Posts for June 5, 2021

Lavender 
Picking 
Couch hauling
Tattoo covered
Professional.
Hand shaking
Fully vaccinated 
Sometimes walk around my house buck naked.
Mistake master 
lesson learner
son loving
pappa 

A recent American Psychological Association survey found that 49% of adults reported feeling uncomfortable about returning to in-person interactions when the pandemic ends.

I think he just wanted to stay inside.

We are all in this together, and we will get through this together.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between.

Like a good neighbor, Stay Over There.

Boo was our neighbor.

When you wear a mask, you protect others and yourself. 

But neighbors give in return.

To defeat COVID-19, we must acknowledge the fear of it. 

Hey, Boo.

Placemat on the table
Miniature carpet for the tiny crumbs of food
That fall from the spoon
Red, yellow, and green afghan squares
Oak chairs and the buzz of the Frigidaire
Basket full of mail
Romantic Amish novels reek of thrift-store musk
Time folds the sheets and wind dries the blankets for the
Preparation of winter
In a tote in the attic
Waiting to be opened in the crisp, cold air
With the smell of June making your fingers shake
For summer time

People that don’t care
boosted some of the cook books,
leaving us bereft.

Ransacked the handbags,
took all of the lovely plants,
cast aside photos.

A last chance to look- 
we didn’t want it ourselves,
just a communion.

It is the silly things
that blaze in our childhood sight
that are important.

So keep your treasures-
You were not one that she loved.
Sell them if you must.

She would have wanted
to help any of you folks-
she was just that way.

Write the image you see
Use the word that comes next
Follow that word with another
word & another word

until there are no more words
until you can no longer
find another single word

i see a Black man’s face
i see a Black man’s face smashed
into the pavement– this time

his name is George
i see George’s Black face smashed
into the pavement & his face

reminds me of my cousin’s Black
face & what my cousin’s Black
face must’ve looked like when
they forced him off
the cliff

i see white faced rage lashing
against his back
i see uniformed cop with
knee in his neck

i see my cousin’s baby face
smiling back at my baby
face

i have not witnessed his face
since we were
nineteen

It appears I’ve been outbid

“Put in your max number,”
I told myself
“Enter your amount
And whatever happens…
Happens”

And here I sit
Outbid
And waiting
Thinking
Debating
Weighing options
And probably bidding again

there are pinpricks of light in me
the lower left side of me to be exact

when I move, they try to break through
branching into parts of me that i cannot map 

knowable only to arcane anatomy textbooks
and the websites that assure me that despite the pain

no one will see me if I burst

once-sandaled bare feet
hitting the blacktop path
a dog being walked ahead
trees with leaves of green
hang above the crown of my head
as the sun hits the horizon
and the clouds turn to fluffy candy
the stone walls to the side
sing to me their history
that no one else cares to find
maybe i’ll become part of it
maybe my time will come

They were once thought impossible to domesticate, 
their sweetness having to be stolen from the shade
of wooded mountains.
Little fruit, beloved of both Aphrodite and Virgin Mother,
yet condemned to grow on its belly swallowing dust all its days.

The bright and delicate flesh
pinched to redness,
a soft point rubby ruby
and stretching out in the earliest shape of desire,
like a bundle of arrows whose design was first taken from tongues
drawn to cautious tip by temptation 
of a dangerous taste. 

God gave every green plant for food,
but crimson must be taken from creation behind the Lord’s back
like the brotherly gore that cried out to God from the hot ground.
One expects each lurid bite to taste of blood.