Picking sugar snaps peas—a preview for cataracts—
they hide among leaves
they sprout behind your picking—
like rabbits
in the clover field.
they hide among leaves
they sprout behind your picking—
like rabbits
in the clover field.
Death is a cloudbank, building.
Do not hand me your precious
things
(my own cannot be trusted) I
will drop them, breaking
like bones. I will
use shards
to poke out the marrow.
It was so real
the sights, smells, and the people
in my dream were very familiar
there was a feeling of deja vu
Until the moment that
the person that I was hugging
faded into nothing as
I opened my eyes
It was morning
I had not been hugging
my deceased mother after all
it was just a dream
And though the sun may set
on simpler days, I still find joy
in the breeze, the shade,
and a cool popsicle
melting away in the harshness
of summer and solitude.
sleepy
reluctant
holding onto some plan
outlandish and irrevocable
I saunter forward
time beckons me
as it repeatedly has
encompassing my senses and my wherewithal
I’ll end up somewhere eventually
I have a pretty good idea where
Let’s lounge in our nest
watch Disney
all day
with Striped Blankie
Settle in Snoozlers
burrow beside me
Silky soft feather heads
petted & purring
at sunset
This morning they chirp
about college
& driving
After the first snuggler
flies
Two more will flee
fluttering out the door
Wings kicking up
dust
With me watching
eagle-eyed
for the rovers return
unruffled, awaiting
a new generation
fledgling snugglers.
Next year I will be done,
she says to herself,
down the dark, rain-slick road,
but there is a pair of eyes,
another pair of eyes,
filling up the space behind curtains,
around a corner,
across a shop,
and before they give a whisper
she knows their trouble
There was a snake
in the yard today.
My husband ran over it
accidentally
when he mowed.
It sliced open
its belly revealing
the bodies
of two mice
it had eaten
before its end.
Its skin glistened
in hot afternoon
sun where
we examined
the damage.
A copperhead
beside the
greenhouse where
our barefoot kids
often play
picking clover
flowers
or catching
lightning bugs.
I spent too much
time afterward
thinking
about how it
could have
all played out
differently,
how a hidden
snake in tall grass
this humid
summer day
could change
our family’s
world with
one swift bite,
how even if the
venom didn’t kill,
risking exposure to
this virus at the
hospital very
well could.
The stakes are
higher now.
I hold my breath.
But then, I spend
too much time
thinking about how
everything
could have gone
differently
these days.
one more time
there goes the fire
detector. a chirp of
some bird enough
to make my cat
alarmed, though
not afraid, for it
does not sing
like the ones
outside in the
shadows of leaves
bouncing on wire
flashing its wings
doing enough to tease
to run up and make it quiet
his neck in her teeth
