Homecoming

Are we all with acute loneliness,

chronic patients trying to recover

the will to love?

...Sometimes the love

of another wounded one acts like a salve

which soothes the dying self but cannot heal

our lives. And perhaps this is what it feels

like to be human, and we are all well?

I was driving down the mountain, the curves

were bad, I wasn't going slow, the day

was one of those that takes your breath away...

On hilltops, I made believe I'd take off

into the absolute, but as I swerved

again and again...

and as the sun's

autumnal, soporific light shone on...

something gave in me and I let go—

this driving need to make it all mean more.

In time, I turned the wheel back to the road.

I'm watching a romantic play

in Plato's cave; half the time I don't

believe in it...

Other times I'm so addicted I'm one of the mainliners...

hallucinating that in truth a man's

body is one of the Absolute Forms.

I look around when the houselights come on

and see no one!

It's UPS

with two parcels! ...

a handsome lad, guesses it's my birthday

and asks how old I am. He acts surprised

he's a decade younger. We linger at the door

one of us is not immortal anymore.

I say, Don't trust those men with better,

bigger versions of love if they refuse

the small, shabby sample they gave others

the tribute of believing it was true.

33 is the year that Jesus Christ

embraced His life...

...Wasn't he crucified at 33,

I ask, depressed, deserted by his friends,

divorced from god, subject to human laws?

Wasn't he the most single finally

at 33, meeting his lonely end?

Yes...

I tried to listen, take notes ...

...and stared out

on the New England meadow straight from Frost:

acres of grasses and flowers tossed by

a wind which whirled with the continual

roar of a thousand voices from Babel.

My gay friends ask, Well are you gay or what?

I dreamed of stretching my pastry dough out

to cover the earth with a crust so fine

my love would think it was nothing

but the world at his feet,

baked by the summer sun,

dusted with cinnamon.

Gloved with two potholders, I listened

while she told me not long ago

a girl could not marry until she could roll

her dough so transparent her beloved

could read his Bible through it.

But my house, though protected

with charms, can't block the spell mortality

has cast... I turn thirty-three.

...the furious whir of the Singer.

threading her needles, winding her threads;

the spools sat in their rods in the sewing box,

ends tucked in the notch on the flat tops,

a palette of greens, laurel, mint, olive, aquamarine,

shorts, skirts, blouses, dresses, and nightgowns—

better than storebought.

I remember the whirr and whine of her black Singer,

the gold traceries on the cast iron rod

by the wheel that lifted and lowered the needle.

Threading, eyepieces, winding the turquoise string

through hooks, around miniscule wheels, up and down,

her hands clever in labyrinths,

...the needle racing through gingham, poplin, seersucker, cambric,

the pedal pressed heavily down with the weight of one woman,

eye intent, hands feeding and receiving the fabric.

...the aunts stopped in in the middle of swallows,

heads cocked... as if they had heard

...their own baby crying.

It needed a pinch more of saffron? Paprika?

The tarragon dotted the rice in the cauldron.

And now, as if signaled, the spice jars popped open,

unladened their far east wonders:

cumin, turmeric, saffron, and endives.

The aunts each put in a shake of their favorites.

The steam unwrinkled their frowns from their faces.

The uncles ate seconds and rose in a chorus

...empty plates glowed like the eyes of the spellbound.

My friend Carol says aging evens out

the advantage of beautiful women

over plain ones. ...

Where are the girls who were beautiful?

The pies browned, the pastries puckered

in the cavernous oven I waited to open.