Misgivings
13
my legs knocked
like wooden ship hauls,
thin as Pall Malls
floating through 40 oz seas
jumping baby gates for parties
drink, smoke, see me
drink, cry, mommy
rocking myself to death
Look at us now, sisters
still scabbed and raw
because our teddy bears had teeth
We held ourselves hostage
until the world was light enough
to dream
Now we build glass houses
so the world can see our tired faces
but know we are awake
1-7-25
We laughed about possessions
and phantom footsteps
as if we, the living, weren’t starved
for new eyes and scenery
I saw you in court,
a child once screaming for her parents
now shoving her own baby
into the mud
We moved but the ghosts followed
I tell children sunlight is coming
though I don’t know when
05-02-24
It’s all bird brains
and the circle of life,
but a mother still flutters
in desperation above,
her babies swept in the wake below
Death is nuanced,
with its panic and longwinded sprint
to nothingness
Grief is cruel.
A mother stops flying,
her screeches barn swallowed,
now barren and directionless
watching in quiet agony
as the boat floats on
I cry for spiders and worms
when a mother feeds them to her young
I cry for little eggs
at the bottom of a lake
05-01-24
all belly no guts
sickly child inside
heal and tell no one
steal the sun and give it
back to the moon,
without charisma and charm
forever in the shadow
of louder funnier smarter
there is nothing worth breaking
in a fishbowl except silence,
you were meant to spill out
and fill up empty spaces
03-31-24
Drown me,
April rain,
push me under
the unbearable lightness of
wait, what if
I am enough,
gap-toothed wonder
pushed under
tight lips with words
cascading first
like tea, hot then cold,
sweet then bold
vanilla mouth full of protest
Drown me,
April rain,
in River Rat Alley,
next to soft bellies
swollen with ketchup
and white bread
wait, what if
I am full
of what could have been
and not what is happening,
no more beach bottles
and backroads
no more screenshots
and St. Augustine shells
no more garter snakes
and chocolate eggs,
midnight philosophies
and morning sex
Drown me,
April rain
push me under
the stained sheets
and tell me it was all worth it
the misplaced hope, the shower tears,
the belly laughs and COVID years
the sad song commute,
and the way I still carry
fragments of Hollywood’s imagination
Drown me,
April rain
Fill my lungs with something
lighter than loss
Fill them finally
with safety
05-01-23
treadmills,
racing thoughts
aware of impending loss,
hearts pump at their own pace,
but face to face
I forget to
slow
gentle
patient
in the psych ward
with grip socks
a rite of passage
you remind me of the moon,
sliver in a limitless sky,
universe you don’t share
is it me
or the certainty of an end,
good enough to pretend
finite enough to forget
Ruminating reflection
of the sea and the earth
and me,
now stuck on a memory
of collecting
cow bones
and begging the cops
to arrest that man,
faceless killer
with bones
like those I held
but they tell me to be a good girl
men always tell me to be a good girl
do not love me,
they say,
do not love me,
but stay
until you love
nothing but the moon
4/12/23
Michigan tumbleweed,
litter and nettle bouncing
in the gale,
pale and unassuming
an equal,
born of trash
and happenstance
windows down,
nose to the ground,
I forget that I ever knew
anything but the hunt
when will I
surrender to the elements,
god and evolution and love and science
and remember
what it is to be flesh
and pleasure and science and love and god,
what it is to feel
powerless
in the presence of
man,
beautiful man,
who bathes me in laughter,
beautiful enough
to forget the scent I’m after
But I don’t forget
03-25-23
snug between the blinds,
I peer past the harsh glow
of my nine to five,
twenty four seven
seven eleven
one twenty resting pulse,
barely audible
over the tap tap tapping
of my tired fingers
a crimson cardinal,
perched in the low brush
crimson, the color of blood
surging between my legs
before the doctor
suggests I freeze my eggs
crimson, the color of life erupting
and death forthcoming
crimson, the color of the bible at the Motel 6
carefully placed next to the remote,
carelessly flipping between soulless
portraits of them and self …
self, who is not them,
who could never be them
crimson, the color of youthful confidence
screaming pick me
in a bed of cut flowers,
still unaware of the pruning shears
crimson, the color of a cardinal
curious about the strange woodpecker
in a glass cage tap tap tapping
in search of meaning
3-14-23
when I shower
I reread us
like a bedtime story
I regret nothing
I love you now
as I have always loved you
and I love him,
the man who is
consistent and distant,
like me
always chasing
open air
he is a poem
you are a chapter
and I am exhausted
I no longer need
words of affirmation
or attention
I need nourishment
I need rest
Eventually the sky
will crack itself in two
on a stormy night
and light me on fire
when I’m not looking
but for now,
love me
and
everyone
and
no one
forever
as I love you
02-27-23
We don’t talk about it
Sometimes when you call me
I feel my childhood in my throat
But I understand now what it is
to live in the shadows
of the birds at the feeder
I built this nest
out of scraps
but it’s enough for me
I wonder what it was like
for you to build one for five
knowing it wasn’t enough
You love me now
It was always enough
01-22-23
Gretchen Pleuss 