Right in the middle of the Rolling Stones record that I bought when I was with you. You probably don’t remember. You were dismissive, said it was a “Best of.” Very pedestrian and uncool, you said. I bought it anyway. It was in the bargain bin, between The Smithereens and something by Barbara Streisand. To me, a pearl of great price. I went home and filed my nails to “You can’t always get what you want.”

            The garlic is lingering on my tongue when I descend the wooden stairs to inspect the damage. All five years of owning the record player, a graduation gift from my parents, and never this. I feel certain that my cooking error is embodied in the dangling arm; somehow, I had caused the sudden halt. It’s lifeless: I press the knobs and buttons, blow the dust off the record, breathe on the needle. No resuscitation will do. It’s gone.

            Outside, two men walk nearly identical collies while pointing at the row of distant oak trees, now being lit with the increasingly pink sky. It will be one of those sunsets that make me feel slightly happy and slightly lonely. I can tell, just looking at how black the trees are becoming. The first collie suddenly takes off, chasing something of invisible intrigue. He digs wildly at a patch of grass, claws the ground in a hunt for his buried pearl. Up from the ground and glazed between his jaws, the remains of a sandwich sway to and fro. The bread slowly decreases in his teeth. The sun sinks slightly. The ache in my stomach hums a soft tune.

I slouch down on the floor and stare at the collection of records propped below the now obsolete machine. It isn’t exactly easy to prevent these kinds of things. I want to distract myself, very badly, with some Thriller. I can’t, though. Already, the records appear as though they are awaiting a long and certain neglect. Upstairs, the faint gurgle of boiling water sputters up and into the air.

            I glance at the titles before heading into the kitchen. The garlic eases its fervor, strangely becoming quite pleasing. Rubber Soul, The Queen is Dead, Either/Or, Pet Sounds, The Velvet Underground and Nico. Although you claimed once that you hated sexism, that sexist men are weak, I remember you telling me something about girls and music. You said that girls shouldn’t have good record collections. Girls, you said, seem suspicious when they know who Lou Reed is. Like maybe they sit home and listen to records and don’t know how to have fun. Well, I am looking at my records now and I know who Lou Reed is. Many people probably don’t think so when they look at me, because I don’t really look like the kind of girl who would. I shop at Target for jeans and all that. I own running sneakers. I like chain restaurants, sometimes. I like sports. Does that make me fun, or not? I don’t know. But I really like Lou Reed, and I always have.

            I think about your comment the whole way up the stairs, and while the pasta is drained into the awaiting bowl. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it, says God to the Israelites. I think of that long drive, the two hours in the middle of the night. The way my belongings looked in the living room when I decided to leave. The window screen was torn in a jagged line, flapping and scraping the blackness with its sharp edge. The sliver of the moon, hanging in the sky like the stoic smile of a polite but distant friend. I wonder about the look on your face when you walked inside and I was no longer there. I always imagine that you went to the records first, in disbelief that I could leave such treasures. I didn’t look in the rearview the entire way to home.  The sweat and the tears mingled in the heat. I thought I would turn to a pillar of salt if I dared, for a second, to look over my shoulder. No cloud of fire, no split sea, no birds or frogs flying from a purple sky led me across the hundred miles of farms. No burning bush told me to go. Just a nagging hunger. A steady ache, no matter how much I fed myself on you.

            No one had to tell me what I already knew. At night, even our best nights, even that night walking along the swampy North Carolina coast with the flashlight dead in your hand and the long brush scraping our weary bodies and the moist earth below our feet, our bodies practically absorbed into the night fog and sleeplessness because we were that happy and so happy we didn’t speak, we glowed. We found our way. Even after that night and all the nights like it, still. The stillness after the deepest happy I have ever felt; not enough. I wanted all the stories from Sunday School to be wrong. I wanted to believe the ancient people that split birds in pools of blood and wouldn’t eat seafood and kept the Sabbath holy were as primitive and superstitious as they sounded, that the God who spoke in the desert and in a fire was just an imagination, a silliness.

            The only problem was the thirst that came after the best moments. Sometimes after an hour, sometimes just a few minutes. A tiny numbing ache, underneath. It seemed odd, unnatural at first. A real killjoy. And then, as time passed, weeks, months, it became the only thing that made sense. Like when an aspirin wears off and you have to debate whether to knock the tooth clear out or pop three, four more. After awhile, the decision is obvious.

I wonder if you have any of those records I decided to leave. I miss Harvest Moon most of all. Do you remember the night with that terrible wine and the mouse under the sink? I do, sometimes. I think to myself, with my pasta. I think that they are more than just music records. They are record records. Ways of keeping time, moments, suspended after they had long gone. I put on Aeroplane Over the Sea and I am in your old room in the green gable and the night with the cheap beer on your breath. I put on Pet Sounds and I am driving around Route 11 in the crooked blessed sunlight passed Mennonite farms and cows in the pasture and the oldness of life painting everything green, as if aging is somehow giving the landscape a richer color. I am alone with the realization that I cannot play any of these moments anymore the way I used to. I cannot: the mechanism is done, the battery has run out, the energy to move these places and those words and your voice and all of it, it finally gave up its lingering ghost. The old way of keeping time, time away from you, with the limp arm dragged across the black circular surface. The old way is gone. I have become the person I was avoiding becoming. I ripped the tooth out. And strangely enough, there is no gap left behind. Only the sound of a cup filling.

Sometimes, I see that sliver of moon and it occurs to me that it was already beginning to happen. That sliver may have been a stoic smile, but it was also a single eyeball beginning to open from a long spell of disbelief. I like to think of the moments before I pulled up to my parents’ house. One lamp remained lit through the slanted blinds. Fireflies flickered a lopsided halo in the sky above my car. I slid into a vacant spot on the driveway. My father, sleepless, had been waiting for some time at the door. He didn’t mention my wild hair or the smell of gasoline lingering on my tired hands or the time. Nor did he acknowledge the bags of dirty clothes spewing out and strewn across the backseats of my car. He put his right hand on my sagging shoulder to usher me into the house. I turned only to see the halo disappear into the darkness. He never mentioned your name or any of it, any of the alternate life I had created for myself that year. There was a bowl of tangerines on the kitchen table. A dozen flaming bulbs. We spoke in hushed whispers as my father told me to take and eat. I peeled the skin and sucked until the summer juice trailed and dribbled across my chin.

I can practically smell the citrus from that night as I toss the pasta with the tomatoes, drizzle the sauce across the steamy bowl. Occasionally, I like to eat alone. I like the sound of my fork on the plate, the chewing. The stillness of the room. The mechanics of it all. I rest my head on the open palm of my left hand, and with the other, begin to eat. In the quiet, taste seems louder. I notice the parmesan is particularly smooth, creamy. I don’t think about my records or about you or about the sinking sun. I think about how wonderful it is when hunger starts to vanish and is slowly replaced with satisfaction. It doesn’t happen all at once, but bite by bite, day by day, knock after knock, prayer after prayer.

That evening, after some time, I call my friends that would care. Not the types of friends that would say, “come on Allie, just get a new record player” or “you listen to records?” or “bummer.” One of my friends gets it. He has an entire basement full of vinyl. There is silence on the phone. In the background, I can hear he is listening to Nick Drake. His wife is baking, the pans slamming on the counter and the clatter of longing, of preparation. He says it is a shame and I say yea and it’s quiet and he says “I know how much that piece of junk meant to you, I kinda loved that thing, too, you know.” I don’t mind that he calls it junk. I know the cliché: one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. It was too old, anyway, I say, and I tell him how old, almost five years I’ve had it but it was my parents’ from when they were dating and just hearing the numbers and I feel the space between you and I has grown so much and it isn’t the kind of growing that makes jeans feel tight or makes you feel nostalgic in a painful kind of way. Five years rings back and forth across the electric wires and the sound echoes and bounces like a drum beat or a nice long melody or something.

A week goes by and the sun still beams across the room where the record player sits lonely and historic in its usual spot. I don’t have the heart to take it outside, rip it out of the wall and leave it out at the curbside. I just let it sit there. I know it’s a model that is so old, there’s no way to fix and replace the parts. There is just no possible way. I kind of knew immediately, as soon as the arm slapped back in a loud, paralytic crack. Nothing can be done. I knew the way I made that decision that night, so many years ago. Killing the toothache in one fell swoop. Still, I can’t get myself to rip it out on my own. Lug the load, the plastic tangle of wires and burden, out and up the cold steps and set it free. Maybe I could lift it even, but I don’t try. I know a load when I see one. I know a load that I can’t simply lift. It’s been there for so long, I just know.

I am literally thinking this when a strange thing happens. I am sipping a glass of cold cool water, dangling my feet from a kitchen stool, and the doorbell rings. It’s a nice, airy ring – sounds different than usual. I hear the shuffling of dog feet and the rip of a welcome mat and the giggle of a voice. I expect a school kid selling jump ropes or chocolate bars. Or, the census people. Maybe, if I am really lucky, Mormons with matching bikes.

It’s neither. It’s my friend with the huge record collection. He and his wife and his dog twirling circles at his feet and ravenously chasing a twig into the deck wood. My friend is grinning an impish grin. The sight of them is distraction enough – I was not expecting him, let alone his wife, let alone his dog. It takes me a minute or two and then I notice why he is here. I follow his eyes downward to the huge box in his hands. It’s square and bulky and wet and torn with some rain water and duct tape. It’s cardboard and tattered. Heavy.

We don’t even have to say anything, I know immediately there is something in that box for me, the look on his face tells me he is dying to give it to me, even his wife seems like she is dying for me to have it. I move out of the way and in seconds, with his back arched in a crescent of strength, he wobbles the box down to the living room, slides it gently on the floor.

I don’t even have to open it. I know what will come out of that box. And I know what will go in it.

He lifts open the cardboard flaps. Untouched, still in the wrapping. A remote control taped to the top. Chords folded neatly in a spiral. A clear plastic cover with a slight trace of dust and nothing more to indicate that the record player has even been used. Even the price tag is still on it.

“I found it, I found it today, while I was running,” he says, as though he’s been running a marathon, running forever, throwing off everything to bring this gift to me. He’s out of breath from carrying so much. “I found it on the side of the curb near the golf course complex apartments, this huge box. I thought what could be in there and I knew, I knew I had to look, I was supposed to look, and I saw just the handle through a glare of sunlight. I saw the arm, raised in the case,” (he was really getting excited now) “and I thought, it’s like this thing is calling me over, saying pick me! Pick me! And I said to myself, we’ve got to bring this to Allie, I can’t believe the timing, I can’t believe it, it’s brand new, even a remote control, brand new.”

I am in disbelief, standing there, his eyes springing up and down. Without even asking, like a spinning needle, he turns himself, so triumphant, and he starts moving the old one out of the space, pulls the chord, wraps it up and makes it disappear so fast into the box which is already empty because the new one, the new record player, now rests perfectly on the counter.

It happens so fast, I am sure I say thank you at some point, but I am just staring at the remote control and all the tiny buttons and the newness of it. He slips out with his dog and his wife, they have to go eat dinner and run errands, it all seems surreal. Like a sharp turn or a blink. I take another sip of water, and press Power. There’s no record on, but I don’t care. I press power. I just want to watch the arm raise itself slowly, in gratitude and praise.

I left. An afternoon passed. An hour for every month.
You arrived that evening,
sat plainly in my reading chair as I watched you
punctuate your sentences with only periods.
I did not cry or laugh or say a word.
The questions raised their marks across my face
but you didn’t bother to read, fiddled with
the ottoman and suddenly I had heard
enough of your love turning sour and the flatness
of your voice in my ears. I asked you to go.

I did not realize it would be the last time
I would see you. I thought surely you would
leave some other way, slowly,
a card in the mail later
a polite phone call after six weeks,
an anguler hug at some stuffy party. Nothing.
It is no wonder, all these months pass
and the silence of that evening echoes so loudly
I look to fill it but cannot, no answers,
just the last few, complete seconds:
the view from the top of my stairs,
your hair the color of the wood,
a freckled hand gripping the banister
the lonely sound of you
rushing to descend away from me
into the darkness of the night.

Permenant Scars

The risen Christ
in all His glory
in all His perfection
has scars.
Something permenant
etched the pain
onto His new body,
something in Paradise
calls these marks
holy,
gives them permission
to stay,
to be seen.

It is no wonder
some pain
takes residence
in a mysterious way
lingers:
the strange paradox,
how separation
and endings
can make us
completely
ourselves

I know
when we have
new bodies
you will still be Thomas
but perhaps
finally
you will see
the hole
in my side,
the injury
your doubt
your questions
created
when you
decided
to leave

In this world
we are sifted like wheat.
Wrestle, shake and shift.
But don’t stop.
When you hear
the strong wind
He is not in the wind
When you hear
the crashing sounds
He is not there.

A small voice speaks
to the stings
says our disapointment shows
we are marked and made
for another place.
Don’t stop listening
wait for the wind to stop
for the waves to stop
for the neighbor’s dog
for the endless traffic
His voice in the birds
in the trees
in the blossoms that bud
as brides
slowly
being called home.

“Can I get an extension?”

“My mother doesn’t like you very much, but I like your class.”

“Can we do this outside?”

“I am not speaking metaphorically — this is really hard!”

“I want to be one of the witches this time!”

“I was going to make a pass, but I figured you would.”

“Is it going to be rising action forever, or are we going to reach the climax?”

“It’s too early to be doing this.”

“I don’t feel like responding to your prompt, I’m tired.”

“I’m going to make like Odysseus and poke that Cyclops.”

“Some cheddar cheese, not that Velveeta kind.”

Right on, Prez. Right on.

I know it’s bad when I feel the most successful

in the shower. The hot water pounding on

tired muscles. There’s no audience, no one to judge.

Just the pearly lather and steam.
A tiny womb. A clean slate.

When I move past the pale green curtain

to the cold tile floor, I can still see the moon

in the black sky. She asks me if I am ready

for another day. No, I say.
It’s bad when I feel failure so early.
I haven’t even started yet. Then I reach for my clothes.
But fig leaves can’t cover everything;
they can’t cover some teenage kid swearing in my face
or the money my parents lost in the economic crisis
or the horrible things some guy said about me.
Someone I used to think about sometimes.

I don’t have the option of going back to bed.

And I’ve never been much of a quitter. So I decide to limp.

As dignified as I can, hugging my lunch bag and books.

I figure eventually I’ll remember how much I love baseball,

I’ll discover a new writer I haven’t read,
some man will look at me that way again.
Wait. Straighten the desks.

Clean the board totally white.

I am always so surprised when it happens.

Today in the middle of a mediocre lesson
on “The Red Wheel Barrow,” I saw faces,
(not a few, but many), bobbing up and down.

I could see that they could see: a red wheel barrow,

glazed over with rain. Some of them are scribbling

notes like mad: they are writing their own titles,

they are saying that the most important word is “glazed,”

and then “chickens.” They debate. 

It occurs to me what I am doing.

I am teaching teenagers poetry.

I am teaching them poetry and I can tell they like it.

I am teaching them to be brave enough

to write about that “lump in your throat,” as Frost says.

I stop because I realize, this is more than most people can say.

I wonder if that is arrogant. But then I don’t.

Because it’s true. I let myself grin about it,

it really is more than most people can say.

Especially that guy from stanza two.

Or that busy lawyer that never called again.

They never get to see what it’s like when

thirty teenagers light up

because so much depends upon a red wheel barrow.

They’ll never get to hear about it.

All these rejections shrink

next to the huge letters on the board,

“glazed upon with rain.”

So much does depend,

depend upon those slow mornings,

those steps through the front door,

with or without a limp.

The Ram in the Thicket
And as for me, Father,
perhaps the Blessing will show
at the hour at which
I have finally become
the living sacrifice,
the empty hand.

And as for me, Father,
perhaps I will also find
the Blessing has travelled
through wilderness,
slept in loneliness,
stumbled to arrive,
struggling in the terrible thicket of obedience.

NPR was recording the show for All Songs Considered. I have always wanted to be on NPR.  At about 56 minutes and 11 seconds into the show, I decided to be part of the performance. If you listen to the crowd, you’ll hear my back up vocals.  And original lyrics.

Enjoy!

Go here to get your copy. $4.oo for color. $2.50 for b+w. Thanky.