Snow Frozen

Mother, you sent me red-hooded and skinny, tasked

with gifts for your own Mother. In my basket

I carry apple bread under a gingham napkin.

 

Snow clothes the trees, their arms hold the forest.

I climb bridges of branch carcasses. Wood resting

awaits when billbugs and larva awake in their nests.

 

Holly limbs burst in a berry flush.

Your eggs have all cracked, streaming viscous and hushed.

Mother, I’ve lost the path—

trunk patterns changed in last spring’s seedling rush.

 

Where the hill seeps away from the roots of an oak  

I’ll hide from the wolves in the cheek of my cloak.  

Poppy Road Review, June 2019

The Glamour

of Miami ends at the side streets—

where rectangle houses sit like bricks 

and window bars keep out the bad guys. 

 

Out near our curb stands an ancient oak.

A storm left it bent but not uprooted.

It moved with the wind but didn’t break.  

 

Back in the back, beside our garage,

the banana tree shades our rusted mustang

and fruit is blooming under the fronds.   

 

But proper palms stand along the highway. 

Woven trunks tower, their green flags waive

to welcome the tourists driving south.

 

The glamour of Miami is a nailed–in board 

that props up a palm against gravity.

Terse, July 2023

Visit

The stream in my backyard is filled with stars among the slick rocks,

overflowing from the swollen pond above it. 

 

Under the lid of midnight you emerge through the trees 

like you appear sometimes in my dreams.

 

But we’ve breathed this night into existence. 

We run, race to hold back advancing time, 

wrapping ourselves in an afghan, 

skin to skin in the wind through the curtains at the window—

until the fading night fizzles 

into the climbing horizon of soft light. 

 

You left once. You’ll leave again.

I’ll come down to the kitchen tomorrow, 

your smell on my neck from our dawn parting, 

and begin again my routine until you return. 

 

I am wasting away the life in me, 

watching for you against the back window, 

carrying the exhaustion of this cycle: you leave, I rally on, 

and the stream keeps running into the earth.

 

Susurrus, December 2022

Garage Sale

She first named her daughters when they lived 

in her dolls, Jessica, Susanna, Isabella—kissing

each before sleep, holding them all to her chest 

when she prayed sleepy prayers into her pillow.

 

Facing the wall one summer night, she relaxed her 

grip in the lullaby of her breath.  Dad snuck in and

pried those little ones from her protective curl then

distracted her with errands the following morning.  

 

She sobbed when she discovered Mom sold off her

babies.  And yet only five, with arms full of empty,

she knew even then they’d never come home again.  

 

Though all spirits need mothers, some mothers lack 

daughters and sleep to seek them from their dreams

where she and her three adventured the air by quilt 

soaring over grass and across the moon’s wide eye.  

                                                                                    

While she grew, their doll bones remained small.

So she sent their memories back to Heaven, their

souls released to rest beside their Father, Creator. 

                        

She’s blessed now with three precious sons but still 

mourns her unbirthed daughters—reaching for them 

as lonely winds come breathing through her fingers. 

 

Defuncted, September 2022

 

 

Daydream for Travis

His flexors conquered his extensors so soon.

His shoulders fold together, he holds himself in.

This hugging himself is what he does best.

When I pull his damp shirts from the washer,

I imagine cleaning that blankness off his precious face.

If I had the power I would carry him to the backyard in a basket,

untwist him, then clothespin him as a giggling child to the line.

The wind's seedling wings would parachute around him—

the sun pressing through his sleeves in waves of golden morning.

Then I’d move down the row, unrolling his wet socks,

humming to the taps of his flapping cotton.

If I could free his arms to sway and stir. . .

If he could kick and swing in all that air and light. . .

The washer is empty. The dryer's rumbling now.

So I climb the dark stairs to reposition his stiff little body in his chair.

Journal of the American Medical Association, June 2009

Penelope Waits for Her Wandering Lover

Penelope is weaving
in her towering hall.
She’s refuged up there in her loyalty.

Waiting for Odysseus,
she unwinds her youth,
and fashions it into his shrouding lace.

Her dark eyes cloud under sunlit lashes,
she feels again his fingers’
last brush against her hers.

Her spool flows thread,
like years untwisting,
like days she pours into remembering.

One day she’ll arrive at the end of her fibers,
all wasted passing time
till he wanders home.

Pank, April 2009

Dream Shift

I’m back from taking our two to their schools, 

the house is ours and quiet. 

 

It’s mid-morning.

Seems the world has already left for work,

so the neighborhood is mine

and the day is ripe for the busiest among us.

 

He’s already sleeping calm in the room

after finishing his shift at the ER. 

I’m grateful he got home safe.

 

I don’t resist kissing his forehead,

tucking more autumn comforter around him,

for he’s all soft breath and flannel—

my sweet husband.

 

Bed is recovery for his body, 

where he labors to regrow his soul 

after holding death so often in his arms

and sitting with those who seek out prayer.  

 

I have things to do, but he lures me in.

So I slide down beside him, 

wishing dreams upon his stillness

to blanket our hibernation.

 

 

Bearings Online, September 2021

Eighth Grade

                                                                                                            

We were empty-eyed cinderblocks,

ringed keys unlocking the doorknobs.

Among junior high’s sleepy congregation, 

an audience of our class’s generation,

only some of us showed up praised and amen-ed.

School taught me typing for college essays 

and gave me chances to run away. 

We’d flood from the school at 3:05—

but only some return now for mid-life toasts.

Just listen up for the morning announcement:

we cannot know life while it lives so close.  

Dream Noir, April 2019

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Fall Out of Line

The neighbors mind. To eye her, 

they alternate spiraling the lighthouse,

all their anchors moored at the coast,

more oars approaching from the river fork. 

They part the drapes when she passes, 

crucifixes pulling at their throats.  

And unchaining their frustrations,

they hold her crimes always in mind,             

then spit at her likeness they posted all over—

from their cellars to their inner eyes.

They dream of opening her with all their saws, 

lugging buckets to collect her flow to the sea. 

And lusting, they try to torch her with prayer,

their hair fire-blown like unholy tongues.

But she stands in truths that hold her safe,

and they turn on each other to lie in wait. 

Feminine Collective, July 2019


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Sworn

Your bones once oared an ocean, son,

then you were lured away and born.

I relinquished you, chose it, sworn and recorded.

There is joy for some, while others mourn.  

You are your parents’ orange orchard, 

their garden of corn, an ordained reward.

For though they birthed their first two kids,

they lost them before you were born.

We’re all fighting storms inside us.

I knew I couldn’t calm our waves,

so your parents brought you home to harbor.

It hurt me hard to let you go. Hurt got us here:

behind some front door, I was broken by four, 

a ward of the walls, begging breath from the floor. 

Still glory keeps gathering in the east. 

The mornings form as joy-birds soar. 

I left you alone to explore your own sea.

You sought instead the origin of ocean—

and grown now, you often row back to me.  

Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, April 2018

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The Barrens

Under lights strung taut across unthawed lots,

we brought our tragedies, ribboned in red.                             

It’s the happiest season, they said.

So we flooded the lines among aisles of pine.

But as funds dried up, we paid with our quilts.

Then lowering heads down fog-full streets,

we dragged home firs, trailing boughs at our feet.

Seeking heat we cooked trunks in barrels of rust

which turned ruby the throats of the lonely among us,

cheeks bursting blood in a fiery flush.

If our flesh were scalded raw,

if blood dripped thin along our fists, 

who would ash our decay once our souls flew away?

The Big Windows Review, July 2017

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Clothespole

Mom used to spin around the stem of our old clothespole,

except as the paint dried at the first stirring of springtime. 

Grandpop strung rope from garage roof to porch hook

so grandmom could shake out the clouds of socks and towels.

He built our homestead which still stands after decades—

though he’s long-buried, a hero in our mirrors and frames.           

Grandmom used to pin me too to swing from her lines

in the cirrus shapes stretched with the wind flowing flags.   

Circling that clothespole in grass dark as pine,

Mother and I, both in our times, scaled the air to touch

the sunshine between us and abundant depths of sky.

Fox Glove Journal, February 2017

You at the Gate

Should you ever decide

to stop by the house,

you’ll find me

where you left me

when you drove away.

Here on our porch

for much of the night,

I turn cigarettes into piles

of ash and sit

rocking,

rocking—

you’re

out there

somewhere.

Though the summer dust freezes

under snow globe glitter,                    

it will rise again when

the heat returns.

Maybe one day you’ll hang

that left through our gate

and rattle up the gravel

in your teal Toyota.

I’ll bow my head

in your neck

your gentle frame in

my tingling arms.

I never really

deserved you anyway.

I know I was the faithless one:

betraying our rings,

believing their lies,

raiding your drawers

with my distrust.

You collected your things,

but mine are still strewn.

I can’t seem to fix

what’s so thoroughly broken.

Lit Up Magazine, October 2008

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