Barbara Joan Tiger Bass

before Super Bowl
or awaited rain
while desire lingered in a liminal
zone of tired out
arms of the bedside lights
folded against their crimson wall
cat curled into the curve
of knee and comforter
his snores broke the wavey
barrier of rest
that drop-off stretch
where consciousness swirls
into dreamscape a glimpse
of masks hovers near
familiar stairway just out
of reach in a shimmery pool
where French might arise
or wakefulness suddenly
disrupt the journey inward
then the windows are too
bright and the glitch of apnea
breaths irksome there is
no good spot for cat or arm
and mouthguard clenched does
not soothe nothing there
in the dark of wakeful nothing
but desire left over from over
tired resistance
and wish for merge
swish of electric brain wash
to switch mind into dream mode
and leave thought behind

I traipse through this slow
fastidious period, fibrous
and lobular, with no known cause

too stiff to split or arch
all the way behind me
too cautious to kick
box or wrestle an oiled body
into a homo-erotic clutch

sometimes, while glancing
toward the layers of my own
collage, a pang of futility
wedges between glue
and yellow formica table

then, reminded of the fleet
passage here, I lean forward
and slightly left, cross my limbs
tilt gently to one side, and smear
“YES” paste on the back of an opaque
doorway, glue a blue flower
below a small pink rose

Into my childhood room,
pink gingham, flowers and ruffles,
the moon shone, the street lamp glowed.

In those early days, the light felt mine,
felt honest, felt somewhere possible.
It peered into the double paned windows,
beamed onto street, fire hydrant, driveway.
That light was a smiling light, a familiar light,
a night glow. Its after dark shine streamed
warm into my eyes as I drifted toward dream.

Later, the moon and I waxed
and waned together. We synchronized.
My bloated emotions swelled
under the moon’s growing round
expanded with the increasing circumference.
And when I bled, the moon began to ebb.

It took until my late 20‘s to calculate my cycles
with the lunar cycles. I could feel the expansion
of my waters, the rising tides of emotional intensity,
the eruptive drama of full-moon. And then the wane,
in a sweet mellowing from crazy wrath to peaceful joy,
from extreme distraught
to mellow pleasure, my middle years
swelled and flowed with moonlight.

Now, as the wane of hormones circles
into longer cycles, as my ovaries
sputter and decline surge, I ride
a more even keel from one moon to the next
still note magnetic pull
as moon fits its light into darkness,
and appreciate the white-beam power
But my body does not respond in literal assent.
I have stepped to the sidelines of luminescent
dominion to more objective light.
A glimmer within.

a blip on the meninges
sends her into dark
spinal frenzy

she can hardly twist
to look over
the shoulder

of this road
where bluffs erode
into a cacophonous sea

so many birds
lift in unison

caw as they pass

swoop through
the deafening spray

she determines the ligaments
where inflammation
could mean growth

holds tight to the perverse
possibility that stiffness
might serve her better

than accommodation has
might help her build
fire walls to guard

against the tides
slammed against
the edges of this land

the injury to her hyoid
bone caused a constant
choke hold

she’d swallow as if
the cherry pit she felt
were natural
as if the strangle hold
were a phantom limb
extracted from her neck
and swallowed

the fear lodged itself
in her omohyoid
and her shoulders
pulled forward
chin jutted

still, over the brambled years
she could imagine him
slamming his body
toward her soft palette
the viscous saltiness
thick on the back
of her throat

she rarely cried out after that
but swallowed her pain
and shouldered
insistent shoves
relentless demands
hands pushing her
head down

hands clouding
like a softly drugged
mind-set, the open
channel she vaguely
remembered
on her crown

into the mirror she alters
perspective in order
to salvage some coherence

amidst the whirl
of myriad personas
anger is her 3rd rail

a dangerous electricity
inhabits her low back

afternoon reflects her outline
a suspect genealogy
someone of partial remembrance

a bony contour
a hand-me-down clock
the leotard her body danced

she exchanges herself with time
emerges partial
to her own integration

mistook pride
for contempt in
an on-line quiz

sneer of self-importance
vs. inward smile
EQ mastery
via actors’ expressions

how to imply rage
without eyes leveled
vehement dart of distrust or

how to convert camera
into love by a turn
of the cheek a glance
into discerning lens

part of what we know
is a translation from
remark to sensate
therein the chemistry
secreted messages
interface with breath
mood emerges

we hover in habitual
despair too sensitive
for milk and cheap shoes

our plantar fasciitis aches
as soon as our feet touch
the hardwood floors

this preference for Egyptian
cotton and eco-friendly
cleansers exceeds the peri-

menopausal spotting while
quietly, in retro-linoleum
kitchens, we admit to kegels

our fears of flaccid
vaginal walls outweigh
taboos friendships bridge

disembodied, I wafted
from one broken facet to another
all terrified and calcified along my spine
interrupted messages, unnerved and random
caused a plaintive quality, a nasal timbre
as if the only option were; cry

to hoist each fragment
out of the mine shaft
of solitary confinement
seemed paralyzing
but it didn’t pay to rattle around
in my own echo chamber any longer
life was time sensitive
and the double hemispheres
had synchronized, patience had worn thin
sensuality, with its humor,pithy and hot
wanted a faster train of thought

the challenge to un-split despite
constricted potentials outside the box
and the purported marginality
of a gender neutral stance
came as a fantastic consequence
there were no caveats, no expectations
the only repetitive stress could be assuaged
with symbolic gestures: a Ganesh shirt
an expandable Buddha; the photo gallery in my Droid

the Rainrap, ineffective in east coast October
and the 33 De Camp bus, slightly late
hand-picked rendez vu’s allowed for
the arc of self over four decades, unapologetic autonomy

whenever we celebrate this many shuffled-over years
our multi-generational perplexity can soften
a congruity of forgiveness and mutual sorrow
crippling stories and generosity
renew the common thread
balancing genetic with chosen

we may close our eyes
or open them
without grave dangers
resonating forward
from various pasts
and when the song comes
we can sing