100-Word Pieces

Aug 13

Our C-Note of the Week:

I’ll swap you: my mom for yours (but she has to be dead). Or how about just four memories of each? None of mine are humiliating, you’ll be very satisfied.
What about my shoes for your gloves? They're great shoes, they’ve been all over, but I’m switching to barefoot for a while.
My incisors for your eyebrows?
My depth for some of your joy — just a pinch, that’s all I want.
Would you consider my penis for your vagina? I’ll do it sight unseen.
How about kids — swap kids? I’ll give you two for your one. Twins, yes! With jobs!

I once napped to Kind of Blue,

four times through, pushing replay

then diving back under.

When I awoke the room was dark, and I said,

“This must be what heroin feels like.”

I once napped with a duck on my chest,

my daughter’s, from 4-H, who lived in our bathtub.

She was the same perfect weight as our cat.

When I awoke hearing raindrops, I said,

“Her feet are warm!”

Now I’ve napped with my grandson,

my hand on his tush, his breathing steady.

When I awoke he was ten minutes older, and I said,

“Shh. Not yet.”

Used to be we’d all stop playing and watch when a jet flew overhead.

Used to be phone booths in candy stores.

Used to be that 90º was, like, holy cow.

Used to be 1,000 books in my parents’ den, and three records on the spindle.

Used to be blue and pink tiles along the curb, and rainwater headed towards the sewers.

Used to be paper-and-pencil games that the older kids taught you.

Used to be I’d write books on a typewriter, retyping my pages as a kind of warm-up before sprinting ahead into the next scene.

VLADIMIR PUTIN! Ptooie, ptooie! We curse you, Putin, for your murderous aggression against the Ukrainian nation. We consign your name to hell for the way you brutalized Vietnam for a dozen years — two million dead! We condemn you for inciting the Chilean fascists against the Allende government. We denounce you for lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! We hate you for starving Cuba and sustaining Latin American fascism for decades, then barring those poor immigrants from fleeing for a better life! O Putin, we despise you for your bare-chested “Mission Accomplished” romp. . . . Wait, what? Bushkin? Pushkin? Huh?

Thrilling me still: the curve of her naked hip, the freckled shoulders, the soft skin, the warm thighs, the grip-ability of breasts and behind. And the smells — skin, scalp, and the delicious down-there. Turn, now, let me see your face: happy wrinkles, shimmering eyes, lips murmuring We won the lottery, hm? Our world is so sad, so much fear. And loneliness. But we hit the jackpot.

How about a bath?

A different nakedness, head to foot. Her buoyant, shiny, scarred balloon-belly. My pale, pale legs. Her evaporating pubes. My discolored ankles. Her injured shoulder. My aching knee.

O me o my

O you o your

O her o her

O him o his

I love to sigh

I love to groan

I love to hear

my creaking bones

my bleeding gums

my thinning hair

my aching knees

my cancer scares

O it and its

O them o their

O new pronouns

O stuff o’ theirs

O us o our

Despair! Repair!

O Lord Above

Who Isn’t There

I never pray

I only moan

and listen for

my creaking bones

O what a world

I’m melting,

melting

melding

mldng

Sop me up

o fragrant soil

O my!

I was not allowed in

her bedroom, and

plotted escape routes

in case they came home

while we were everything-but-fucking.

Honor students,

we spent senior year

learning how to come

with a finger, palm,

thigh breast tongue

taking turns

while the other

listened for the door

Then she turned eighteen

got her license

and took me

in her dad’s Oldsmobile

to a tree-lined, dead-end street

five blocks from her house

where I lapped at her

until the seat was drenched

and the windows

were double-draped with steam

and her curfew

was just one minute away

THINGS I HAVEN’T YET SAID TO MY GRANDSON

There is no Santa Claus. I’m sorry. But YOU can be Santa Claus. Everyone can be Santa Claus.

Your grandmother IS Santa Claus.

Your mother wants you to be polite. Okay. But the goal is to be free, and kind.

Your mother and father have cried a lot. That doesn’t mean you have to cry a lot.

If you laugh when someone beats you at Candyland, you’ll know you’re in love.

Your grandparents’ apartment will be a great place to get high.

Remember me when you’re having fun.

Be yourself — you’re wonderful.

Because I was in kindergarten at age 4

and skipped eighth grade

and hadn’t hit puberty at 13

I didn’t know what to do with the girl

in her cute two-piece

who invited me onto her blanket,

asked me to lotion her sandy skin,

then led me to her aunt's backyard,

where she showered behind a plywood wall

while I waited.

Heading back

we held hands

When my parents asked where I’d gone

I had no idea

and when I strolled again to her blanket

she was already with an older boy

who was on her like a shark.

On Yom Kippur

I walk in the forest

with my giant dog

and stumble down a path

to the fast-flowing river

where I admire

the upside-down trees and clouds

and feel

the rightside-up perfection

of my life.

I don’t want

to sit indoors

talk to god

or hear that bleating

ram’s horn

not while the sky is full of sheep

and the dog is swimming with strong strokes

(she’ll soon shake off a rainbow of droplets).

not when the gates are already wide open,

and there is nothing to regret,

as the sun descends

into the weeds.

10.

Someday while chopping wood I will probably smash my toes by accident, and though I’ve imagined doing it each time I lift the axe, I will still be utterly surprised —amazed, in fact.

And yet: I have gone over four decades transporting a lovely pair of cups and saucers, bought in Venice though they were made in Poland, from dishwasher to cabinet to table to living room to sink to dishwasher, without dropping or even chipping them.

The trick: Breathe evenly and stay focused on the task, step by step. The demons will wriggle and snarl, but they can’t attack.

11.

As you read this, our planet Earth and its atmosphere are hurtling through the vacuum of space at 18.5 miles per second.

The rest of our expanding universe is rushing outwards at up to thousands of miles per second — zillions of stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies, both vast and tiny.

Meanwhile, our Earth spins at over 1,000 miles per hour, allowing each of its living souls to receive the life-giving rays of our yellow star, 93 million miles away and burning at its core at nearly 20 million degrees Centigrade.

And here we sit, each in place. Hallelujah!

12.

In third grade

I stuck a thumbtack on Judy Mandelbaum’s chair

Because she was stuck-up

and kept pushing my elbow off her desk

I spotted it on the floor

A tiny fencing sword

and thought for long, cold minutes

It wasn’t the kind of thing I did.

I was smart.

I was famous.

But when she rose up

waving her hand to get called

I moved

lickety split.

Almost before it stuck,

I shouted, “What’s wrong?”

Judy Mandelbaum got a tiny hole in her knee

While I have warded off the Accuser

with repentance and ministering deeds

ever since.

13.

STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP!

14.

LOW TIDE

I have never found a bathing suit that suits me

My skin pale and mottled my legs stained by the years

I regret the loss of those one-piece swimsuits

from the Roaring Twenties

(That’s me wearing stripes and sporting a handlebar)

I regret the advent of high-cut styles

that turn women’s legs into daggers.

(That’s me carrying her on my shoulders into the churning surf)

And now off-season

That’s me walking the beach at low tide

in shades, a straw hat,

and old seersucker trousers

that are rolled to the knee

and soggy with sand

15.

My house is getting cozier by the day. The houseplants are knitting flowers and laughing through the window at the snow. Our pantry and cabinets make room for new items like passengers in a subway car. Our live-traps are catching mice (o, those little hands); we carry them to the top of the driveway and they scamper back in our footsteps. Yesterday I hung a 30x40” photo of an enormous storm cloud. Unframed, it transformed the living room into a photographer’s loft. The room buzzed, spun, and made its adjustments.

Our bedroom is warm and waiting. What a pretty quilt!

16.

Did you miss me? I missed you desperately. Did you think of me each time you turned on the faucet? I had the faucet running all day long, until the pipes sang for mercy. Did you wonder where my thoughts were wandering? I offered pennies for your thoughts and went bankrupt. Did you ask how you’d ever live without me? I sat in closet and sobbed throughout the daylight hours. Did you look at photographs and recall how each of my wrinkles were etched? I sculpted you in ten sculptures, one for each decade, and buried them in milk cans.

17.

“With shadow projection,” observes one Jungian writer, “we see others as evil, as greedy, as lustful or destructive in whatever way, while we fail to see the relationship between their so-called evil and our own.” Put another way (as it was posed to me in adolescence by a girl who quickened my soul), we are most reactive to people and words that we most fear identifying with.

The nouns: pig, bullshit artist, narcissist, manipulator.

The adjectives: conceited, pushy, shallow, obnoxious.

Perhaps, were I a We (which we all are), I could spread my self-hatred into a thinner, easier-to-clean mess. Fluidity!

18.

Two emergency rooms later, first Georgia, then South Carolina, her appendix is out and I’m contemplating how very functional America can be — those many women health workers handling her, a surgeon I never even got to meet going in to remove the damned thing (“the seemingly useless organ provides a safe haven for good bacteria to hang out in the gut”), and the hospital itself, a gleaming edifice of four stories and three entrances . . .

En route, she called Medicare to make sure they’d cover two emergency visits in one day. This on a Saturday evening. No problem, the lady said.

19.

“Have you ever walked with your eyes closed to feel what it’s like to be blind?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever tried to use your unfavored hand instead of your favored hand for an entire day?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Have you ever walked around trying to understand that there’s a fully conscious being behind the face of each person?

“I’m not sure.”

“Have you ever pretended there is a God who imbues each of your steps with meaning and is challenging you to be fully conscious and to practice loving compassion at every opportunity?”

“Maybe for a moment or two.”

20.

My nightmare was spiky, dense, filled with mayhem, but its climactic horror came when the beloved child tripped headlong into the marina water and sank like a boulder, without a shred of buoyancy.

I was paralyzed. The harbor went 100 feet down and he was well on his way to drowning at the bottom. I’m a weak swimmer. The only reason to dive in would be to save face, to have tried, which probably would mean my dying, too.

I woke up. O, that lovely feeling of anxiety fizzing away! I'm awake! Safe! We’re all safe! The day has begun!

21.

Guitar Revelations: (in my youth) that you can move nearly all open position chords up the neck; (in my thirties) that major 7ths open the floodgates; (in my fifties) that you should love your instrument or replace it; (in my sixties) that playing a tune over and over until your fingers dance the dance frees you to vary it; (four years ago) that visiting nail salons turns your fingernails into picks; (two years ago) that you can make up chords, but they’ve all been discovered; (aspirational) that you use your frontal cortex to learn, then shut it down to play.

22.

I wasn’t nearly

literate enough

for her or

witty enough

or taciturn

enough or

withholding enough

She wanted me to fight

or at least

to fight back

When I tried saying

I love you

she told me that

“I love your guts”

was the funniest line she’d ever heard

(from her hep older boyfriend in Madison, Wisconsin)

But I didn’t love her guts

I loved her sweet tits

big lips

smooth thighs

and dark eyes

which widened in surprise

each time

taking me in for just a split second

before she’d begin to buck

and thrash

and scream

and shudder

23.

During my years as a squirrel, two insights became daily prayers. One: that the poorer you are, the sicker, the more starving, the more despised — all of that — the less you have control over time. You can’t plan your day, let alone your life. So it becomes useless to worry — which you can flip to mean that you’re living in the moment. Then your power jumps, one hundred percent!

Two, not so different: that living in the moment, jumping from limb to limb, is an expression of faith — faith that the world will catch you, hide you, feed you.

Maybe.

24.

Watching my dog

bounce

on all four pads

her tail held high

her jowls

sweeping in the scents

of the forest

reminds me

of the day

when I broke eight feet

in the standing broad jump

of the day

I couldn’t miss a shot

from anywhere

on the concrete basketball court

of the day

I ran down that blast

in center field

and backhanded the ball

just inches off the ground

and the day

I first slipped into

a woman’s silken body

and we sighed together

O my god

O bliss

Now I whistle to the dog

and she turns . . .

25.

Protoplasm in a cell

If it bursts, my life is gone.

Hairy Christmas, Hairy Christmas,

Christmas Christmas, Hairy Hairy

Karma keeps me safe in hell

Burning womb, I am reborn

Hairy Grandma, Hairy Grandma

Grandma, Grandma, Hairy, Hairy

Bounded ego can’t be free

Boundless ego won’t be me

Eeny meany miney moe

Look around, stub your toe

Ever since I found my shit

I’ve been afraid of losing it.

Mommy said: Pick this one!

Out goes Y-O-U.

Repeat:

Protoplasm in a cell

If it bursts, my life is gone.

Karma keeps me safe in hell

Burning womb, I am reborn.

26. THE HUNDRED-WORD HAGGADAH

Imagine the Earth flying more than a thousand miles through space every minute. Drawn in by the Sun’s gravity, it is constantly falling, yet its own momentum keeps it from traversing the ninety-three-million miles and vaporizing.

Falling, falling . . .

Meanwhile it spins at a thousand miles per hour, bringing us light and darkness, light and darkness.

Spinning, spinning . . .

One day in March, the falling and the spinning interact to bring us twelve hours of light, twelve of darkness. And we say:

“For, lo, the winter is past, The rain is over. The flowers appear. The time of the singing has come.”

The first glass of wine:

Let’s dedicate it to intoxication!

To the orange moon hanging full over the city skyline,

and the double rainbows vaulting over the dunes of Cape Cod.

To the fragrance of lilacs,

the baby’s scalp,

the lover’s skin.

To intimacy among old friends,

the years dropping off in laughter.

To jazz musicians in their trance states,

the fantastically skilled painters, sculptors, dancers, performers,

the basketball sharpshooters, the flying ski-jumpers,

the ruminating mathematicians, and the builders, the builders!

To the people in the streets demanding justice

and food for the children,

To all we say: Long life!

I imagine myself enslaved. I imagine myself working for thirteen hours under a scalding sun. I imagine my beloved being fucked by a sadistic man, and all I can do is hold her, weeping, afterwards. I imagine plotting vengeance and mayhem while knowing that my plots are only fantasies. I imagine my rage ground down to depression. I imagine myself wondering where the hell we are on the Earth, and whether we might see ourselves elsewhere and somehow change physical reality.

I ask God to save me.

I think of killing the man, then myself. I should/will/should run.

STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

I imagine myself as Moses. I’ve followed the same path of the herd for endless years, seeking safety, comfort, oblivion. Now I want new sights, new smells, new hopes, new possibilities — even new fears — however old a man I’ve become. Barefoot, I feel the vibrating mountain. Never mind that the path is stony. Never mind the quicksand and sudden drop-offs. Never mind the thunderous avalanches, the shifts in climate. Never mind danger! Listen to the voice within each: the stones, the quicksand, the drop-offs, the avalanches. Listen to their warnings, and hear opportunity.

A fire that speaks! Answer, stutterer, answer!

Imagine a society beset by plagues instead of blessings. Undrinkable water. Shriveled crops. Mosquitos with no respite. Diseases with no cure. Radioactive dumps. Savagery overtaking civil institutions. Mass corruption. Mass violence. Mass graves.

Tornadoes sweep away towns. Earthquakes bring down cities. Cyclones drown nations. Wildfires fry continents. The animals flee to nowhere and die. The people flee to nowhere and are robbed, raped, murdered.

All this, so that one out of a million can own ten homes and fly to outer space and throw parties on huge yachts and command presidents and seek immortality. It’s true. We are their slaves.

I imagine myself as the man-god, Pharaoh, already mummified when alive, encased in millennial traditions, surrounded by advisors and wives and servants, my humanity surrendered to my deification as symbol of the perfect, the powerful, the orderly, the other-worldly. The more power I accumulate, the less autonomous I am. My heart has hardened like clay in the desert. Every time its shell cracks — cracked by dissent, by fear, by bodily suffering, by a new perception of truth — the shell hardens again. I punish. I slaughter. I scorn all their warnings: Let them go. Don’t you see that Egypt is lost?

I imagine myself as the Angel of Death, harvesting the first-born of Egypt, devouring their trillions of living cells the way an anteater licks up the colony. I command all demon hordes, all diseases, all fleets and battalions, all fires and sandstorms and earthquakes and beasts of prey, all of them festering beneath my wings. I spare no one but the cowering slaves in their blood-marked huts; I smell out the first-born of every other home and kill them without pause, without thoughts of mercy or mourning. They will all join the soil and nourish other souls for my larder.

The egg, why? Fertility! Life insists on itself. Each of us contain trillions of cells. Each of us insist on ourselves, our many selves. Eat!

The green vegetable, why? Because it’s there, feeding itself, growing itself — and we can eat it, and grow it! Eat!

The maror, bitter herb, why? Because to get through this life alive, you have to endure bitterness. Eat!

The salt water, why? Because tears allow us to shed inner pain and flow on to new ways of being.

The kharoset, sweet paste, why? Because we are builders. With coffee and cake when we rest! Eat!

Why is this night different from all others?

Why is this day different from all others?

Three less minutes of darkness.

Three more minutes of daylight.

Ten people at the table.

(Look at each other. Please, look.

We are not often together.)

We commemorate suffering,

resistance, and freedom —

the struggle imposed on us

by slave-masters in all of their variety.

We celebrate our shared bond

of caring about this sentient world

and trying to map the paths to its liberation.

We help to crack each other’s hardening shells.

and help to revive the joy of friendship,

this day, this night.

The second glass of wine:

Let’s dedicate it to old age

A time of joy and sorrow, great gain and great loss,

diminished pride, increased compassion (perhaps)

diminished relevance, increased contentment (perhaps)

anxieties dissipated, hungers slackened (perhaps)

and burning bushes, wherever we find them,

on fire, yet unconsumed — summoning us . . .

Our childhoods, summoning us (remember?)

Our errors, summoning us (forget?)

Our glories, summoning us (o glory be!)

Our failures, summoning us (o well)

Our futures, summoning us (let’s hope)

Our couches and beds, summoning us

Our dreams, summoning us,

Our favorite songs, summoning us,

and the wine itself, summoning us.

The Four Children

Kids! I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today.

Kids! Who can understand what they think and say?

Kids! There’s a stupid one saying,

What’s going on?

Kids! There’s a silly one saying,

This is no fun.

Kids! You can talk and talk till your face is blue!

Kids! But they still just do what they want to do!

Why can’t they be like we were,

Perfect in every way?

What’s the matter with kids today?

Kids! There’s a wicked little twit

who’s not even here.

Kids! There’s a wise-ass saying,

Can’t you be clear?

Kids!

THINGS I HAVEN’T YET SAID TO MY GRANDSON

There is no Santa Claus. I’m sorry. But YOU can be Santa Claus. Everyone can be Santa Claus.

Your grandmother IS Santa Claus.

Your mother wants you to be polite. Okay. But the goal is to be free, and kind.

Your mother and father have cried a lot. That doesn’t mean you have to cry a lot.

If you laugh when someone beats you at Candyland, you’ll know you’re in love.

Your grandparents’ apartment will be a great place to get high.

Remember me when you’re having fun.

Be yourself — you’re wonderful.

The third glass of wine:

Let’s dedicate it to liberation

in a promised land that we will never see.

One sip for the people,

women, men, and others

who are making their own choices,

running their own lives,

finding responsibility in their freedom,

and fulfillment in their responsibility

One sip for the healers,

who are restoring balance,

and the scholars

who keep memory alive,

and the artists,

who bring joy and sorrow into the same room

One sip for the creatures

repopulating lands without people,

and seas without plastic

as we strive for a better world,

for possibilities within reach.

We imagine ourselves at the edge of the Sea.

There are no miracles.

Seas do not dry up all at once.

Clouds do not lift us the way they lift puddles.

But it’s better to drown than to be

carved open by a sword!

Perhaps we can swim across

find a floating palm tree or piece of driftwood

or an abandoned boat, who knows?

Perhaps this sea is only a river.

Slaves must believe in miracles;

we have no other rescue.

The water is warm and buoyant.

Perhaps God will turn us into fish,

or send sea turtles for transport.

Dayenu

I once napped to Kind of Blue,

four times through, pushing replay

then diving back under.

When I awoke the room was dark, and I said,

“This must be what heroin feels like.”

I once napped with a duck on my chest,

my daughter’s, from 4-H, who lived in our bathtub.

She was the same weight as our cat.

When I awoke hearing raindrops, I said,

“Her feet are warm!”

Now I’ve napped with my grandson,

my hand on his tush, his breathing steady.

When I awoke he was ten minutes older, and I said,

“Shh. Not yet.”

Now we open the door to Elijah

and wonder who will come in

But we know that no one will come in.

It’s not so dangerous to open the door

briefly

The poor people are OUT THERE

The refugees are OUT THERE

The demanding ones, OUT THERE

not IN HERE.

Where is Elijah?

Nobody knows.

He may be She. She may be They.

They may be We.

We may be OUT THERE.

We may be IN HERE.

I am Elijah.

You are Elijah.

He is Elijah.

She is Elijah.

They are Elijah.

We are Elijah.

Harbingers of a better world.

The fourth glass of wine:

Let us dedicate it to freedom.

The freedom to come and go

The freedom to stay

The freedom to express ourselves

The freedom to love

The freedom to say “No”

The freedom to say “Yes”

The freedom to own

The freedom to share

The freedom to fail

The freedom to find help

The freedom to learn

The freedom to change

The goal is not equality

The goal is for each “I”

(within the We)

to be able to blossom

into their own potential

their own authenticity

in safety

within the freedom garden,

the free land.

27.

When the lilacs bloom

throughout my yard

I am back

hitchhiking for seven hours

from the George Washington Bridge

to Penn State, in the very center of Pennsylvania

where Irene was in college

Very soon after I arrived

she walked me into a dense tunnel of lilacs

twenty feet long, fifteen feet high

that bordered the brick art building

We kissed

put our hands down each other’s pants (O Gush!)

and hushed our sounds

as shoes went by on the college path

Irene came in near-silence

shuddering and clinging to me

while the lilacs sealed my memory

with their perfume.

28.

O, my America!

O, seedy, decrepit, broken, poor America, dotted with dollar stores, lending trees, and empty malls.

O, diabetic America, addicted America, needle-pricked America.

O, homeless America under bridges, suicidal America off the bridges.

O, violent America, drenched in savage entertainment.

O, corrupt and leaderless America, dominated by lying “small government” bastards who support “huge government” when it comes to controlling our bodies, our identities, our minds, our ability to vote.

O, corporate America, scanning my brain at every street corner.

O, my tragic America! All the suffering — it’s all so unnecessary. Open the vaults! Share the fucking wealth!

29.

I live in the mountains, far from the pavement,

far from the crowds, the fashions, the moment,

There’s nothing I lack, nothing to foment

A feeling of dissatisfaction, except —

I’m far from the beach, far from the boardwalk,

hours removed from the roar of the waves,

without which I can’t shed the noise in my head.

Please, grant me some sun-and-sand days!

Days that slide past like melting sandcastles.

The timelessness sets us adrift, like clouds.

An endless horizon. My worries seem distant.

The sun sets behind us. Each minute is now.

The sand. The sea. The sky. Ooh, whee!

30.

My dog my Elsie my giant she’s dead. My house is filled with tears and shadows. Friends call and I have to repeat the story of her death, but the story I cling to is the story of her three-year adventure with us.

I was in love with Elsie, my wife was in love with Elsie, and we loved each other in this shared love. Elsie was gorgeous, smart, mellow, and alert to our footsteps. Elsie was our guardian, our hiking companion, our child, our beast. She reminded me how to caretake. She made our home the place to be.

31.

No need to feed her

I’m free.

No need to run home, let her go pee

No need to bathe her, dry her, brush her

No need to vacuum,

I’m free.

No need to walk her.

I’m free.

No need to call her to come back to me.

No need to tease her, let her jump on me.

No need to wrestle.

I’m free.

No need to pick my way

across her sleeping form.

No need to touch her nose

find out if it’s warm.

No need to say hello whenever our eyes meet.

No needs at all,

I’m free.

32.

The word tzedakah, charity, derives from tzedek, justice

with the implication

that when I ask you to give money

I am offering you an opportunity

to make the world right

(because the money is not yours, really)

and to make yourself right

(because saying “no” requires shutting down, if just a little)

and to feel thankful

for the blessings of this planet

(sunshine, soil, water, minerals)

that enable us to all to create civilization

and to connect your life

to the centuries of human endeavor

involved in that creation.

See what I’m doing for you?

Please read my letter below.

33.

I wrote this song on my tenth wedding anniversary, with a wonderful fingerpicking lilt:

You’re that special kind of friend

who deserves to get a love song.

All these days together

seem so short

when I think about the days to come.

And I can’t slow my heart down

to find the notes and sounds required

But

when we’re old and grey

I will write you that love song.

This Friday’s my 43rd anniversary. I haven't written the follow-up yet..

I can still fingerpick it, but I have to capo up five frets to fit my older-man voice.

34.

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was traipsing home, carrying a heavy basket of salt on his head, when it suddenly began to rain, in torrents. “O, my Goodness!” the rabbi cried out. “The whole world is comfortable, and Hanina has to suffer?

Immediately the rain stopped.

Hanina reached home, set down his basket of salt, and built a crackling fire in his woodstove. He stretched out his feet before the fire, then cried out: “O, my Goodness! Hanina is so comfortable, and the whole world has to suffer?”

Immediately the rain began again. In torrents.

—Based on the Talmud, Taanit 24b

35.

Each July 4th, I yearn to believe in America:

WORLD’S OLDEST AND GREATEST DEMOCRACY!!

Then two million Vietnamese zombies protest,

freezing the blood in my veins,

and six hundred thousand naked captives from Africa

and four-thousand-plus lynching victims

and a vast mob of Guatemalans, Iraqis, Lakotas, Haitians, Iranians, Chileans, Seminoles, Afghanis, Angolans, Iroquois, Mexicans, Palestinians, and Cherokees

storm the gates of my brain,

already wrenched open by bleeding women of every age,

who have chained themselves to my balls.

And the rockets’ red glare,

the bombs bursting in air

give proof through the night

that our flag

is a shroud.

Kyra Tilson