Memories and Politics

Desecration.
It is a word not often used
By journalists
Something sacred that has been marred by something like Satan

Swastikas on Jewish tombstones across the Atlantic:
France feels so far away,

And yet

And yet we recently had our own Nazi rally

And yet

It seems like it was an eternity ago

and yet

Obama was still president at the end of 2015 and I...
Did not even know you then.

The past three weeks feels like an entire lifetime
I think about driving an hour to your house in Hickory and
How that was a whole other person
In a whole other relationship -

Michael asks,

"Which one did you like better?"

And I say - the one between then and now
Because now:

It feels painfully serious
And I feel afraid of it tipping over
The glass is so filled with intimacy and full throttle emotional fuel cells...

And then,
 it felt like I never knew where it was going but it was an exciting ride, yes?
Not. Too. Serious.
Keeping everything at arm's length intentionally...

And the in between:

It felt like memories before they happened - 

Quiet dripping of old faucets,
The makings of black and white films: nostalgia,
Living in the middle of something that was happening and something that happened
 and a thing
 yet

to come.

The dog would bark
And you would be there.

Sometimes unexpected but you always came back.
You always came home...
I always knew what to call that.

December 2, 2015

When I thought of America
As a small child
I thought of soldiers saluting.
Of parades with Santas throwing candy
And my Girl Scout vest
Hung proudly in my closet
Next to my letter jacket
And the long dress I wore to church
On Easter Sunday.

I thought of sidewalk Christmas decorations
And puffing steam from our cheeks
And licking flag poles...and sticking.

I thought of funnel cake and fairs and blue ribbons
And rodeos and playing capture the flag with my cousins in the backyard
And Thanksgiving
And trick or treat
And swimming pools
And holding a boy's hand watching the fireworks
And folding the flag so carefully into a triangle while taps played and the sun sank low in the horizon.

And now I sit and ponder these things...
I can remember campfire marshmallows
And caramel apples
And hayrides and running through the yard with my black lab,
But instead of those images my Mind can't help seeing
A low-income woman hovered over a basin.
Her brow sweats and her hair strings and her mouth puffs;
She scrubs Old Glory over a washboard in the metal bucket of cold water,
She scrubs fervently
She scrubs diligently
She scrubs furiously,

But she cannot manage to wash out the blood.