Forty-Fifth Paradox Writing

We waited for the phone to ring.

They waited him to fly down,

then out, then up, then upside down.

I could say his hair caught my eye,

you could say I needed a distraction.

Across a few walls, my mom fought to breathe

Across a few latitudes, he fought gravity.

He won a gold medal in a few minutes

Mom opened her eyes in a few days.

Within a week of asking her out,

He spoke to me twice as much.

Then he sent a note with chocolate,

Saying he’s fallen for another girl.

I’ll write back, with a bottle of vanilla extract,

And say:

I am not your back up,

Your trump card,

Or Your booby prize.

Best of luck to your relationship,

You’ll be needing luck when she dumps you

for the next one.

Death still hasn’t learned his lesson.

This is the second time this year,

he’s tried to fight me.

Sometimes he comes armed with a scythe

sometimes with a breathing machine,

and feeding tubes,

but I know I scared him away;

I know he’s a coward.

He never allows his opponent to live long

enough to defeat him.

The sky is falling!

Or actually, the sky fell.

Yesterday it fell through my ceiling,

Landing square on my slug bug.

Ice from an airplane experts said.

I say the sky’s playing games with me,

And he never said no tag-backs.

I would drive as far as my gas tank would take me,

and then I would run the rest of the way,

until I reached the shores of Victoria.

I would gather each plant, each flower,

each piece of the Old World,

each rock, each government building,

each lamp, each iron-wrought lamp,

each cup of tea, each cube of sugar,

each drop of cream, each foreign accent,

each wink, each photo, each sigh,

every bewildered stare,

and gather them up in a bag,

just to see her smile again.

Every ring resounds like a drum roll,

as the receiver rubs against my cheek like a noose.

When the drum roll stops,

I hope to hear, not a present voice,

but a past voice, one that’s been recorded

between 5 and 20 seconds,

with  a brief message with an even briefer excuse,

asking for my name and phone number.

I hope you don’t actually answer with a hello,

with suppressed surprise.

In fact I hope this number has been mysteriously disconnected,

saving me from a potential conversation.

Time holds my mother prisoner.

The unknown sits, an owl, on his shoulder.

A a gold pocket watch ticks slowly,

slowly,

slowly, on in his gnarled hand.

I wonder if she even notices the clown

on the other side.

He dances and tells jokes,

but none of us hear the punchline.

The ticking watch drowns him out.

She has a photo album enshrining

her conquests over the past four seasons.

Each photo captures

brass players, drummers, pit people,

even woodwind players

she’s had on her arm.

In total,

they count for half the people in the ensemble.

In the front cover rests a picture she’s torn in half,

one side, unmarked, has her in her pristine uniform,

the other, with devil horns and a pitch fork inscribed in sharpie,

All worn by the drum major she despises,

the one who spread a rumor about her

and the boy in the color guard,

who’s orientation everyone questions.

The man in the moon know what it means to cry

in the shadows of his darker side,

and then smile for the whole world to see on his brighter side.

Oh, if only I could dive into his seas

and swim until the silver-grey water sapped

the heaviness from my bones

and loosened gravity’s hold on me.

Only then,

could I fly back to Earth,

burning bright like a meteor,

and leaving behind

only a trail of pixie dust.

There’s the two guys whose fists collided over a girl,

and there’s those students who squabbled for a week on

end over a story.

I don’t think my professor quite realized

the ramifications of signing me up for this class,

let alone taking me on this field trip.

I wish I could be remembered for a Trojan war

even if it left the cities in my hair in ruins.

I wish I could live on as the essay the professor

shows off every year.

Instead, I am the girl

who will be immortalized in laughing stories,

as the one who dropped the gum out of her mouth,

down on the pristine floor of a Willamette chapel,

during a poetry reading.