Denny At The Door
By khf
  
I peek through the café curtains
starched and ironed into cardboard by my own hands
Denny is at the door
Not that I call my father-in-law Denny
That privilege is reserved for men
of certain persuasions
The kind of men who
play poker, shades drawn
roar over soccer matches
and indulge in the drink--
plenty of drink, I’d say
Denny has never spoken to me directly
offered me a greeting
a smoke
or a word to the wise
such as
never show up
Uninvited. Unexpected. Unannounced.
in the middle of the day
in the middle of the week
when you know your daughter-in-law
is alone
and
Bang! Bang! Bang!
on the front door!
on the back door!
Will the doorknobs hold
under all your cranking and rattling?
Raising a fuss like that
Eliot Ness-breaking-and-entering fashion
Bang! Bang! Banging on the doors
demanding entry
in the gloom of that early winter afternoon
Oh… by the way…
I gasped when I spotted you
in your fedora and overcoat
An audible, hand-to-mouth gasp
like in a grade B, black and white movie--
an actual gasp
Lana Turner, Janet Leigh
film noire style
Then pressed my maternity top
with the tiny green flowers
into the wall
between the door and the window
shrinking
listening
to your banging
and rattling
Terrified that the locks will fail
 
A man does not show up
Uninvited. Unexpected. Unannounced.
on a woman’s doorstep
to bestow a gift
No…
A man shows up
on a women’s doorstep
 
Uninvited. Unexpected. Unannounced.
 
because he wants something
 
I am no stranger
to men
who lead with their underpants
Men who grunt
and mumble
and explode
when it suits them
and bang and rattle the gates
until the padlocks snap
in two
granting them
forced entry
Eliot Ness style
You will not be entering this house today,
Denny
 
I suspect
drink is involved
After all, it is Christmastime
Booze and sentiment
melt glaciers
that seclude
and protect
against messy entanglements
of tender emotions
allowing that damn human longing
for warmth
to leak out
into the light
Driving a man to
his daughter-in-law’s doorstep
Risking shame
disgrace…rejection
Exposing wounds and injuries
and that hidden soft spot where love aches
Suffering the indignity
of begging
for…
relief
from the bare-knuckle bruising
of isolation
on an aging heart--
from the pretense of Good Time Denny
molded for show
and the chilled anguish of Untouchable Dad
molded for defense
 
I do not know these things to be true
I am simply following the breadcrumbs
backwards
Trying to make sense
of this aberration
of this bizarre mad man on my doorstep
frightening me
Making a racket
My heart pumping terror
inside my chest
 
You are now just another one
in a long line
of manic man-boys
demanding what does not belong to them
Seeking to grab
what they never bothered to earn
through grace and kindness
You are scaring me
No, Denny
I will not open the door for you
Go away!
And do not come here again
like this
full of drink and regret
plagued with warm-hearth fantasies
Maybe…
follow the Christmas lights back
to your own heart
 
khf/11.17.22

Me and Darlene
&
The Very Big Bus
 
by khf
 
Only when the wind is full of piss and vinegar
and rain slaps the house with suicidal frenzy
dare I draw her into my memory
and venture back into our friendship
reckless from go
We courted risk
until
chaos, money and loss
converged
and left me stranded in its wake
But…
a powerful onslaught of primal feminism
was sweeping the country
A megaphone of outrage
A cry for equality
A call to be the storm raging over purple mountains majesty
Catnip.
And in we fell
lockstep with the mania
Foraging family histories for
moral support
justification
in truth…any old reason to activate our wrath
 
Darlene speaks
so gently
of her great grandmother
barely above a whisper
so tenderly
of her great grandmother—a southern slave
a story so sacred
of such gravity
it defies knowing
except by those
whose souls are embossed
with the agony
of ancestral debasement--
sweaty lesions of grief
branded on their breasts
breathing dead-life knowledge
into the spirits of
Black After-Women
Darlene’s sisters stand on pedigreed hurricanes
 
I don’t speak so gently
My tone ragged as the riptide
of ancestral defeat I flounder in
Women who disintegrated
silently
into the ether
as if they’d never been
My sisters hide--
bury themselves in the recesses
I can’t breathe
 
Time was
when Darlene stared down The United States Army
and did not blink
Did. Not. Blink.
I feared my own shadow
We were a misbegotten sorority of two
Yet
there we were
truant from stability
Bold. Determined.
Forging a path
Acting out a vague feminist principle
The only women in a crowd of men
Playing with a powder keg destined to blow
 
I can still see her
tooling down the Schuylkill
as if
she was born in the seat of that monster bus
On the other side of the moon
I was fending off Trailways Mike
with his smut-mouth
and his greasy hand on my knee--
cost of admission into manscape
We figured we were safe:
high scores
good skills
and the magical ability to laugh at crude jokes
…just like the boys
We had the secret code
We were in.
 
First Trailways Mike peeled off the shiftless
Then the dimwits
No worries.
We held the combination to the lock
We were polite
We smiled
We obeyed
So…
Of Course!
Obviously!
Definitely!
We Were In!
Only…
when we looked up
we were gone
Just like that.
Trailways Mike
booted us to the curb
In unison
Us--
still wearing our husbands’ too-long ties
and brand new man-pants with snappy creases down the legs
He fired us
Because?
Because?
Because Why?
 
The lawsuit
Chaos coming for a visit
and deciding to stay
The feminist principle fading fast as the blush on a dying rose
In the Court of the Disembodied
jesters and acrobats
sneering
in a cage-fight ballet
Brilliant performance art
Lies spreading like an oil slick on pristine waters
Who wins?
Who loses?
in the primitive dance of
cunning and display
Buried Women?
Silenced Women?
Marching Women?
No Women?
Our victory
still feels like failure
A foolish stunt
fashioned from hot air
and impulse
A melodic fantasy
that broke vicious
into a bare-knuckle prizefight
A knock-down-drag-out battle
                                                 for something I never even wanted
Seriously…
what was I going to do with a bus?
Strap on a tool belt and fix the engine?
Swab the latrine?
Clean up after the drunks?
There was no liberation in the win
No feminist triumph
No salve for the injustices perpetrated against women--
past, present or future.
Just looking-back regret
for time wasted
and harmony lost
This fact
is
                                                                the liberation
 
Now
when a mad windstorm blows through
and rattles the dust off that Trailways fiasco
I think of Darlene
With warmth
And hope
That all her bruises are long healed
and all the stars are still on her side.
 
Me…
that Very Big Bus
was a
Very Big Mistake.
I couldn’t even reach the pedals.
 
 
khf/11.3.22
​

​SISTER IN KIND
By khf
 
 
Once she called me sister
Not so long ago
Maybe in gratitude
                              for proper in-law manners
She needn’t have
It has been my honor
                                  all these decades
to cradle her panics in my hands
shelter her anguish in my heart
Maybe brokenness
                               senses brokenness
and seeks kinship
                            as hope
                                         for healing
But…
I am always the hand
                                  not the reach
Only now…
my world upended
thrown off it axis
A massive rupture
has trapped me
                          in a death roll
                                                 careening backwards
                                                                                   through time
This moment
a gutter fire
burns on her doorstep
Unbidden. Unexpected.
Welcome as a smut peddler hawking porn
I am raw. Skinned alive.
Circling. Pacing. Dreading. Longing.
Waiting for her phone call
Her familiar voice
                              a safe beacon
                                                    in a dank alley
I am trudging
this labyrinth
built of earth
and sacred stone
Again. And Again.
Over. And Over.
Circling. Waiting.
A rabid howl of shame--
wet sand lodged in my throat
I have loved her
                          through dark hours
                                                         and ill-timed troubles
“Sister,” she called me--
a wrapped gift
                        she did not know
                                                   she was giving
Circling
Circling the labyrinth
Leavings of fall
                          crunching underfoot
Ominous clouds looming
                                         heavy with first snow
What will I say
                        when she calls
What if my lips fall loose
                                         when she calls
or my voice stalls
my words seize-up
                              and defect
                                               to a foreign country
                                                                               when she calls
What if
by the magic of her concern
my feverish, infected wound
                                              BURSTS
                                                             into animal keening
I will be helpless to control
                                            when she calls
When she calls
what if I shatter
into a million specks
and fall like dust
to the dirty floor
What will I do
                       when she calls
I walk the labyrinth
Circle the scarred ground
Pacing. Pacing. Pacing.
Waiting for her call
For days
I wander about
in a hollow fog
stuck somewhere between
hope and confusion
blades pricking bones
Awareness dawns
                             with the creep
                                                    of a blood-red sun
The sacred stones speak:
Oh Sister,
Oh Dear Sister,
Our time together
has come to an end.
Death due to natural causes
I walk away
and
do not look back.
 
khf/10.31.22

Pop Pop Daddy and
His Cuss Word Revolution
By khf
 
  
Pop Pop Daddy didn’t know my name
Such an easy name to know
If he knew my name
he didn’t remember it
Such an easy name to remember
If he remembered my name
he didn’t say it
Such an easy name to say
If he said my name
I didn’t hear it
Such a beautiful name to hear.
You must think
                         I would
                         or at least
                          …should
despair
over such a grandfatherly slight
I did not despair…whine…or throw bricks at my brothers.
Water rises
Sun shines
And crystals tumble from the wings of angels
Recompense overcomes me
Showers me with a great deluge of joy
Foul Invectives
Cuss Words
 
 LOUD
HARD
BLUE
…and delicious
So delicious
they dance on my funny bone
and tickle a fancy I did not know I had.
 
I hear him
two rooms away
cussing like tomorrow is already gone
BLASPHEMOUS
PROFANE
cuss words
explode
like corks from a gun
in order to
bob about in a teacup
Those cuss words
—iridescent soap bubbles--
melt silky on my skin
and…
          suddenly…
                             gloriously…
I.   Am.   Uncaged.
set loose in a wild sanctuary
of lush absurdity
where words are free
to bounce off walls
and
plop into teacups
This is bliss
puppy-rolling-in-the-snow rapture
 
Bursts of man-laughter
float through plaster and two-by-fours
five card draw
maybe some beer
Pop Pop Daddy cussing sugar into tea
My father,
exhaling clouds of pipe smoke,
will never display his
dark hand of anger
I am ten
Months ago
my Dad
declared war on me
for now
I am squirreled away
safely
in this homestead
my grandfather built
with sweat and cuss words
and I am
rocket-launch jubilant
ensconced in the opaline of
LOUD. HARD. BLUE.
cuss words
Revolutionary
Radical
WORDS
A primitive rendezvous with spirits of the deep, rich earth
I feel safe…comfortable
I belong to this
strange and familiar yawning
of under-words
where what lives beneath sound
whispers its secrets to me
It seems a homecoming
with the unspoken
the ineffable
Longings that wink
and draw me into their mystery
LOUD. HARD. BLUE. DARK mysteries.
I don’t’ yet understand this collision
of words and longing.
but I will…one day I will…
 
Here to say
I did not love my grandfather
nor him me
Pop Pop Daddy was not given to such sentiment
maybe it was the drink
or a harming of the heart
or the afflictions of a shy person
No…I didn’t love Pop Pop Daddy
But…oh…how
I loved his words
LOUD.    HARD.    BLUE.    BLASPHEMOUS.    PROFANE.
Now,
         those were some
                                     goddamn
                                                     good
                                                              cuss words
 
 
khf/10.24.22

THE SAGA OF LITTLE BILL
AND HIS FALLEN NIECE, KATHLEEN
 
by khf
 
 
I loved him once.
How he said my name.
Broke it into three syllables.
That “ahhh” in the middle--
 a tiny sachet of music.
You should’ve seen
how the light
played with his curls
claimed his eyes
and trickled down into his smile.
I orbited his sun.
 
Little Bill was born
In the ghetto
of
lust
and
crucifixion
of a minus girl--
her body no more than
charred leavings
after the conquest.
War Times.
Days of swelling orphanages
and wicker baskets
bearing sin and shame
left on the doorsteps
of strangers.
Back when a handsome
skip-town brother
looked awfully guilty
and a tired granny
became a surprise
new mother.
 
He beat me to the Evans’ doorstep
Little Bill did…
by three years.
I didn’t arrive in a basket
though I might as well have
given my dubious circumstances.
Two Little Orphans
Uncle and Niece
Our spinster aunt--
named after a horse
and blister mean--
took a shine to Little Bill
gave her heart over to
mother-sick worry
and loved him up
through childhood afflictions,
smart aleck, teenage lip,
and the conceit
he developed
somewhere along the way.
 
Years rushed into decades.
Distance and fond memories--
such poor conductors of incentive.
But…oh…I loved Little Bill.
I loved Little Bill every day.
I loved Little Bill
right up to the day
I didn’t love him anymore.
 
Butterflies be still!
I jump from the car
tripping over my toes.
Twenty years? Thirty years?
No years for me.
I am right back in Little Bill’s orbit
searching for his sun.
But this is
a doomed gathering
of misfits
and outcasts
dangling by a shabby thread
of false pretenses
and cold blood.
He is lost in a crisis of shadows
barreling backwards
through time
down the dirty trail
back to the ghetto
of
lust
and
crucifixion
where myth
and
gossip collide
and
lives
collapsed
beneath the curse of
violence and biology.
He cries tears of
The Privileged
The Entitled
I cry with him--
trusting
naïve
stupid tears.
I do not
yet know
what hurls towards me
or
how low he will sink
in this quest.
But…
Something…
something drifts on the wind
and I steal a treasure
right out of his hand.
 
This day
news of his betrayal
arrives
on the limbs of dying stars
aligning
for
one
last
twinkle.
I crumble.
Disintegrate
into the stench
of severed body parts:
Mine. My Mother’s.
Crowbait. Bones. Genitals.
He is a vulture
posing
as
a
humble
weeping
hero.
Atop
Crowbait. Bones. Genitals.
Mine.
My Mother’s.
Aunt Nelly’s
Smiling pretty
on a heap of
Crowbait. Bones. Genitals.
Mine.
My Mother’s.
Aunt Nelly’s
and
the minus girl
buried in the ghetto
of
lust
and
crucifixion.
 
I am a thief.
A fallen thief.
I stole his treasure.
On this day
I rejoice.
 
khf/10.10.22
​

​The Poet
by khf
  
He appears in the bleached sunlight
                                                         of a fading dawn.
 
Tender as a poem
                             drifting through
                                                       weeping heartstrings.
 
But I am a migrant
 
a refugee from DarkTimes.
 
And my head throbs
                                 from the cannibal
                                                              secreted
                                                                            in my veins
                                                                                               and capillaries
feasting on my lifeblood.
 
Treachery lurks beneath the jagged rocks I walk on.
 
Barbarians
                  in blonde wigs
                                          and wonderland pinafores
 
wave official papers.
 
Shout demands.
 
Wax sentimental
                            over vernal flesh
                                                       crushed under the weight
                                                                                                of heavy bone.
 
I have no heart left.
 
Only tiptoes
 
And eggshells
 
And an ear pressed to the ground
                                                     listening for the next shoe.
 
But he extends
                         a wounded hand.
 
Then gives me a place
                                    to walk upright
                                                             in the sun of my own words
 
there in the safety of the shallows
 
where polished river stones rest.
 
A pause
From flinching
 
From ducking
 
From fretting about wigs
                                        and pinafores.
 
He is a poet.
 
A sensitive.
 
Too,
        a refugee from DarkTimes
 
who uses his words
                               like a noose.
 
He Knows
 
The Poet understands         
                                   the cadence and rhythm
                                                                          of DarkTimes.
 
How to use precision
                                  to butcher
                                                   with grace and elegance.
 
If ever I decide to
                             murder a barbarian
 
I want The Poet
                          to gather his poetic words
 
And Whisper
 
the truth we both know
 
What lies within
 
the dark
 
beating heart
 
of DarkTimes
 
is always
 
  
khf
9/30/22

​Girl In The Hallway
 
by khf
 
 
 
I am sloe-eyed and still
                                   staring at him
 
in his yellow boxers
 
through a scrim of cigarette smoke
                                                     and falling ash
 
watching the razor scrape through
                                                   drifts of shaving crème
                                                                                    punishing his stubble--
 
 sounding of chicken feet scratching dirt.
 
Frozen blood spits and crackles
                                                in my veins
 
                                                 —gnarled fingers
 
                                                 —icy rootways
 
Burrowing.
 
Descending.
 
Deep into the earth.
 
Past ancient ruins
 
to an age somewhere before time.
 
He is shirtless
 
Marled skin and kinky fuzz
 
cover a heart
 
that has attacked him
                               more than once.
 
I live for the next one
 
Because
 
I. Can’t. Breathe.
 
Violence lives in this house.
 
Stalks children.
 
Pounds across floorboards
 
Aiming For The Belt
 
or
 
The Jugular
 
or
 
childsong warbling sweet on the backyard swing.
 
I stare through the stale air
 
the gulf separating me from                             HIM
 
and long for his absence
 
for the scent of rosebuds
                                     on a newborn breeze
 
four leaf clovers
                        beneath my toes
 
sunshine singing through
                                     glistening windows.
 
He looks at me.
 
I am a hair trigger
 
that summons the
                           angry moth
 
to piss on the flame.
 
Fear falls into lockstep
 
with the underworld of defeated children.
 
I slink out of the hallway
 
and fade into the shadows
 
gauging
 
monitoring
 
this endless contest of
 
hide and go seek.
 
 
khf
9.14.22