rooftop chicago
leave it to humans
to tell a bird how to fly
No more senior discount days at the supermarket
But now ALL prices will be lower (at least for awhile)
On today’s receipt, there is a request to take a survey
Could win gift cards, will get gas points
Just go to the website and enter information printed on the receipt
Includes an “Entry ID”
So, I went to the site and entered the information required
But there were not enough numbers on the receipt to fill the boxes for the ID
Couldn’t log in because I didn’t enter enough numbers
Duh, they didn’t give me enough numbers
Feel like I got an invitation to a party
Went to the party, but my name wasn’t on the list
So I couldn’t get in
Oh, well, I still get double weekend gas points, because they scanned my coupon,
right?
As light breaks
I’m finally home,
My confidence shatters like icicles hitting pavement.
Faster than a trigger of my temper,
my confidence is always the first to go.
I spent all winter trying to build it up.
But spring came early this year.
You were callous enough to move the clouds away from the sun,
and melt my esteem away.
Every thing
is breaking.
You people should be out-
raged.
Everyone and everything can and will
get you
Unless
you stay tuned
Rain and grass clippings
Old Spice and sweet tea
Lemon chess pie
Cotton candy and funnel cakes
from the county fair
Chlorine and fireworks
New crayons and rubber cement
Opportunity and adventure
Sweat and cocoa butter
Broken like a limb from the oak
that crashes, weighted down with ice
from winter’s mistreatment of the earth,
I kneel before You. Fragmented
and defeated by life’s bruises, I seek
restoration. You are the Living Water
that brings healng to the troubled
body and soul. Papa, pour Your grace
upon me. Cover my wounds
that I might once again be whole.
Chilly god of vermilions
drummed above us
with virgin tears
bawdy bones
hot nectarine;
I see him doddering
floridly.
~found poem based on Plath’s “Ouija”
The Way it Is
My mother once walked upon this earth,
insecure but loyal.
My father once walked upon this earth,
rotund with gentle hands.
All my forbearers once walked
upon this earth. Now they’re beneath it.
every one.
How will I breathe in this day?
The first poem appeared on my forehead,
like a game of connect the dots. A fresh crop
of chicken pox scars, even though I was told not to itch.
Traveling down the middle of my face marks
the only family herloom we have ever had, so I wear it
proudly like a spoken word. My voice
never shakes–not even to tell the stories
of my matching moles on each hand where
the middle finger meets my pointer. Others are
less natural but worth telling just the same,
like the short story on the bottom of my right leg
from when I rushed to shave before our last date
or the memory on my knee of running into
a table in the basement of my best friend’s house
one July. Haikus sit on my crooked pinky toes,
both broken once or twice from
the clumsiness that marks me.
