Claire Scott
Black Box WarningI think we should all come with black box warnings
disorganized narrative inside frequent use of Vicodin and Valium tendency to shoplift alarm clocks & scented candles only years & attorneys’ bills later do we finally figure it out our bank accounts drained, our faces falling down frantically joining OkCupid, Match.com, eHarmony filling out profiles with alternative facts (only spam offers of Easy Russian Sex or I’m Waiting for You Babe) WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN US!!! We scream at bored FDA bureaucrats, busy playing Final Fantasy or Battle Field, fingers flying inside their airless cubicles what if our own black box cautioned irreparably damaged in childhood prone to bouts of homicidal rage recently released from Herrick Hospital forever ruining our chances with Mr. Sweet-Tempered or Ms. Charismatic after all, you can’t have it both ways Distressed JeansShe is wearing her distressed jeans again
my fashionable daughter skinny jeans intentionally destroyed acid washed, sand papered pumice stoned, tumbled in gas washing machines faded & ripped at the knee scraped & shredded at the thigh priced at a premium by Calvin Klein, Armani, Levi really? I want to wrap her in my arms & say: wait no need to race to what-comes-next soon enough pleated skin, nagging knees soon enough holes in your heart no designer can repair no need to leap over yourself to some frayed future time will snip & slice soon enough my daughter, much too soon enough wait FriendshipHe asked me to help
he knew I would Safeway for eggs and ensure St. Francis for chemo reading People aloud sitting side by side CVS for Vicodin Dilaudid and Depends He asked me to help a note in a shaky hand details of when description of how Lord don’t ask this of me the note placed in an envelope to “my truest friend” please Lord He asked me to help his ventilator clicking his voice scarcely audible oxygen hissing nurses hovering translucent bags drip drip from an IV pole Lord I look into his eyes see his terror of losing himself in bits and pieces like a calving iceberg his body bone-weary tense with torment shivering in seventy degrees white against white He asked me to help I touch his face brush back his hair smooth his sheets my hands shudder I whisper no his urgent eyes plead I shake my head His body crumples shrivels he turns away from me his oldest friend Help him O Lord fold him in your arms and take him back then help me a Judas in need of redemption Strange WorldAfter he died I went to Morocco, land of Paul Bowles
mysterious, ominous, unfamiliar my well meaning friends were aghast you can’t go by yourself you don’t speak the language you will get lost or sick or lonely and they were right. I landed alone in a country of strange food and scenery, strange sounds, peculiar prayers and exotic smells exactly the world I needed and I did get sick and sicker and I did get lost again and again wandering crooked streets that looped and looped through dark alleys I saw bustling souqs with hills of spices, silver hands of Fatima, chess sets made of cedar wood, tagines and garden pots, carpets dyed in henna, indigo, saffron the call to prayer of meuzzins chanting the language of my bones my grief thirsty for strange water in a strange world that would be mine for the rest of my life. Thin IceI wait on a plastic chair
For Dr. W. P. Carson, a dead Ringer for Star Trek’s Mr. Spock All dry syllables and statistics He will announce stage four Six months to live Or he will say a small cyst Come back in a year All news delivered flat as The faded green carpet My mind wanders to a New Year’s Day Decades past, off to the pond With my sister skates dangling from our shoulders Loose and happy in wool jackets mittens hats The sun warm against our faces Others sleeping off revels that lay in our future I skated far out exhilarated Forwards backwards Sit spins camel spins Lost in timeless arabesques sudden crack of a pistol shocks the still morning ice chinks under me adrenaline pumping panic as I race to shore the crack chases me a demon shadow rumbling under my skates threatening to suck me into its slivered jaw leave me floating fathomless under thin ice screams settling in silence I may not be as lucky as that ten year old who walked home scared and scarred but very much alive, maybe today I will hear a pistol crack see a slivered jaw beneath the surface my revels now ended as I slip into the sea The nurse calls my name I walk across the worn green carpet To meet Dr. W. P. Carson Charon at Starbuckshunched over his laptop
haggard, hairy feverish eyes an oar smeared with seaweed propped by his chair said he was posting on Craig’s list bored with dealing with the dead checking under swollen tongues no plastic gloves provided said he’d cut a deal with Hades to perform one last job to ferry a writer who scrawls each morning at Starbucks coffee shop seduced by an illusion of skill he wraps his cape around his shoulders picks up his dripping oar glances back as if to memorize my face |
A Message From the Fifth CircleYou know the story, everyone does
lost in a dark wood, he finds a pal to escort him through the nine circles of hell spiraling from lust to fraud to treachery where Judas is locked in ice while his back is shredded & flayed for all eternity do you think Dante was abused as a child? he emerges on Easter Sunday beneath a star-stippled sky ascends the mountain of Purgatory to find a spiritual muse willing to guide him on a tour of heaven for only fifty cents & his soul is purified by God’s love really? how come him & not me? I am still stuck in the fifth circle I do hope you get this message eternally fixed in the foul waters of Styx not one of the naked ones on the surface, snarling in fury battering & bludgeoning each other but one of those submerged in sullen anger (passive-aggressive says my therapist) beneath the surface slime gurgling & gagging & choking on unexpressed rage nothing remotely divine or comedic Virgil and Beatrice long vanished relieved to be retired so dear friend it looks like I won’t be back any time soon text me: [email protected] let me know how you are please send a fan Distant TrainI knew it was coming
like a distant train ear to the rail a vibrating hum when I touch you You turn away saying the stew needs a stir the dog a late night stroll I see funneled light through a haze of fog I hear a whistle warning I wave frantically from the platform Light shines through my sheer dress outlining a gaunt body dry and depleted wilted breasts Withered skin the train roars past oblivious unstoppable I knew it PactI press the pillow
over her face and I can’t breathe A pact made long ago on a sunlit afternoon as we sipped chardonnay and smoked Virginia Slims watching our children shoot marbles, jump rope Mabel, Mabel set the table Surely we wouldn’t want to be warehoused in Applewood or Sweet Pines squandering our grand- children’s college funds Surely we wouldn’t want to force friends to visit to feel guilty they prefer golf or pulling dandelions Reluctant to see our marbles roll across coffee-stained carpets beta-amyloids destroying synapses Reluctant to see us stare with blank faces, drool Ensure on flowered nightgowns complain about strange men In our closets, under our beds stealing pearl necklaces and sapphire rings plaques multiply and suffocate I let go so I can breathe The pillow falls to the floor I lie down next to my closest friend who no longer knows who I am signals between cells gone silent I run my fingers over her creased face I brush thin hair aside and kiss her dry forehead forgive me I close my eyes as we breathe together scissored from time I see a sunlit afternoon I hear distant voices Mabel, Mabel AftermathHello whoever is out there
I find myself under serious covers offering scant protection despite the heavy quilt sewn by my great grandmother despite the drawn shades the twelve orange vials of blessèd Xanax lying next to my pillow certainly not a solution for the next four years or ten generations for that matter a slideshow of despair loops endlessly a Muslim woman her hijab torn & tied around her throat apoplectic faces shrieking go home to a black man born in Baltimore a woman in a back alley undoing the work of a rapist a teenager returned to El Salvador where death stalks on legs of steel their faces indelible, crowding, rustling begging, screaming, sobbing while a mad man plays with joysticks on Pennsylvania Avenue KA-POW KA-POW tweeting triumphs at three am Hello are you there Déjà Vu'sOh hell here they are again
trailing behind me like a string of ants lined up for tedious miles one after another after another all creeping in a petty pace I swore & swore off vodka martinis especially the cranberry kind lust-listing toward the closest man inducing shameless sex & riptides of remorse I promised my losing-it sister I wouldn’t laugh when she misplaced her keys, her camera, her car, wore her nightgown to Safeway left ice cream dripping on the shelf but I did & I did & I did yesterday I smacked my daughter who showed up stoned I felt my mother’s stinging slap flame across my cheek followed by my silent, futile vow maybe I need a large can of Raid a quick trip to Home Depot otherwise they will continue to crawl until the last syllable of my recorded life dragging déjà vu’s all over again To Her PsychiatristBut it was April and you said she would be well
you said pills would smooth her swinging moods Zoloft at breakfast, Ativan before bed late night walks to nowhere, gazing over bridges her body shaking with longing I wrap my coat around her and slowly walk her home +++ But it was August and you said she would be well with Lamictal, Xanax, Klonopin, Abilify uppers and downers guaranteed to stabilize she thought she was invincible, she flew half-naked down the street weaving through cars her nightgown billowing, her body thin, so terribly thin +++ But you promised and now it is December and I am alone with rows of empty vials and Christmas lights blinking insanity you promised and I listened like the bereft fool that I am |