On June 1, K.S.
went to find a poem
and all I got was
this lousy sentence.
Sometimes
the poem rhymes. Sometimes
it doesn’t.
Some days
the children play.
Other days
they don’t.
Sometimes
I scrub and scour.
Other days
I won’t.
Some days
the hours fly.
Some days
I simply sigh.
I am used
to the splotches of rain
on my windshield
as I drive down winding country roads
swerving to miss vagabonding deer
looking for life on the other side.
That’s why I don’t mind
the finger prints on my glasses
from my constant pushing
to their place on the bridge of my nose.
The lenses have become scratched
from my repeated pressing
and I no longer see the scars
on the glass.
“How can you see like that?”
my mother asks.
“Simple,” I reply.
“I could never see clearly
in the first place.”
The heat of the fire filled the room
I worry sometimes what God thinks of me
and what the dead, and living, members of my family tree see.
I contradict what is taught in Bible Belt Sunday School.
I am LGBT+, Bi and Nonbinary
and there are those in my bloodline
who see that as a crime,
an affront against God,
but is he not a being full of love?
If he created us in his image
and we do not have the point of view of his eyes
then who’s to say he didn’t make us with different dyes
and wove us with threads
that defy what is considered
traditional sex and gender lines.
So while I know
that there are those
in my family tree
who hate to see the sight of me,
I hold on to the hope
that God sees me
and smiles with glee.
(Happy Pride!)
there will be no plums
in the icebox
my shopper
has refunded them
so delicious
Kroger’s keeping them
errantly priced
on the app
so sweet
I’m certain they’d taste like the last
day of May
the ripe end of spring
so cold
the air
in the crisper drawer
lonely
without its juicy dark hearts
somewhere on short street galloped,
steered by some sort of amphibian,
a steed, dress’d in silks, to oblivion.
the frog behind him cropped and walloped
but behind them no filly followed–
instead crowds all sighed ‘this again’
‘that misguided young foal of ours can
not tell jockey (Blaze, Day, Murphy) from toad.’
well, Kermit or human, whoe’er it was
derby fans didn’t know then that green guy
knew how to make that horse really buzz.
when the finish line drew in we saw fly
the horse and frog several, light-years ahead,
and how they won by green snout and brown nose.
home your hand
beneath the tender humid air of branches &
Beckon
the beseeching softness of fingers
—in call
the berry arrives
—in response
a summersweet yielding to the vessel of your palm.
