Erratum

"A poem should not mean, but be." Who said that?

Unlike narrative, which can run stinking and drooling over the page like a much-beloved-and-forgiven toddler ("Oooh, isn't she just too adorable, the little poopy-pants?"), a poem is bare bones, word-specific, succinct. It cannot afford sloppiness, be it a wayward adverb, or some bit of extraneous punctuation. Ew.

Because of its exacting nature, it is my experience that a poem requires a gestational period at least as long as an elephant's, and prior to this blog, I pretty much adhered to that rule. But blogs are nothing if not ongoing (in my case they're mostly nothing), thus the preemie of my October 15th post. Which is currently at the gill stage, and will continue to develop lungs for weeks to come, possibly years, if the poet lives that long.

But an early delivery was induced because that's show biz. Due to certain circumstances on The Road of Life, my posts have been few and far between of late, and I'm aware that countless fans breathlessly await word. Thus, the preemie. If you haven't yet read it, don't. Wait a few months and try again. Then a few more.

Meanwhile, I remain enslaved by yet another accidental poem ("I didn't mean to do it, officer, the gun just went off!"), in thrall to the ever-elusive comma, not to mention adverb, which will let me sleep through the night once again and not wake wild-eyed and suicidal at 3 a.m. screaming, "Omigod that's four 'suddenlies'!"

Just so you know.

Nightrunning

After you run, you drive home through the dark,
past houses lit from within like pumpkins,
TV screens large as gardens, photos lined up
along sand walls, or is it taupe? Suddenly

it matters, you want to jump from the car,
pound on a door, demand "Which is it? Which?"
But before the drive home, before the
pumpkin houses, you run. Later each time

until the time it's too late, when you start
out at dusk and run headlong into night.
Treeshadows looming, distance closing,
deer unseen until they move at the last like

stalkers, and now you're a moth following
streetlights around a bend. But before the
mothwoman, before the last streetlight,
there was this: will you ever stop pretending?

that the houses don't make you weep,
the photographs, the windowlight spilling
onto lawns? Someone you could never see,
then meet yourself, by chance, on a nightrun.

Fun Shit

There's a toilet seat in the window of our garage. You can see it from the alley as you drive past. It's been there all summer, I only just discovered this. Like I'm the last to know.

My husband put it there, who else. He claims it was the only shelf space left. When I complained, aghast, he told me to put up curtains. In the garage? Only people from New Jersey do that.

My husband has absolutely no sense of feng shui. He calls it "fun shit."

"All that fun shit," he says, "that's your job. My job is to pay for everything."

He's got a point.

But a toilet seat? In full view? What will the neighbors think? Nothing they haven't already. Still, it's hard enough being the resident BoHos without such blatant advertising.

I noticed the toilet seat last weekend when I was driving back from the Funny Farm with my daughter. I'd taken the long way home down the alley. Actually, my daughter saw it first.

"Mom," she said, "there's a toilet seat in the garage window."

"Good Christ," I said, sideswiping the neighbor's Virgin Mary statue. I'm not sure if this was due to the toilet seat, or the fact that my daughter was talking to me. It's a habit she's picked up since her stay at The Farm. I'm trying to get used to it.

My daughter was having her first overnight at home in more than two months. I tried to remember what it had felt like to return home from college for the first time. I remember thinking the house seemed really small.

"Mom," said my daughter, "the house seems really small."

I also remember feeling dizzy, like I might be dreaming, like everything felt surreal.

"Mom," said my daughter, "I feel dizzy, like I'm dreaming, like everything feels surreal."

Thirty-thousand-and-counting in insurance to unearth a word like "surreal." It might be worth it.

During the next twenty-three hours and forty-eight minutes, my daughter ate and ate and ate and ate, then slept for eleven hours and seventeen minutes, then rose again and ate some more. In between all this eating she talked. And talked and talked and talked. And cried. And laughed. And talked some more. This from a child whose record for not speaking once stood at forty-seven hours and eleven minutes. The poor thing was in danger of hyperventilating from over-oratization. I was developing a mild case of tinnitus.

Two months ago the choice was clear: either let our daughter live in the TV room and leave trays of food outside the door until she turned eighteen, or call The Farm. We opted for Door Number Two.

When I finally put my daughter back in the car last Saturday afternoon (with a bag of Lay's Pickle Chips and a bottle of Smart Water) and waved good-bye as my husband drove her away, I found myself wondering what it would take to keep her at The Farm until, say, the cows came home. Or the llamas or the sheep or the pygmy goats, to name a few other residents.

But this thought was just a momentary lapse. Like so many other momentary lapses. Like, for instance, when one lapses momentarily and lobs a broken toilet seat onto a stack of old shingles, not considering that there just might possibly be another point of view. Like the one from the alley, for instance.

I glanced over my shoulder, hoping against hope, but it was still there, glowing like the moon in the garage window. The choice was clear: either roll up my sleeves and start reorganizing -- which could take until people stopped making jokes about New Jersey -- or measure for curtains.

I stepped into the garage and looked around. Even if I opted for Plan B, I couldn't get anywhere near the window until I'd reorganized everything else. I eyed the overflowing recyling bin. The wall of seventies sound equipment. The maze of trash cans and live traps and gardening paraphernalia and dead two-stroke engines.

"Let the fun begin," I said to myself, already making arrangements in my mind.