Cardamom, turmeric, licorice, ginger goot
We chop up eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, and yams.
Throw in okra, peppercorns, bell peppers, sea salt.
We play with our food and coat it with spices
and we pour the whole rubix rainbow on a tenderloin of pork.
Let it bake, let it roast, let the steam fill the kitchen;
and the rice simmers besides.
Tell me more about Ayurvedan healing and why tumeric keeps you young.
I hear that voice from across the oceans when she says it;
he told me it would keep me well until the stars burst in the sky.
We sit and eat our meal, and mm and feed the baby
his own mix up of sweet potatoes and barley and juice from the pork.
He mm's and he giggles and throws handfuls of rice confetti.
I feel fluttering slow to a murmur and warmth fill me where I'm tired.
The sun has set in Lemon Grove. The curtains are drawn, and the kitchen light
is dim on the din of our clinking forks and knives.

I'm going back to California. Back where the air is gentle and the sky is blue. I'm going to see the woman with prayer flags on her porch and paint always on her fingers. We'll take it easy I think. Sit outside in the morning with our coffee and stories and this time the baby will be with us. Well hold him or set him in the hammock while we talk, and his presence will only make our conversation sweeter. I'm looking forward to working in the garden and making dinner together. Catching up and learning from the stories as they are told. Things always sound different when you say them out loud. It's been a bitter cold winter, and my bones are weary. I'm going where grapes grow out front and the wine from them is served with dinner. I'm going where my family is out west and growing as I write this.

christmas

it's christmas eve. the woman travails. she is heavy bellied and sweating. we are anxious and angry for his coming. it is 2009; our economy is crippled and begging. we are poor in spirit and overflowing with spite. come to us child saviour. make this all right if you can. this hope in us is being strangled by war and poverty. sometimes it is strangled in the stress of our own homes. we are up to our necks in the blood of the innocent, bound to merciless masters and fettered to false freedom. your intention of redemption is not enough. we need your small body to emerge and live. we are half believers, following a star and hoping to find salvation born beneath it. give us something to hold. we want bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. it is the eve of arrival and we drink strong and wrap carefully the presents bought out of obligation for the people who call us family. the drink is strong, but not enough to make us forget that you are coming. the sky fades to gray and the night falls slow enough. the green of our sickness and the red of our eyes make this city look strange and festive. the woman continues on her journey, soles worn down and back sore from sitting lopsided on the only ass they could afford. we pour another scotch on the rocks, best stuff we've got, and usher in the midnight with scraps of shiny paper around us and frosty singing on the television screen before us. hail to the king. tiny thing begins to move inside his mother. the woman who didn't ask to be used. joseph clenches his jaw and hopes to god he isn't crazy. this wife of his is pregnant and sweating; not his seed, but it is his hand that wipes the wet off her brow, his arms that lift her off the beast. the mexican trio is on the subway all night, singing "feliz navidad" and shaking their tambourine. the one who holds the hat for change also holds their fifth of Cuervo. it's cold out there and we all stay warm as we can. throw in the nickels and dimes left over in our pocket. christmas eve and what of it? take us out of ourselves. call us from our self-sustaining stagnancy and blind us with a heavenly host. sober the minds of the desperate and give us a reason to sojourn. we are waiting with what's left of us. come and let our hearts rejoice. come and be the reason we learn to love. the woman, your mother, strains her neck and bellows with the pain of her labour. she groans with the weight of humanity and we can taste the iron blood in the bottom of our drinks. come to us, and teach us to remember. come to us, born of woman in the dark of an animal's cave and call us from our desperate nothingness. we are waiting for you.

AMYLEIGHCUTLER.COM

alive in red october
we grow like mums
burning orange
scarlet o'hara
we are cold and hot
leaning forward falling backwards
lowered voices
winter is coming with the warmth
of the west
saved the best for other countries
so different in dreams
to rest and to run
let's pull weeds with bare hands
and crush grapes with our feet
Kerouac's land and Steinbeck's too
together in away
if not in together
never left the place in my october
still red from the inside
leaning forward
holding ankles
pressing backs back
into place
the vineyards unkept are waiting
cliffs in the green still simply standing
we crumble we chip away we grow down
alive in red

step into yesterday
moss grows thick on the
arches of soles
console the holes that used to make it all up
made up of ozone holes rips and tears sewn back
with the spider's thread
from moss to oak
from branch to sky
no mistaking the temptation to
live without end
born displaced placing
value on the dust
that rose once with
breath
fell once with
the silk thread of temptation
live into the moss
open souls open to the
oaks pushing out of
dust this is us
tomorrow turned backwards

the word for today is patience.
sometimes i forget where i am and how i got there.
and stories get told and smiles get weared
and then tomorrow tastes like i never wanted it to.
we don't always have to give permission.
some flowers bloom and die and rot without
great conditions.
a few days ago the word was pudding and i found
myself in puddles of laughing and wishing i
were more careful.
to be careful.
to be full of care.
to be full of anything or have a safe place
to dream. what dreams come under the full moon
that pulls and changes us. we all want to change
and be pulled inside out. have our pudding and
patience and forget to water the flowers.
i haven't given permission but my feet are sprouting
roots. tomorrow is tasting more like today with
the wearing of smiles and the laughing
uncareful.