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