Stoplight Tomatoes
At every turn, red comes up.
Juice from black dirt
makes them plump in their case.
Electric, they fall into green.
The space between right foot
and gas pedal of powder blue Cadillac
is briefly yellow.
At every turn, red comes up.
Juice from black dirt
makes them plump in their case.
Electric, they fall into green.
The space between right foot
and gas pedal of powder blue Cadillac
is briefly yellow.
death I thought
a walk through a thin
stream…bodies beneath
each up-turned stone
here the heart…there
the soul…nowhere the mind
death I thought
with nothing on beneath
her belly botton…no shame
to hide…no sheets
to wrinkle…no furrowed
brow of useless worry
death I thought
could be managed
on such a pleasant jaunt
but June pulled up her dress
and let a torrent loose
death I thought
…a soaked slog
back to the house
Crystals of sunlight glimmer
the water. A brief, cold rain
pelts its polished surface
and casts concentric rings
like halos, that widen
into nothing.
The waters of the lake
are her blank slate.
She writes with liquid
longing, sinks
her heartbreak
into the lightless depths.
She begins to shiver, but
peels off her sweater.
The cold stings her bare arms,
tempts her to shed the rest.
She pictures her bare skin
white with frost;
how the pain would still flicker
against the walls of her heart
like a fire that must be
doused.
standing in a crowded hallway
and he came from behind,
crossed his arms
over a neon shirt,
looking around.
i turned sharply
and nearly stepped
into his chest.
he was a stranger
but not.
What I Pray, Today
for Antoinette Graven Perkins, Nov. 6, 1923-?
Now I lay her down to sleep
I pray the Lord her soul it keeps
that she may sleep and sleep and sleep
never to wake to see my face, in this place.
Mother lies in her bed, in her room,
in my brother and sister-in-law’s home,
in New Mexico, a shadow of a skeleton,
mouth open waiting for her soul to fly
or does she gasp to take in new life
with greedy gulps that produce shallow
strokes like those of a flimsy rubber oar?
We don’t know because she doesn’t say.
With each efforted breath I think I hear
her dreams- to soar, to run, to know,
to see, to be young. What’s inside her head
may only be freed if the Lord performs this next deed.
She woke at four and couldn’t sleep,
by her side I lay and prayed for quiet,
for her rasp to stop its rattle,
for her soul to become the wings
of my freedom and the winds behind her boat.
Set her free, set her free, please
hoist her sails so they may catch the breeze
that propels her to a different space.
If only she could will her ways away.
I don’t know what the other siblings pray
they don’t speak so I can’t hear,
but, this is what I pray, today, for Mother.
These words in my dreams
Should wake and write them all down
Forgotten by dawn
After following you home, the twin black cats shared the sill of the open bedroom window, observing the rising full moon as if ready to report to you, as if they were self-appointed familiars to your spells. The board you placed on the rug between us began to select letters before a question was chosen: Leave him, it spelled without hesitation, and you replied in kind, throwing it in the fire that warmed the room, growling fuck that as you led me to the waiting goose down mattress and pillows. At some point before morning the candles on your dressing table flared and guttered in a sudden breeze, and you left me long enough to shoo the cats and close the shutters.
unacknowledged legislators
nourish in a world of anarchy
fewer birds at the feeder
