numbers

Tide

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her words flow over my shoulders
in waves of icy discomfort.
i watch your accepting faces
swallow the saltiness of
the ocean that year after year
never lets loose its high tide.

but you are swimmers
and her words won’t drown you.
you will build rafts
and zip up your wet suits,
ready for the relentlessness
of the moon-over-shoulder tide.

i wish i learned to swim like you.
when i spit back her wave of words
to him (hours later), my breath escapes me,
stolen by the tide. my arms reach
for your rafts, your suits, your warmth
that the icy waters swallow as i drown.

Training for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

If you have decided to take the plunge and commit yourself to gaining 6000 feet in elevation while you race the Durango-Silverton train fifty miles to the top of a mountain, follow these steps to have a successful bicycle event.

1. Plan to train for at least fourteen weeks, at least six days a week.
2. Set your alarm for 4:30 a.m. Don’t push the snooze button. Ever.
3. Put on your appropriate bicycle gear. If you are riding on a trainer in your house, you’ll need bike gloves, bike shorts, and a decent pair of sneakers. If you’re riding outside in the winter, wear all of the above and add long underwear, bike pants, two long-sleeved bike jerseys, warmer gloves, a hat, and a helmet.
4. Mount your bicycle and, if you’re riding a trainer, set it for the highest level of resistance, and shift your derailleur to the highest possible gear. If you’re riding outside, map out a course that includes a circle with huge, steep hills in almost all directions.
5. Ride for at least fifteen miles for five days a week, and on the sixth day, ride for twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, etc., until you reach fifty on the twelfth Saturday of training.
6. Taper off your training by ten percent between weeks twelve and thirteen so that your muscles have time to rest and build up.
7. In week fourteen, ride only three days for fifteen miles each time.
8. Drive to Durango. You’re ready to climb a mountain!

Fancy

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

i don’t need a fancy gym or P-90x
i just rode thirty miles with the Vittetoe Express
my bike, tag-along, and a trailer daisy chain
may look to others just a little bit insane

but you’re popping out seven hundred a year
i spent eleven on coffee and cheer
when it’s sixty degrees in January
my legs and arms made a workout fairy

yes, it took six hours to visit the zoo
but i still made a deal better than you
i didn’t sacrifice one moment from my girls
and that beats all the muscles from your fancy curls.

Fifty-Seven

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it takes two sisters
four hours to make
three pies
dessert for fourteen people
when we include
two of six aunts
two of seven uncles.
three platters of lasagna
and forty-two plates later
we celebrate
year fifty-seven of
my father’s life
who with two “old” legs
just rode
twenty-four miles up a mountain
and hiked three and a half
and still carries his four grandkids
wherever the
endless numbers add up to next.

Culinary Orgasm

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Recipe for a happy Monday:
one witty email,
four friends,
twenty-two minutes,
two-day work week,
one cranberry-fudge pie
with graham cracker crust and
homemade cinnamon whipped cream:
one culinary orgasm.

How to Live on One Salary (Remix)

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1. Forget about owning a new car. If you can’t forget it, stop reading now. You can eliminate up to $800 a month in payments if you don’t have a car payment and its ensuing expensive insurance.
2. Buy the minimum coverage for car insurance. Take a risk. It’s worth it.
3. Pay off all your debts (other than mortgage) before you consider it.
4. Save for retirement in a 401K, 403b, or whatever you can. It may be the only money you save for a while. But it’s something.
5. Take advantage of refinancing when the interest rates are at their lowest.
6. Eat at home 90% of the time.
7. Bike or carpool to work.
8. Use your tax returns wisely: pay off debts, save a little, use the rest for a small vacation.
9. Speaking of vacations: drive. It’s better for the environment, less scheduled, and more up to you. Have kids? Drive at night. They’ll sleep, you’ll be happy.
10. Buy used. Buy used. Buy used. I just bought three sweaters, a hat, and two nice pairs of pants for work at the Goodwill for $22. Brand-name products that look brand new. Craigslist is a great place to find virtually anything you need, from kids’ toys to bikes.
11. Create a monthly budget. Stick to it as much as possible.
12. Expect the unexpected. Cars (especially the old one you’re driving) will break down. It’s better to put it on a credit card you can pay off in a few months than to pay a car payment.
13. Do a babysitting exchange with another family. Enjoy an occasional night out without the extra cost.
14. Look for sale items at the grocery store and stock up.
15. Cancel your cable. You can watch a variety of things on the Internet, and Netflix is much more affordable. There’s nothing on TV anyway.
16. Get books and audiobooks from the library. Music too.
17. For gift giving, take advantage of after-Christmas sales and stock up on kids’ toys and Christmas wrapping paper. Flip the wrapping paper inside out to wrap gifts for every occasion.
18. Give up hair dyeing, manicures, pedicures, and salons. You’re beautiful the way you are.
19. Weather-proof your house as much as possible to save money on energy costs. Use cold water for washing clothes.
20. Decide what you really need to buy versus what you want to buy. Make sound choices, and you’ll have extra money (occasionally) to blow on fun items.

Essay

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Can I write a long essay
instead of creating a PowerPoint?
should I hear words such as this
when writing, writing, writing is my life
and that is all he’s asking to do
and all that I’m denying him?

Yes I should, because I am building
twenty-first century learners
who know how to create action buttons
and add in Googled graphics
transitions that pop and sparkle,
and change the colors of their fonts.

Yes, these are the important skills
that will carry them into English 101
where they will sit amongst 600 others
and struggle to understand thesis,
paragraphs, critical thinking that I,
with this PowerPoint, have denied him.

Troop Leader

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it may have taken two years
of counting and miscounting
of piling up paperwork
and learning to manage
twenty five-then-six-now-seven-year-olds,
of arguing parents
and camping trip disasters
and never forgetting how to forget,
but here i am,
Girl Scout troop leader,
just for a moment feeling like
I’ve got this down,
I can do this,
I can count and organize,
I can be just what I need to be
in the eyes of
my daughters
their daughters
the daughters of the world
(or world, the one we want to give them).

Twenty Clicks

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with twenty clicks
and a bowlful of anticipation
i await the shoes
that will take her
farther than my words
ever could,
even when i walked
alongside her jagged steps
and plucked her words
from the page into my memory.

i can already see them on her feet:
perfect and smooth, the bone,
perfect and smooth, the metal.
and her face? a picture
of deference wrapped up
in an ever-polite smile.

with twenty clicks
and a mouthful of anticipation
i await the shoes
that will take her
farther than my words alone
could carry her.

In This World

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with the words
O my brothers
O my brothers
Anthony Burgess
stings my ears with
a new kind of violence
just as the wind
stings my skin
and the sun
stings the cold away
and before i miss it
i stop, the rogue farm
on one side of my
place in this world,
the corporate conglomerate
on the other,
and snap the photos
to record the moment:
2,000 miles in
not twelve, but eleven months,
the same day i discover
i’ve walked fifty in seven days
(108,688 steps)
and though they are numbers
(just numbers?)
they represent everything
that is possible,
that i believe,
that i thinkicanithinkicanithinkican
do in this world.