The Do-Over - Kathleen Ossip

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to a bentwood chair

      Ode to discomfort of all sorts

      Ode to passivity

      Ode to his lightweight jacket

      Ode to bad moods and their justification

      Ode to the inescapable

      Ode to logical transitions, strained and frayed

      Ode to the giantess Boredom

      Ode to a long regret

      Ode to radiation and chemo

      Ode to the goldsmith bending bracelets for her

      Ode to Chanukah and the Moon Festival

      Ode to limitless compassion

      •

      This ode’s my grinding wheel. When is the last I see of her two-handed. I sit with hands folded, by a pond, a pool, wimpled by unknowing. The beautiful man beside me. Or will see her in shortgrass, summerly.

      I sat at a table outside an Irish pub, with a child I adored and a man I didn’t, in a resort town in summer.

      Another man sat on a folding chair attempting to entertain the diners with accordion music. At first I wondered if he was a street person, so shabby was he. I heard the waitresses call him Tool Moan.

      How delicious, I thought. The accordion equals the tool, the music equals the moan? Above, on the plaza,

      a band (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums) played, loudly, a funk version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child.” I wished I could hear the accordion music above the noise

      but I couldn’t. Before we left home,

      my mother had asked, as dinner conversation, “Are we moving through time or is time moving around us?” “I think we’re moving through time, Mom”—I was full of my own agency.

      Actually time falls on us like a fine rain, almost unnoticed, soaking us to the bone.

      Accordion music is the saddest music on earth: agree or disagree? I disagree.

      Accordion music is delicate, like the feathers of snow on the mountains that surrounded the town.

      The man paid the bill. The child ran ahead. Delicate equals subject to damage (and almost equals Celtic). “You have some competition tonight,” I said to Tool Moan as we left.

      “I know,” he said. Later, back in the hotel room, I realized I’d misheard. His name was Tout le Monde (equals everybody in French). . . .

      Why so fierce! This reaction to her knees,

      important as Rushmore.

      Let me explicate, I begin. Then I spit.

      A spurt of attention yields up

      me and Keats, iris to iris. Oh

      World of Grownups, tense and shiny, give me a hot rub.

      The cornfields are a scourge.

      The lung of the country browns.

      The bladder fills with droplets.

      The measures load with notes.

      The songs are all a pleasure and one day

      we won’t have the pleasure of breathing.

      A flare of temper, wonderful and true,

      yields up Have I told you lately, then She will not die.

      Dear , rescue her

      or she won’t be rescued.

      Her breath a flint. Born to the lifespan of a wasp.

      1.

      Squirrels are eating my porch it’s their world too

      I call the exterminator

      Every day brings filthy compromise

      //

      I call the vet the cat’s old enough to be neutered

      (Just because I’m bigger than he is

      Even though he didn’t ask me to take him home

      Rarely do the small and mute have things the way they want them)

      //

      Everyone’s tired of my patience my turmoil has carried me this far

      EVERY DAY BRINGS FILTHY COMPROMISE

      //

      When I look a cow or pig in the eyes, I see a person

      I don’t feel that way about salmon

      I have kept I have lost my religious faith I’m eating a salmon

      The salmon died in terror and agony I’m eating him with a vinegar sauce

      //

       You’ll like what you are told to like

      This we call the reality effect

      So many I could love and do not so many I could kill and do not

      And walk through the world wearing this white face

      (w/moisturizer serums & mascara)

      //

      I don’t know anything I observe so closely I haven’t lived

      I thought I knew death what did I know

      Sylvia and Anne thought they knew death they didn’t know anything

      (Didn’t know they were going to die anyway?)

      //

      Her body one long tube with an overgrowth in the middle

      My friend to be even one more day with you.

      //

      (Every day brings filthy compromise.)

      //

      I came from salt water in August I swim in salt water

      Cancer is my default horror

      Fear is not the way for me now I need something bigger?

       There’s a crowd of people and animals heading westward on the run

       There’s a pack of beasts and people heading westward on the run

       Powerless under the moon powerless under the sun

      2.

      Meaning is made—Wonder has no shade

      (Says a placard partway down the Grand Canyon)

      These dark days the clouds hide the sun.

      Gravity’s a bright snare

      (Say I, standing on the edge of the North Rim)

      To keep us locked here.

      3.

      At the mouth of the ravine (we are home now)

      the Weckquaesgeeks camped

      They fished swam collected oysters and clamshells

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