moods rather than feelings, sensations perceptions impressions bundled as a system, lumped into a prevailing state coming as if it were a front coming with the wind; he invited me, the young wizard, to be a guest on his radio show he would be talking about intuition, the perfect and obvious synchronicity of it notwithstanding it was equally perfectly and distinctly the wrong thing to do...why is not so clear; something to do with on and off the page with distractions and a path already traveled another reason not to get the outline done following my intuition respectfully I declined

my whoreself sitting on the corner waiting to be picked up watching being watched being sized up to see if I was worth an eye and waves and wonderment and from others not a 2ndthought about the hell I could would be possibly doing sitting there on the corner like I was some damn whore
brought up memories and set me to thinking about what it is I'd want people to know about me in the remembering sense long after knowing me is gone wondering what it is that puts me in someone's mind's eye, my doing or my saying

the doin's
the wonder was what I would most like to be remembered for, known for, which popped into my mind seeing a particular look of surprise flash across his particular face when he drove by asif I might be in trouble or needing something or out of place or character sitting there and it was riding freights that I crossed my mind and that I keep coming back tonot nursing or writing or allmycontributions but the whorestories it seeiming all of a sudden a question of untoward sanctification or toward for that matter damn if it ain't, yes sirree

25 years of aids
she had also now that I thinkofit wanted to know what the hell TheWhore, the temple harlot, hadbeen doing in the thicket while the others hadn't been quite so disturbed by her but what she'd really been asking ofcourse was why I needed why I'd allowed her to be so ostentatious&distracting so asif separate and I now I see that justas I'd needed finally to dispossess invisibility it is allofa sudden time to repossess the goodwhoremary and I think of Don, my consortkingbrotherharolotsisterloverfriend-16 years dead of aids-who saw her first and loved her the best

dearsenator
since there is separation between church&state we shouldnot allow churchleaders(sic) to be dictating our publicpolicy nor shouldwe be blowing in the winds of their hateful fearmongering&exclusivity. thereis no soundreason (on god'sgreen arth) to prohibit gay people marrying one another or tobelieve that gaymarriage will in any way have a more deleterious effect on the holystate of matrimony than let's say elizabethtaylor's8heterosexualmarriages or what'shername's10minutemarriage for that matter...so please do not oppose gay marriage on my behalf, it's among many things horrifically discriminatory, and ofcourse those of us who don't learn from history are doomed ifnothingelse to repeat it.

aroundtheblock
2brothers&thenextdoorboy were playing a game with a bat&ball and the nextdoorboy as I walked past the driveway in which they were playing began justthen succumbing to his agonizing frustration with the2brothers who changed the rules just as he was finally figuring out what was going on and he walkedaway from them growlinghowling throwing his arms in the air spinning around grabbing his face yellingspinninghowlinggrabbingshouting I don'knowIdon'tknow I don'tknow what's goingon yellingspinninghowlingshouting louder&louder you keep changing the rules; thinking this is what mothers are for I kept walking but his heart was on his sleeve and weboth know I looked

whorestories
at some crucial juncture I'd hurt his feelings. made the wrong choice when it'd come time to choose. dishonoring the alliance, our unwitting standard for truthtelling and tolerance for eyetoeye until we discovered we were not man-to-man. don't remember what started it all. do remember we never got over it-that thing for which there had neverbeen any words.

later Christian had said, Honey it's all about that's where the talking stops. and
you either getit on or you don't
but we were only 11years old I said
you disappoint me he'd answered. we are never
only eleven years old

whorestories
I don't remember whose notexactly remorse it was that insisted we right then tell his wife that we'd left the afternoon workshop andnot by accident that onething led to many more for which I still have no exactwords, he never had a chance, I just never expected to be so successful so artfulsoardent so persuasive and once it became a threeway she didn't mind asmuch & we stayed in touch they came to visit she got happily pregnant he started happily hang gliding thencrashed &died of an aneurism justbefore his daughter was delivered &my husband notsohappily disavowed any of it

whorestories
my husband already halfway out the door, there was a je ne sais quoi notso laden sweet I don't know exactlywhat tryst, without any purposeful bewitchery or prettyword qualifying explanations my one&only of the 70's simply attuned to the beguilement of possibility and the blossom scent of the evening air and an evening stroll became a walk sauntering into the he spent the night and we two became friends and stayed in touch, I was late, and up against it worried since by my insistencepersistance my husband hadgotten his tubes tied but& in the end there was the period

whorestories
it may have been the friendship with his sister that got me invited on their family vacation down to california but it was her winsome brother gallant blue-eyed gentlemean bright &me that started it all in a summer afternoon eyes across the pool a sizzling capturing looking regard that bypassed any layer of frivolity right to the heart of our matter and he was everywhere I was everywhere he was or about to be. and it was wewere; a hot burning shining magnificent shortlivedstar

it neveralways made any sense to say he was 6 or that I was not

whorestories
...we'd been sitting on a love seat at a Christmas party in a room overlit with colored marble tablelamps & long wax tapers. A fire burned in the enormous fire place. An elegant and gaily decorated Christmastree stood in one corner and elsewhere the room was chaotic with gifts& cutglass bowlsfull of nuts&driedfruits. The long mahogany table was littered with crystalgoblets, jelliedcandies, stylishnapkins and ofcourse an elaborate flower arrangement. Between bites, no preamble, in the middle of it all we erupted in a spontaneouscombustion perfectlytandem&clothed orgasm. Openmouthed&oblivious to everyonething else we turned to each other. Dumbstruck. Joined. Laughing. Musky. Had.

InTheNeighborhood
she'd been telling me with pride&excitement about the 8th grade dance a hollywood affair a cityscape backdrop a red carpet runup a huge kingkong head fountains&mountains of food&drink and Someone brought a nazi uniform she said nonplused and kids dressed up in it, penciled in a moustache and goosestepped she said they could be you know anyone they wanted shesaid, I was astonished dropbellied and whelmed enough to not have said a word arewere youall out of your fuckingminds was what I was thinking instead I'll goback and ask prettyplease what (if anything) Someone was thinking; divisions are easy

whore stories
reflection of an honorable foe a token of the abyss, he was as the topaz, neither truth nor illusion before memory before onceuponatime our strength evident I tremble with our weakness, the penetration swift assured my apprehension indistinct, without loss the wall breached did I shout did I whisper I am the conqueror I am the vanquished, he was the bold stag, erect the fragrant maiden moist, he is as I am, overcome we are the hunted ..the dark is night Beltaine fire burns heat takes hold our breath fills the cavern that is our body our steam washes us...

TheNeighborhood
I have a message for you he said a day after I'd left the rose I don't know what it means but he said you'd understand "I say that I accept the way I am, but do I accept it so fully that I'm willing to act on it...to actually act the way I am?- Hugh Prather
how funny I said I left the (yellow)rose(oftexas) thinking it was for you but I guess it was for him
how funny he said, I didn't know it was you
which was justperfect since I was to have left him alone

the larger neighborhood
she gave me back the ring that damned topaz ring that should've been full of I dare you and instead was dying that here you take it and fix it ring she thrust at me more than a year ago just before I had to stop working because my knee went bad that I gave back to her as better 6 months before she was diagnosed with terminal cancer
it fills me with a certain remorse but it has regained its spark and she is still living with her illness rather than dying with it just yet

the larger neighborhood
I asked what she wanted to be remembered for being a good friend she said and then asif it were or might havebeen a separate category ...when it comes to my kids havingbeen a good mother to them I was a good mother, I wasn't a good wife, but I could be with someone who was my best friend, my husband was my best friend but I wasn't his...I have been a good friend earlier I'd asked what made it possible for her to be dying with such grace &elegance of spirit, my friendships she'd answered

theconceit
Solomon, steadfast set in his ways and happily married to the love of his life gets a letter out of the vast blue from a son that he never suspected he had telling him he is about to be a grandfather which sets in motion an unexpected chain of events that some might call change and others just life, and Maggie, the wifeofhislife discovers that change, rather like the sound of a tree falling in the forest, happens with or without us.
How will you respond when some huge unthought of compelling possibility insinuates itself into your Thursday afternoon?

pre-whorestory
we were inlove before he was my husband'sbestfriend though ofcourse it's splitting hairs since they'dbeen bestfriends since gradeschool &I was the comelately but there it was doug already at work on the greenpea harvest there we Him&Butts&me were watching the sunset on top of a palouse hill in the dry heat of the summer barely clothed and without forethoughtorplay our musk gave scent to the nightair, Butts catching the drift ofcourse tried to kill me, years later when I came to Him in tears the night before the wedding He simply said you don't need to marry him youknow

whorestory
we were going to go altogether and at the last minute doug went on the hell's canyon raft trip so He&I went in the MG top down even through the mountains where it was still winter and then sharing the livingroom floor side by side in sleepingbags talking and laughing like we had a milliontimes before we remembered that night a hot wind was blowing, you'd said and we madelove &rutted fast&hard slow and gentle in tears and laughter and with a familiarity try as we mighthave we couldn't ignore and forever after we have been as if strangers.

apologia
I was thinking maybe there was supposed to be a difference between the lovestories and the whorestories asif it were a matter of good&bad or bad& not quite so bad but in talking about what I mean by whore it boilsquickly downto she's the seer and when did I ever get married in a whitedress and mostly what I'm remembering and flaunting is my availability &visibility, is the display, and with a certain je ne sais quoi purity or impurity be damned the entering into by choice, hell the going after with vigor, the engagement fraught with possibility
& notpromise

Apogee
back in the water after 7months came to me in a no struggle flash and it was a perfectday no crowdfactor no wind and the water was sweet&slow if disorganized but there were plenty of whitewater rushes and I rode the sucker onto the beach without a 2ndthought, hooya! we sold MobyStick, thechairman of the boardroom-our 1stboard and the nanny youmightsay-to just the right not so young kid who was properly respectful and just the right totallystoked beginner; and working the synopsis I discover *finally inthegroove* things I never intended and frolic in the whoremagic& reach of it all...

whored
I was pimped the 1sttime by my brother for a dime-a quarter he as he remembers which he pocketed in toto-on a train, I always thought they asked but he'd offered the I'll tell my sister you want to talk to her which they readilyaccepted and with his 7or8yearold innocence intact he came saying with a pride that I misread those guys over there want to talk to you which at 1stblush was enthralling &temptingbut my mother for the 1sttime in her life notquitetrue intervened; it going to show somehow that on some level it is already ordained, hardwired

so it comes together asif bydesign; forgetting about my PT appt altogether until I start thinking about letting go of &fallinginto and hisfather falling off the roof and thinking of mosadajohnorwhateverthehell his nameisn't and thinkingof 'what are you going to call me next' and 'the names I've had' for our next volume and feeling honored that she let me read her manuscript which happens to be about ourbraidedlives until I remembered that I'm a publisher sheesh and bygod speaking of names I've had i realized 2day couldjustaseasily be Today; andso I told him to jump
&he asked into or outof

there's something about seeing the light through the bamboo that is hope and something about how when the grove fills in there's no passage except for time and like the hollow of a tube there's a magic in the lining up of all her stories so you begin to appreciate the life that runs through them and the direction if there is one isnot forward or back or now or then, but simply through you need only follow the string, and it brings to bear a noticing
&that seeing the light through bamboo is hope
so one thins the grove

whorestories
in just that way I still find challenging, enticing and inviting, he was handsome &moreso elegant with ohsocoiffed hair looking windblown but in place and eyes that looked and saw and what you shot for was the twinkle past the spark that was wellkept behind the mostly contained and remote iceblue you think but they were brown and verywarm and easily&ofcourse I made my way to that place of naked and the beckoning was not mined (mind) are you always like this he asked, I had no idea what he was talking about, love is a shorthand; a metaphor

bitch
have I built in safeguards for him he wants to know he has no skills the other says this isn't about him, this is about her our mother, I say to both of them-tyvm johnnie for belaboring the point-just checking he says, he'll be fine the other says he'll be fine, and home on the range the young wizard comingback into his own says it's like you're going back to the bitch without the suckling mmhmm &about mynovel she said they're all too perfect &they're all sohonest outloud! mmhmm and in one scene youcan't change point of view; ohyesIdo

not abandoned herself
all my life I've known OurMother and just now I'm figuring out she's a performer, the consummate performance mistaken for vanity and of course she'd rise to the occasion the show goes on and so at the worst time of her day she's up dressed in clothes and earrings and makeup to welcome those who would be assessing her judging her to be home or not homeworthy or not and she steps into the she that she reserves for a public, mustering as she says the enthusiasm even if her imagination has taken leave of her senses

ourmother
each one follows the trajectory of why isn't someone doing something to fix this have you thought of mayo clinic and those ofus who have turned that corner sputter with the um wrongthinking wrongspeaking the temptation to yell asif we haven't thought of that or worse and then we step back into understanding recognizing the fear the sadness that inability to tolerate the demise of the incredible woman who is mother and friend to the many of us who once knew her as enormous which is not to say she's absent the temerity to get her driver's license renewed

ourmother
we'd just comeback from our evening walk to water load for the haul on the bottle to reset the rhyme&pace of the carousel and sitting on the porch we talked about the not beingsurprised when she lashed out, you look drunk she punched when I walked in to tell her we were back right on cue jd said what made you say that I asked catching my breath your funny smile she said looking at my face longsince rearranged after brain surgery;I don't want to hurt your feelings she said then when I was helping her into bed

enfamille
we are together again a family of words moreso than deeds words that at times like this fail us and I remember the measure of poetry it is the cant and the ken and feelings that fly in the face of all the words circling strangling the heart, we're passed past fixes
I never knew her stubborn I never knew her steel I never knew her small or silent does she can she is she angry does she enjoy anything anymore is she in pain can she walk unassisted oh yes; right into the damn middle of your heart