Last day of February: Guarantee me that no one told the patient she could crawl down the hall if she wanted her dinner. I need to know that didn't happen. Let's say she has Borderline Personality but maybe her back really did go out. "Pop" she said it felt like. But still, Probably "crawl down the hall" weren't the exact words that fell like pins out of someone's tight mouth. Twelve hour shifts, staff becomes a resevoire of irritation. My head aches this morning. I am angry and restless. I make the vegan strata with real milk. That will teach you! Chance of two inches snow accumulation. The weather swings back and forth. Tony, speak to me like an adult I say. How do two people learn to cooperate successfully in old age? I want to downgrade my responsibility. Okay, I just want a downgrade, any kind of downgrade! Tony buys five young goat does from Bob and Bernice. Here are the names: Lady Rose, Page, Sharon, Bunny, Honey.

Presidents Day

One more time I send an application to Harborview but they will not call me and I am filled with February despair. When I come to the house Tony says again: There is nothing I can do. Of course that is not true. John sells Christmas trees in the winter. He has set up a lot and parks his van. Tony pulls the guy who delivers newspapers by car out of the ditch this winter. There are things. So much is now for me to figure out, come up with the ideas, the motivation, the positive attitude and, make the money. When I sit still I can picture Provincetown, Tony's male family sitting around the kitchen table smoking cigarettes and bitching. I can see his sisters with waist long black hair, standing, oooking, washing and escaping to the tourist motels to do the washing cleaning. The men sit because all they can do is fish and if the fishing isn't good they are off the hook. But I did not ever live in Provincetown. And I have been through this once before. The kids' father: If I don't have the money then I can't send you the money. And me saying: you expect me to come up with the money no matter what! I remember loosing the house. And I do not want to be in that place again and Tony is not that person. So, I start talking. Tony is going to go up the road this morning and talk to Bernice, ask about a few more does. I am telling Tony that I want him to be so busy that he has to say: Penny, I can't do it all, help me out. Then, I can say I'm not going to the big city hospitals to try to find a job. Then, I can just say, I live here. This evening is the first hot-tub of the season!

Working seven p.m. until seven a.m. When the kids were little I used to pick up donuts Sunday morning on the way home from work. I worked every weekend to be home during school days more but really, Morgan and Gus were on their own too much of the time. Now, with the psych unit closing in eleven months, nurses' work schedules are heaved and tossed around. This month I am working nights. I am half here: a ghost. My life is focused on awake or asleep. It simplifies everything. I sit down in one place. I pace myself. Tony and I celebrate Valentines on the next free day. But, first I get up at two in the afternoon with sun pouring in the bedroom and classical music playing in the kitchen. There is no wind. Tony helps me brush the horses and I ride both. It is Kansas best time of day, tea time, but Beau does not like his schedule thrown off. I am exhausted. Tony cooks steaks outside and I bake a chocolate weight watchers desert and make a big salad. We listen to the violin on the tiny player and eat with the single candle that drips down the wine bottle and Tony coddles the wax. I say I love you Tony and he makes a joke. No, no, it is time to be genuine. Tony smiles and looks down. I say, you know I can't do this without you don't you? He says he knows. I say you will get more handicapped as time goes by but we will just have to make adjustments. Tony says he thinks that will be the key, being able to make adjustments. The steak tastes really good. Tuesday the forecast calls for snow.

It's like swimming in the dark. Why, you ask. Always doing something I don't know how to do. Something with working night shift all of a sudden. Twelve hour nights. It draws calcium out of my bones. I become brittle. And there is the writing. Marketing. Reading. Open Mike, I as?. It is twenty years since I did an open mike, a poetry slam. Then I could rely on my looks at least. Now, not so much. Maybe I could puff the gray hair out and wear dark colors but that only goes so far. Five minutes the descriptions say. So, I get up on stage and say: I am reading from my book "Memories of a Female Trucker." Five minutes, and I can always read in one breath. I am sure I can still do that. There are no cigarettes in bars these days. I will miss the cigarettes. So, if I can get myself to drive to Seattle and do the open mikes, and if I acknowledge that I am loosing my job as a psychiatric nurse in one year and no one wants to even call me for an interview anymore, then I can move ahead to the horses. My mare is lying outside in the wind. She is lying on grass that is barely sprouting through the clods of dirt. There are patches of snow in the shadows. My mare has her green blanket on. She is fifteen. She would like a baby, yes, positively, she says. It is expensive. It is risky as are all pregnancies. Babies come at great cost. Small horses have boundless energy and razor sharp hooves. I have an email today: yes, O'donnell is standing at stud in Port Orchard. That is what it is called: Standing at Stud. The thought holds so much promise. The thought is like a pledge of faith that this life is worth continuing. In the free moments, Tony and I clear the dresser and plant rows of Walla Walla Sweet Onions and cover with chicken wire to keep the cat off. The neighbors will come to dinner tonight. I have the pie crust waiting in the refrigerator. This is something that I know how to do.

List of some things: February 2012: Kansas breaks spine on her shoulder with 6 pocket abscess down to the bone. We go back and forth over the Pass to Pilchuck Equine Hospital. We do wound care for months but she recovers. Tony is diagnosed with MJD, an inherited, degenerative brain disease. Evacuation for the Taylor Bridge Fire that passes on 3 sides of us. Evacuation for the Table Mountain Fire. Beau gets tangled in barbed wire and we are doing wound care for months and Beau recovers. The hospital announces that the psychiatric until will close at the end of 2013. It is February again. It is a fine balance between renewal and discouragement. The scale has not tipped yet. What I do know is that we planted two more fruit trees last fall during the second fire. I bought $150 of vegetable seed last month. Both horses are healthy. Four goats are bred. One foot in front of the other...

2 bad things and 1 goat poem

February may have killed the neighbor. No one has called. We left two messages. I know the pump to his well stopped. And his stepson Joe was getting desperate.

My mare is crippled. The horse that moves without effort, is hobbled to a gimp, a pulled muscle, an abcess. Soak her hoof two times a day in hot water, epsom salts. She buries the same hoof in snow.

Mud, ankle deep. The gravel washes off the driveway where the ditches filled in.




First Born Goat

First goat, grown up nursing his mother,
belly laughs in wind. Skeleton weed lifts off,
needles me, old barrel woman, tongue tied.
No other kids? Little boy goat, denutted,
his mother and one old woman. Goat leaps,
four ankles painted white, a swatch mixed
tan, cloven hoof, bucks me up thigh high.
I buy the white freezer deep as a casket to
saw goat pieces, parts paper wrapped will
marinate huckleberry wine, June fire roasted.
Steel my finger tips itching for seven inch ear,
my own blubber heart weighted like an iron.
In this rat’s life, wind shifts now a sharper tune,
dirt flings pricked up weeds, a little goat empty of
laughter. Finally, I yell no, we will not slaughter.
Bring me a basket, whole armfuls, kale, cabbage.
Collect buckets, freeze my own damn well water.
Piss poor woman, little goat, start new, already
dreaming to build us an entire oasis walking
a bald track to the blue skied pond, bitter brush,
blue heron tucks in two flying. Little goat stops,
mirrors mountain with water witched this way that.
Boy’s sloped nose, pupils toppled straight as columns,
tight lip grin, a new moon crest: Goat makes me laugh.


PJ

2/11/12 A Poem of Loose Horses

The Morning the Horses Get Loose

You my-horse-my-heart, and me race for the open upper gate,
your nostrils stretched so wide to guzzle up the next inhale,
arched muscles, neck coiled, all winter expectation unleashed.
Your shoulder jabs, me stumbling, frees you and the red horse.
Both front feet pulling the mist, splatter of mud, leaving me
yelling for husband, deaf, hobbled to an unbalancing disease.
Of course he can not hear. Key’s in the car speeding down,
bent double fog racing muddy hills clefts, my eyes seeking
your white tail yellowed with piss of entire winter, fog, and
sinews of red and white horse shadows, sun lacing through,
only this line of hoof prints pressed deep for keener purchase.
Corner of dirt meeting asphalt, staccato beat double backs,
as if the wrong turn while galloping for a new homestretch.
And I climb out of the car, idling and dinging its alarm, as if
there is nothing in the world but this simple cusp of spring.
Then the roan slows, tamps down the mist by the blue barn.
You silvered, gravity pinned by one hoof, curl to look back.
While the red horse, tired, takes one step in my direction.
Good boy, I call out from this corner, mud meets road where
I am standing empty handed. Is this enough? Tangled hair,
sleep crusted, still dressed in last night’s work clothes,
a scarlet winter coat, black bra abandoned in the pocket.
Am I, so alone, enough to call you home?
But the chestnut roan is trotting back, old horse so sleepy
until you get a hold of him whispering all your past,
the back of the race track rumors and so much flash
a single spray of water turns you liquid mercury.
Red horse finally decides: enough really is enough, while
you spin behind, pissy winter tail held like a fountain.
My back to the snow edged mountain, azure ponds,
I gently unwind the favored blue scarf with silver threads,
twine it around the mud and sweat crusted chestnut neck.
Reach one palm, press against the front legged heat. Good boy.
You pass, kicking gravel, all muscle and ache, next new path,
eyes glistening, gray mane splinters in a sun now dazzling.
Red roan circles me as I spiral within, only a blue scarf…
but you shoot past again, hooves fling sparkling mud to
cha-cha-cha, the steep point of rounded hips tapering.
Still the boy horse stays with me all the way inside the gate,
exactly where you turn to say, never really needed you two
anyway. You say, I am free and four step it up the road.
My husband, white beard, big hands, will come looking, finally
even you allow him, just this last time, to turn back.