To Mend or Not to Mend

I want to repair a shirt, not a relationship. I want to sew on a button.

I keep a box three inches deep in buttons of every color and shape. I also own a basket of sewing notions. Both are a quiet comfort to me.

Instead of meditating, instead of looking for the right poem, instead of throwing the Tarot, instead of calling the wise counselor I should just reach into my sewing basket and pick up my pin cushion. Little Chinese guys clinging to a soft life raft. Feel the needles and pins blunted against my palm.

As a little girl I loved my mom’s Chinese life raft pin cushion. Now I’m grown up and I own two of them. I think I’ll remove one from my basket and set it on my altar. Take away the Buddha and Ganesh and Tara. Take away the shells and stones and the soft felt hearts my boys have sewn over the years. Replace it all with the little pin cushion men. I can hold them in my hand when I need to cry. I can put them to my ear when I need a kind word.

Give me time to embroider, to make tiny x’s in cotton chambray. Let me hold a needle and thread, and feel the silver sliver tap against the metal thimble. Or the wooden thimble. I have both kinds. I’m so well stocked.

I have embroidery thread in every color, and patterns to make, and seams to finish, and hems to let out. But I’m in no mood for mending. Just let me play with my needle. Or let me lie down. Take a nap. Or watch that hawk in the tree. Or have another glass of wine. Watch the Marx Brothers. See the sun make a patch on the wall. No piece work, please.

at Magnolia cemetery in Charleston S. C.

sleeping

at st. helena cemetery

father

at St. Helena cemetery

hands

My teenager struggles with writers cramp

and his disgust over his brother’s juice stained shirt
plus his brain is cramping
and there’s nothing good in the fridge
and the carpool dad was 10 minutes late

His mother is trying to help
She tells him "your mother actually knows something about writing"
She says “I just wrote this poem to show you it’s easy,
see?”

Nobody said it has to be a good poem!
Even good poems suck at first!

Ah, well,
I don’t blame him
He has a bad bad cramp
He’s in the depths of uncreativeness
He doesn’t like the dumb assignment

It's just Stupid,
and he's awfully tired

Z Brush Spam Folder**

see your love tool growing
all you need is a blue pill for bed

have an easier time making
her ensure your potence

make love everywhere
feel more relaxed where you go

quarantine summary
knocking them all out

**poem devised of verbatim subject lines -- in the order they were sent -- from my spam folder on the morning of 5/20/09

Smells Like Teen Spirit

When I was 13 my family moved to a new town where, I prayed, I’d have another shot at being popular. Indeed, my new-girl status vaulted me to the middle of the social strata in my 8th grade year. But it was plain as my dishwater blonde hair that I’d never climb higher unless I made cheerleader.

I went out for the JV squad in May. The odds weren’t good: Spots for eight rising freshmen and sophomores. Four incumbents likely to keep their pompoms. 80 girls auditioning.

The winners would be chosen by totaling the points from three categories of competition – judges’ assessment of cheering skills, students’ popular vote and teachers’ rating of academic promise and/or moral fiber.

According to the judges I was run of the mill, lacking in true teen spirit I supposed (since I was interested only in personal gain). The students placed me below average, assuredly because of my flat chest and legs so skinny my knee socks constantly puddled around my ankles. But in the teachers’ opinion I was Number One, perhaps due to the influence of my parents, both of whom served on the faculty. For once, being a teacher’s kid had its perks.

I came in 9th and was named as first alternate in case one of the lucky eight was killed in a drunken car crash (or died from anorexia, which actually happened the following spring but basketball season was nearly over so they didn’t bother altering the deceased’s skirt to fit me). I was devastated not to make the original squad, and felt cheated when I wasn’t asked to step up to the sidelines and take over for Janet Cookman.

Looking back now, it was a narrow escape. How close I came to disaster! I could easily have ended up being popular in high school, and that surely would have ruined my life.