Too Much Not Enough, and: Now That We Live in a World Where My Father Doesn’t Exist Anymore, I Go Out on a Date with a Man in the Afternoon, and: Ballet at Midlife

Too Much Not Enough

I stay up late watching a strangeprogram, a nurse addicted to pillswho rescues the weak angels in hercity, studies her daughters likemolecule experiments. Too late.I’m not going to have children.In the office, I’m bleary; the ladies’toilet has a sign—we aren’t flushingproperly. More has to happen withthe handle. I sit. I blot. Susanna callsme into her office: she’s sevenweeks pregnant! I go to class witha wand. The secretary has designated thisweek Harry Potter theme week—I don’t knowthe books, the little wizard, but I knowhow to play a game. My wand is a stickfrom the lawn but I tap heads,point at chalk, open the door. Quitcollege, I tell my students. Wandwave. I’ll sign your drop slips! Bepoets. You’re that good. And it’s true.Their genius has put me undera spell. They laugh: they don’t knowwhat’s true.

Drive home, too tired, eat olives, toomany. Drive fast, late to Pilates, whichI can perform in a skirt and tights. I tell my teacher I might cry on the mat:John my friend is going to hospice.I’m engaged to a man who might be Tarzan.Then your body really needs this today,she says. I press myself down. I makemyself into a slice of toast. I balanceon my hip bones—hawk. I scoop.I fly over the ground. I grab mymouse. I fling the mouse. Over and over,I fly. But the ground, it pulls so hard I wonderif death is simply a big magnet at the coreand not to be feared—it’s just energy.Then the store. The dry cleaner,the starry cold autumn night, home, dark—back door—and then I see—when did theybloom? Roses, all over my backyard like coupons.They’ll bloom all night.

Now That We Live in a World Where My Father Doesn’t Exist Anymore, I Go Out on a Date with a Man in the Afternoon

Sunday, Museum ofNatural History, we turnedfrom the bone bedsin the great dinosaur room(what is that rampto the pelvis for?)to kiss in shadow at frogs,crowded chorus of colors. We evolved hall by hall,through slugs, hominids,dingoes alert in a grass-scape,hard right at the skeletons,down at the canoe, intothe brain, a cheery exhibitof plastic Christmas lightsand whooshy soundboardswhere our fingers tracelove’s drug effects, morepowerful than OxyContin,quicker than light.

    Tonight, when we laytogether on the savannahof our bed, in the dioramaof the man with the womanin the black nightgown, thewhite walls and white sheetsof their preferred habitat, highheels poised in the distance, his belt,coins on the floor, and in the corner,on their little table, a vaseof peach alstroemeria to suggestthe female of the speciesis attracted to fresh cut flowerswhich she purchased on sale.We sleep (the male sleeps,she pretends) inseparable.This is the human group.And long after the museumis closed and dark, andthe dormant wake to playI turn to you and whispertime.

Ballet at Midlife

In a strip mall off the highwaycased in black tights, under fluorescent lightsfive women twist toward the window, arms aloft,wavering, waving, as though saying hello, stop! Unbalancedat the barre, we are stranded, flocked—it’s a squeeze,on tiptoe, a shot at the last shot we’ve had sincewe were girls: beauty. Or flight? Or is this weirdworkout simply a way into body, a final attempt to bein love with and not fighting body? I always forgetan elastic to hold a ponytail. I’m the dark one...