In the Vessel;

In the Vessel; Lighting the Lamp Three weeks before Thanksgiving 2012 

Ingersoll’s lamp of the mind

Twain’s acid in the vessel

Anger, anger, where to put the blackness

So that it is does not light afire and burn its carrier to cinders 

I am struggling this morning with that very dilemma

Thanksgiving is coming

I have a schedule to see my only breathing child

Scripted by lawyers, revised, stamped by a court 

Or well I have a copy before the final revision

Year A, Year B holiday rotations, this November

One begins the Wednesday before turkey Thursday; the type says six p.m.

The scan revision states nine a.m. to balance out a seventy-two hour period

Resulting in a return on Saturday at nine a.m. 

So I assume this change got filed

I was at my daughter’s soccer game at nine a.m. today

Ex has the stroller with her one year old; husband is assistant coaching  

I don’t say hello; I just walk over to the bleachers

Not being rude; long story, or maybe old story, or you probably know

If you are over the age of five; kid is in pigtails on the field prepped 

I have one of those fold-out chairs; but that is in storage

Because I am half-moved to New Orleans since April

I am still on job search and well my chair is over there

Changed the custody schedule; battled in court for a year after the cuckold

To get three out of every seven days; and yet this spring the dam broke inside of me 

You see, this soccer field ain’t in New Orleans; it’s out in rural

Where-her-mom-grew-up-hurricane-Katrina-round-about-through-Dallas evacuation

Nowhere, except everybody knows everybody’s story, as long as it’s told

By someone you know; so that it is how these things go; so no, I don’t say hello 

So since this Spring; I made a choice; to live, to try a real life,

 to attempt to move back to my Crescent City;

to converse with an eight-year old instead of a four-year old

that the building blocks of this purgatory might make transition possible;  

I gave up what I went to war for; I just gave it back,

because all war really does is kill;

I only see her every other weekend now;

 

I am the stereotype her mother wants

Perceiving what she assumed,

yet these mathematics now exist for another purpose altogether;

to maintain my meager rate of respiration 

Explaining would be futile; feckless hypothetical exhaustion to a woman in a bubble

So I watch the whole game; daughter spots me by minute five; they lose four to one 

There was this email about Thanksgiving I sent the ex the week before

About having my kid to see her grandparents and her cousin for the first few days 

On her week off for Thanksgiving;

So effectively Monday to a Saturday I would get to see my kid

 

Not even a whole week, Days I am legally entitled to anyway 

Not even more than the regular iteration

Her mother consumes in time; Her mother emails,

“Maybe if we can switch the Friday out so I can have ‘Holiday Time’” 

I can’t’ email back; there is no use; there is no discuss; there is no empathy

Who has the idea what it is like to feel the ache, the absent handshake with time

That a child is not there; I am playing catch with a breeze or sinister gasp,

The ex has him there demanding daughter call him dad as she is with him 

So after the final whistle, I wait, I always wait; for mother to hug daughter first

To say hello; to not butt heads or dare attempt to step a foot in front the cafeteria line

Anger has this way of being washed away by patience and recognition

That defining victory tends to keep the anger at bay;  

For me victory is the pleasantry of knowing; my daughter knows I love her

I am there in this space, watching, listening, comforting her in these windows of sunrays

We get popping through the canopy of time; when they come we embrace the warmth

Rather than I try to burn away the forest to have a chance at my own oak 

I will eat their muddy acorns for my sapling; I will be the fern

 

So her mother says; “Did you get a chance to read my email; is that going to work?”

I say, “No, I’ll pick her up at nine on Wednesday.”

She says, ”Well I want her to see baby Ava and its six p.m. not nine a.m.”

I say, “Cousin Ava is not a baby anymore; and whatever I’ll be there at six.” 

I gave my daughter a hug; there is another game at three p.m.; it’s the playoffs.