Poetry
Tia Finn
billy marino's mombilly marino's mom dyed her hair platinum blonde like betty grable she told me she showed me the pictures i didnt have the words or (even at age 13 ) the heart to tell her it wasnt quite the same she smiled all the time billy marino's mom and always let me watch while she hung the sheets she taught me how to pinch the tomato bugs and drop them into boiling water and laughed her silver laugh at the face I made on sundays at church i sat in my tight sunday smile hoping my folks would at least wait till lunch to start their sunday war and dreamed myself into the other pew with billy marino's mom and billy and mike and the dad who couldnt stop smiling either i was the daughter they forgot to have because i had her smile locked inside of me some things a person just knows even if you cant tell anyone else when i was 14 almost fifteen we all went to the high school and watched billy marino's mom wave goodbye to him as he went to that place of confusion black and white six o clock news no one ever seemed to have anything to explain but they shook their heads a lot the day i got sent home from school for being a girl wearing blue jeans billy marino's mom let me sit in her yard all afternoon so my mom wouldnt know she read me billy's letters and we drank ice tea with mint leaves and talked about the jungle and what that must be like for a pittsburgh boy she held those letters awful tight my brothers were too young for that jungle but those years had more than one war for folks to show up to one boy went to the streets and lost his soul one went to college and lost his heart my best friend nancy's brother tom came back in a silver box and everyone cried but billy marino's mom still has her boy all these long years later he sits up in the window holding a folded flag he smiles at the children walking to the school but not if he see's you watching first they say he still dreams of the jungle and he cries a lot at night he'll never have a wife or take the train to a job downtown he doesnt like loud noises and sometimes he thinks he's still ten and the other mothers shake their head a lot and smile those sad smiles and billy marino's mom doesnt mind at all and on that day every year when everyone else goes to the field of stones billy marino's mom sit's next to her boy and smiles her platinum blonde smile full moon bluesif i wrote a song tonite it would be too sad there are times when someone should unsharpen all my pencils steal my ink quiet me the moon is out and full as spring clouds circling like guardian angels it's like daylight in colors of midnight blue and grey and all the edges rubbed soft it's like a cold graveyard version of what you really want i hear the questions in between your words i know you wonder even when you dont want to know it's alright really this is good far better than the answers i cant ever give you any sooner than I could throw a rock at this damn moon or curl myself into a bird tiny and strong and fly all the way to whispers that sound like they could even be real. small comfortsit's like a kind of prison when you leave me when there is no way i can close my eyes and recall the way your smile feels there are still paintings of Turner skies when I can't recall the taste of the salt from your skin on my lips there is still miles davis in the night nights go on far past morning and there is no lonely like that but velvet still feels like sleeping next to you no matter how hard i listen no matter how quiet I am, your voice is nowhere in this house but brandy still burns my throat I cant feel you anymore anywhere inside but i find small comfort in beauty that only comes close to how you move me. A transplanted itinerant creative junkie, Tia Finn practices the art of poem building, canvas wrecking and child rearing in the desert landscape of eastern Arizona. Schooled in the northeast she spent eighteen years as the director of an avant garde collector's gallery travelling between the cities where folks dont turn up their nose at that stuff. While her paintings have been exhibited sporadically in places like New York, Miami and Santa Monica, her poetry has heretofore been kept on a shelf. For purposes of earning her daily bread, Tia works and writes as the "Career Guru" specializing in quality of life career changes for the employment challenged, and teaches life skills (as though she had some )at several shelters, churches and educational facilities in the Phoenix area. |