So I’m back. I had a good time. I enjoyed Disneyland until all the gender role crap piled up and collapsed on me. But they’re right. Disneyland is like a dream, so clean and neat and green and full of food and happy families. At least in the morning, before everyone gets tired and the screaming and hitting starts. It’s not my dream; it’s someone else’s dream, so it’s a little surreal to move through.

I went to the Haunted House! Ahh, memories. But the mechanisms in the animatronics are too noisy now. Still good use of dry ice, though.

I got along very well with Mario (my husband) leaving the door open for further trips together. I hope. LA was chilly but had very nice light and I observed several things:

In LA, you are forbidden to have food or talk.




In LA, there are palm trees:



Also, certain buildings:



I have (some) free time before summer school starts and I start teaching again, so I’m trying to go through my old notebooks and type up the poetry that never made it to the computer. Here is one. Comments are welcomed. Throw rotten vegetables if necessary.

For Dark Samantha

she’s underwater again grey skin glimmering
in my clogged sink kelp floats across her face
the moon bubbles from her mouth

where she swims the sound is slow
there are no sinks the sea roars
constantly in the cellars the birds
all talk endlessly and never land
everything without wings is finned

when she sings crows carry
the moon to the surface
my bathroom fills with
the green light of drowned pilots

last night I saw a new man
in my living room gears whirling
behind his ears
he combed his hair back over his bald spot
sighed and disappeared


( I got straight A’s this semester. Almost makes up for the yanked Shakespeare prize.)