Posts for June 16, 2021 (page 9)

Just after the stop sign, a chestnut horse
at the fence by the road, grazing lazily,
scratching an itch on the boards. I was
happy, though a long drive lay before me.
I stopped the car, rolled down the driver
window, called out good morning, half
expecting a reply. The chestnut horse
ignored me mostly, though for a moment
those deep, round eyes met mine, and then
a biting fly took precedence.

In the rearview mirror, another car approached,
waited. Window up, I rolled on. Soon, a deer,
on my right at the edge of a plat of deep green
ferns, and later, more horses, a field of fat cows.
Still, the car, always a curve behind pushing me
with unknown force toward town, and people.
Just there, at the edge of bustle and rush, my eyes
flew up to catch an eagle rising off water, wing
beats steady with lift and gravitas, angling north,
two smaller birds chasing after it.

We Blossom

Like well-dressed zombies
wrongdoers threaten from cracked
windows, their broken
treaties masked as 30 second
political ads.  This morning

my nephew’s first permanent
tooth like a scrap
of china jutted from his delicate
pink gum. I turned off cable, mixed
up a Caesar salad & blasted

mariachi to celebrate his immaculate
flowering. Today is not a day
for fighting.  I have put down
my placards, halted
my rhetoric. Tomorrow,

perhaps I’ll throw a keg
party for justice & truth. I must carve
time for the gap toothed six
year old who wants to hold
hands with me in the rain. I peak

into a possible future where atomic
infernos are a child’s
game & surprise—my battle worn
reader, my undaunted
peacemonger—we blossom.

Hours pulsed,
turning her in the twist
and burn, tilting the future
at her, a cold ghost.  

Memory skirts her,
fingers that dark wolf.  

She felt safe
buckling
under pain.  

* Erasure of Sally Rosen Kindred’s poem “Which Way Is November and How Many Feathers.”

no cathedral window
can lure the touch
of sun’s lustre
like cicada wing
filagree

some of us pretend
it’s not true
we lie–even
to ourselves

we hide what 
is real because
we fear
exposure

we would rather
suffer in
silence than
face judgment

but remember
always
it’s not just you
not just me

it is what being
human is all
about:

being broken

a bandage here,
a splint there,
a hat against the sun,
a blanket against the night,

but still broken

i found this
one thing that
can help:

let’s be broken
together

I hunt a coven of poets that meets
in kindly Christian Science reading rooms
but my small-town street is different now.  

Buildings are demolished, replaced by a
Presbyterian church big as Walmart,
compound and complex as a honeycomb.  

In one cell, the coven is convening.
I want to phone and tell them that I’m coming
if they phone back to tell me where to be.  

A helpful girl recites the phone number 
but I will type at least one digit wrong –
I’m still learning to read and write in dreams.      

lip of sunlight-slow
fall-upon them with new wings
from first, tangled flight.

the prince- his footsteps,
source the red of chosen depth
living out of reach.

the lower window
in this place, crossed and held his
outstretched guiding way.

golden bars beneath
his hands, capable and full-
cover her body.

when the water comes
above her in the air, he
is just- touching one.

heavy resting look.
his equal, taking- firm half
holding gentle plans.

his light cold shoulder
covered green space between them,
under fruiting trees.

fire from above
her shallow understanding
of the fruiting trees.

Eating ain’t the only thing
we dig in to at Miss Pearl’s
on Oak and Magnolia

We marvel at the woman
behind the counter, too,
the gumption it took

to imagine a diner
at seventy, and to see
it through, too,

so we’re not just nibblin’
on catfish, we’re celebrating
what it takes to make one’s way

from there to here

inspired by #nwp Write Across America (SMWP)

honey, your heart is
a fist of Middlemist Reds,
pallasite meteorite guts,
deep purple corn,
wages of all workmen,
fertile feel of cheek muscle
as it throws back against gums;
in squint of eye, gone.

Divination doesn’t take a day off, so I step in for Sadie,
sling tarot cards and decode loose tea in a tea cup.

The visitors who met me the first two days sometimes
called me by her name, as the sign says– it’s her tent
at Julietta Market and I spoke from beneath a facemask.

The next time will be Father’s Day and the day after Granddad’s birthday.

I insist that our fates are not from our fathers
and mothers, that we create our own.

All shall be revealed–
My grandmother unfurled the shapes in the tea pot at the restaurant
called Far East, while Granddad recited the same mock fortune
to us every time he opened his cookie: “Your charm and intelligence
are exceeded only by your good looks.”

Respectfully, I break my own rules about fate. I’ve coined a similar fortune:
it’s a good running gag and a great filter to determine if your company
humors you, loves you, and is listening after all.