetness multiplied
two or three or four times
can make suffering just a tiny bit
more bearable.

(In memory of Nell Lester)

The snippet of creeping plant
in the pint glass on my kitchen windowsill
has grown wispy roots that wave
like the dangling tentacles of jellyfish
or the white-blonde hair of a girl
floating on her back.

I was that girl when Mrs. Lester
next door gave me a snippet of the plant
and showed me how to let it root
in water before installing it in dirt.

It’s one of the easiest plants to grow,
I hear her say from her spot
in the afterlife, which I hope has
a nice garden for her. And cats.

Though I could now remove
this offshoot from its liquid nursery
and stick it in the little pot
next to its cousin, I have not.

It’s ready to migrate from one
environment to another, but
every time I stand at the sink
and look at the half-full glass,
at what is growing under
the surface,

I am captivated by the delicate
waving tendrils, reminded of all
I do not see, of what continues
to thrive, to set down roots,
even when I mistakenly imagine
that it cannot.

I look at them dubiously in their cellophane
jacket in the produce section, their zipper
tantalizingly open to tempt passersby
like me with that tumble of dark rubies,
practically daring the shopper
to reach in and try one.

I never do, assuming that would be stealing,
but I am, indeed, tempted. So I heft a bag
onto the waiting scale to see how much
these first cherries might cost me,
having no idea if they’re still tart
or if hidden sweetness lies inside
each jewel.

I like to think that they’re always sweet,
that they’ve grown in a far-off, warm spot
and made it to the grocery store in perfect
condition, unlike the poor pale tomatoes,
which rarely look or taste like a garden-grown
version, the kind you have been known
to pluck right off the vine and bite into
like an apple.

It’s early for cherries—they really come
into their own in June here, later in the
Pacific Northwest and British Columbia—
one good reason of many to head
to Canada in summer. But, ever
hopeful, I decide to squander the $13
for these early morsels of bliss
for the tongue.

And, after paying, trundling them
and the other groceries to the car,
I reach in, risking the unwashed, to
destem a single ruby orb and pop
it into my mouth, smiling at the first
blessing of luscious, glistening
summer.

Maximum cat, you are,
I say to the big guy sprawled on his side
on my office floor, where I have
joined him for a time, still getting him
used to the idea of me, as together
we get used to the idea of not having
Mother in the world.

Do you miss her? I ask as he gets up,
winds past me, his tail high.
I run a hand over his back where
the fur is nicely regrowing after Dr. Sue
shaved off the mound of mats he arrived
with. Less encumbered, he seems
to be thriving, though I wonder if
animals remember the ones who
once loved them.

If, as I’ve long theorized, that,
after we die, all that’s left is the love,
she, who had a hard time showing affection,
left it behind in this big black-and-white
furball—another beating heart in the house,
she used to say— who walks through
my life sounding his little radar call,
looking for someone to respond.

And, as she used to, from wherever I am
in the house, I call, Maxi, I’m here!
until he finds me and fixes me with his
big, green eyes—several shades brighter
than hers, not unlike mine—and often
settles someplace nearby, radiating
big kitty love—hers through him
to me.

•••

Thanks again to Dr. Sue Lester (aka the OG BFF)
of Four Paws Animal Clinic in Nevada City for the great
cleanup job she and her team did on Maxi in January.

(for Clifford Ernest Polland
May 21, 1952–March 19, 2001)

You pop in less frequently now,
but, when I see a handsome older man
walking into Target, about your height,
hair and beard the color of a storybook cloud,
I think—not for the first time—
that could be you.

73 today, if you’d stuck around,
which you never thought you would,
having brought with you an innate sense
of your mortality. From infancy,
you could not stomach cow’s milk,
struggled to gain weight, worrying
every female in your family.

But somehow you thrived and grew tall
and played basketball and baseball—
even with your oddly plumbed heart—
and used your good hands to fix engines
on large boats and small cars
and came to love me.

Now I see you in the tall, slender man
with glasses squinting at the large
black-and-white photograph
in the art museum. That could be you,
I think, watching from a respectful distance,
sizing up your own sizable skills,
comparing them to those of the master
on the wall.

Or maybe I have it wrong. Maybe
you wouldn’t have vanished at only 48.
After a long life, you might just stand tall
and admire the beauty bestowed
upon you, upon the world in general,
grateful and without judgment,
as you did again and again
for me.

under stars, kabillions
of twinkles, of which I can
usually make out

only a few dozen, until
I migrate to the sea where
night waves soften

my gaze enough to float me
through the curtain of night
into the greater universe

where I sail effortlessly
on waves of eternity,
which is what, I imagine,

it must be like to fly or die,
either of which, when
it’s time—

though not yet,
oh, please, not yet—
will be fine with me.

Now that I’ve given you up,
I run into you every time I pop in

to drop an envelope into the thin maw
of the beast that embraces the mailables,

and (please, postal gods) magically
ferries them where they need to go.

You were mine for three decades, your
silvery face as familiar as a longtime lover,

me the inconstant partner arriving
periodically with the little brass key,

deftly inserting it, turning it and, opening
you, peering hopefully into your depths.

Even when you held nothing, I knew
that you waited for me—only me—

day after day after day. Even on Sundays.
You look good, just like you always did.

I hope someone nice has you now.
I hope they are grateful for your silent

patience, your always there-ness,
which, I realize now, I probably never

told you, certainly never appreciated
you nearly enough.

I have just learned that the wood thrush,
a bird that lives 2,000 miles east of its western
cousins near me, possesses two sets of vocal cords,

each in its own tiny chamber in the throat,
allowing it to sing two distinct notes at once,
a one-bird duet that some have called

the voice of God. I am immediately
envious of these syrinxes, the double voice
boxes tucked into the trachea.

Not only do I want to fly to where
these birds live and sing, to stand
beneath them and listen, I also long

for my own second voice box so I can
harmonize with myself—not unlike
the days when I’d nudge my little sister

into singing her tenor part of a barbershop
tag that our parents had taught us,
sometimes joined by the lower registers

of the pair who made us, but often
simply our two high-pitched girl voices
trying to ring chords that these

little birds with spotted chests
produce all by themselves.
As we must do, we two progeny,

now that those who made us have flown
into mystery, where we hope that they are
—please, God—

singing in harmony once again.

•••

(with thanks to Carrie Newcomer and James Crews for the prompt)