i’ve got a list of lies and broken promises
another list dedicated to my sins
an ode to the higher power
as a way of self reflection
believing i could be better
confession on sunday
is just a formality
presumption is a sin
but so’s despair
i can never win
church in the morning
is just a joke
when nobody’s believing what they preach
it’s an equilibrium, according to Webster’s
the juxtaposition, maybe
betwixt one side or the other
one challenge and the next
a decision and a dictate
wants and needs, you know
parental dilemmas we often find
perplexing,
the coordination of requests
where we could create anger
or resentment, or happiness
in every answer, or all
so we drive along, debating
after the phone call, deliberating
whether we did right
whether we struck the right
balance
Sometimes I see you as red
People associate that with anger
But not me, I see dedication
I also see yellow
Every time you make me laugh
Or you smile uncontrollably
I see blue
Every time you talk about the future
Me and you against the world
Living out our dreams
And sometimes I see black
When I feel that you’re struggling
Or when it feels like I might lose you
You’re my whole rainbow
You’re always on my mind
Not just after a storm
My mother’s hands were delicate,
small, too fragile, it seemed,
for the work she chose–
Nursing, then raising six children.
All the cooking, cleaning, presenting
perfection 1960’s housewifery required.
The strength in those small hands
could demand obedience from a wild
young dog, enfold a crying child in comfort,
learn to drive at thirty, help build
a lakeside cabin to be refuge and oasis
to children and grandchildren.
And when arthritis swelled her knuckles
and her wedding band no longer fit,
my father commissioned a new ring.
Six small diamonds, one for each child,
set between two bands of gold.
My mother wore it til she died.
I have worn it every day since.
the moon has begun to reveal herself
in all her sapphic glory
& in the way she exemplifies
unrequited love
how, at times, she poses
in full elegance, yet
sometimes she’s not even there—-
just a gaping, faint circle in the sky
la lune élégante, tonight
you lull me to sleep
alongside the settled chirping
of the birds & dancing fireflies
aren’t there days when the sky
just looks bigger?
when you look up
& everything’s a little too expansive—-
just there, laid out in front of you
like a mouth
ready to consume you,
swallow you whole
into the depths of the universe
& aren’t some people afraid
of that?
Early on the crowns of walnut trees
scraped their points against the sky, while limbs
cozened their come-hither strategies
at cloudful shapes. By noon no storm begins
although it was the kind of winds and dark
that tomato plants had hoped would bring
results. It’s just a tease, some birds remark.
By evening not much weather’s happening.
One more summer swelter after all;
the beaconed rain recedes into the west.
Could subtler invitation bring its fall?
No gales above, below no writhing, lest
a Turk’s Cap Lily closes gaping mouth
at Sirius’s haze towards the south.
Past the pond
past the boats and fishermen
mindlessly casting their lines,
past the graveyard
of Elam and Shelley
long forgotten and
faded past knowing,
the path turns uphill
and follows the creek bed,
patches of green,
a cluster of ferns,
the land swollen up
with boulders
jutting their faces out
from the hillside,
past the ice music
the crystal chimes moving
the clear water sings
unbroken abandon.
by Kelly Waterbury
when you are seven and the man
taking the picture tells you to not
smile because your smile is ugly
you learn to avoid cameras
more than fifty years later
i cannot bear a camera pointed
at me and someone saying smile
because even tho i know better
i still cannot get those words
out of my head
or my heart
