Just In Case.

Just in case I die before my time,
I leave you with three things:
A jar of clay,
A sculptured pony with a jewel in its eye,
And a blue hairbrush my grandmother
Made for me.

Just in case I die before my time,
I will tell you stories I have written
In pen,
Stories that are burned in tabletops
Somewhere out east,
Stories that tell of my grandfather’s pain.

Sarah told me you hated them,
Hated the words, hated the sounds
That rolled from my tongue,
I thought it was in English.

You said it was “Getthefuckoutofhere,
Shithead.”
Your words are pained and painted.

The jar of clay was put on the windowsill
In my grandmother’s house.
She spoke of China, Ireland, Aruba.
She spoke of letters in brown boxes.
She did not speak before she died.

Just in case I die before my time,
I will leave you the world.

Fields.

I am raw.  Raw as the fields in which William Carlos Williams walked,

hands stuffed deep in his pockets.  I am raw.  Rawer than the fish I ate

for pot luck supper that one night in October when the leaves were

beginning to change and I had no one.  

I am raw.  My voice is a seal, and the door opens and you stand,

nodding your head, nodding, always nodding.  

I am raw.  I am pain, pain that is quicker than lightning,

that moves up out of the ground and onto still air,

I have won every award that does not bear my name.  I am childless.  I am homeless.

I have no bread, no way to eat.  I give my food to orphans.

I am not anyone's angel.  I am nothing.  The world is ever changing, ever dying.

You accuse me of nothing.  I speak nothing.  I speak.