June 15: More Bad News, "Ives" Dip, Poet of the Week, Sally Wen Mao, "Valentine for a Flytrap"

Well, another day and more bad news.

My car isn't going to be fixed until the end of the month.  We had budgeted about $300 for the fix.  It's going to cost about twice as much as that.  I have to wait until my next paycheck at the end of the month.  Then I'll be able to pay for it.  Notice that I didn't say I would be able to afford it, just pay for it.  The mechanic also says I need four new tires.  Not even touching that right now.

Let's see.  What else has gone wrong today?  Ummmm.  We got a note from my daughter's chorus teacher informing us that she didn't get accepted into the high school show choir.  She has been looking forward to getting into that group for four years.  Now, we have to go back to the school and reconsider her entire fall schedule.  My sister is going back to the nursing home tomorrow, and, sometime this week, I have to go to the credit union to sign the papers for a loan to get my roof fixed.

On the flip side, I have a friend who has offered to drive me to work tomorrow.  I will be able to get my roof fixed, and then my kitchen ceiling.  Eventually, my car will be drivable again.  Eventually.  Physically, my sister is doing better.  She needs to do physical therapy now.  Massive physical therapy.

My Ives dip question has to do with my luck:

Is my luck going to change any time soon?

And the answer from Edward Ives is:

In the falling elevator, he [Ives] recalled how stupid and hopeless he had felt that day at the beach, and in his supposed last moments, though the sun loomed through a late-summer haze like a god, he had no thoughts of comfort, and simply wanted to be saved.  If the truth be told, he cried for all his faith, doubting there would be another life ahead of him . . . .

Okay, there's no comfort in that little passage.  Ives trapped in a falling elevator.  Ives nearly drowning at the beach when he was a kid.  Ives doubting his faith, thinking he's going to die.  I guess it's going to be a bumpy summer.

I am pleased to announce Sally Wen Mao is the Poet of the Week.  All the poems you will be reading will be coming from her first collection, titled Mad Honey Symposium.  It's the kind of poem that appeals to me right now.  Cruel.  Vicious.  Beautiful.

Kind of describes Saint Marty's life right now.

Valentine for a Flytrap

by:  Sally Wen Mao

You are a hairy painting.  I belong to your jaw.
Nothing slakes you--no fruit fly, no cricket,
not even tarantula.  You are the caryatid
I want to duel, dew-wet, in tongues.  Luxurious
spider bed, blooming from the ossuaries
of peat moss.  I love how you swindle
the moths!  This is why you were named
for a goddess:  not Botticelli's Venus--
not any soft waif in the Uffizi.  There's voltage
in your flowers--mulch skeins, armory
for cunning loves.  Your mouth pins every stickey
body, swallowing iridescence, digesting
light.  Venus, let me swim in your solarium.
Venus, take me in your summer gown.

Open wide and smile