Posts for June 2, 2025 (page 15)

There’s a bowl of leftover spaghetti 
in a stained Tupperware on the top shelf
of the refrigerator.

It’s grown a bit dry, the way day old pasta does.
Give it new life in an omelet. 
Crack yourself a few eggs directly into the bowl
and whisk it.

Oil the pan and dump in the contents,
spread the spaghetti evenly throughout. 
Listen to the sizzle while the eggs just set.
Gramma likes them a little runny, so flip it now

Slice it like a pizza and Voila!
Grandpa bursts out a phlegmy, Ha!
because it’s 2018 and he’s still alive
and he’s shocked that a woman who
can cook such a great omelet
isn’t yet married.

Once upon a dime,
I squandered my time
When it was gone,
I kicked my behind.

This ain’t
hide and go seek bird snacks.
Ain’t no “oh yeah, I left
my lunch there,”
for you, squirrels!

Don’t act like we don’t feed you
your three pounds a week.

This time
we’ve got netting
and a pinwheel parade to
persuade y’all away.

Look. It ruffles my feathers, too.
But there’s room. We can all grow tall.

Don’t make me plant more onions
or marigolds if you misbehave.

My brother and I dream
about the same destination:
the seminary, its bricks over our days,
the architecture of monasteries,
corridors that lead to places in my mind,
where I invent spaces that never were
but reveal in clever cloisters
where our waking journey will lead.

   Second night

   The ducts, and the cold
   endured until April
   and then rain, rain, again.

It looks like a snapshot

from our vacation last year

to the recreators’ faire

in the next shire over,

where experience teaches

how to ignore cameras.

Except for Maggie Clinton,

rightmost of the seated “girls”

(all of them adult women),

unable to ignore the camera,

or else its handsome holder,

down through the centuries.

Yes, dear Maggie, you’re seen.

If the superstitious can fear

that cameras can steal souls,

then why should young suitors

fail to understand the truth:

A woman’s eyes steals hearts.

(after the circa 1890 photograph, “Girls Skaning Mussels,” by Frank Sutcliffe)

In my fortieth year, the apocalypse
began to complete itself, even though
the younger ones tried to stop it,
ones older that we were had already
dug the pit we all were falling into.

i’m not wise, but at one time I was
considered pretty, and old ladies
in markets used to pinch my cheeks
but I think it was just because my eyes
were blue. that was also a pretty
troubled time to be alive but I didn’t know
it yet.

my children will remember more bad air days
than good, have barely had a chance to look
at the stars. their childhood covered with a viral
overload, laminated haze. when they play outside,
they built forts like I did thirty years ago.
I also hid a knife in my pocket, learned how
not to slice off my thumb. a sharpened stick
is a sharpened stick, in any decade.

at the mall we go to eat sushi, see soft children
and soft adults ride up and down the escalator.
the food gets delivered to us on a conveyer belt
and we order more than we can eat, wash it down
with melon milk and sweet plum juice
the eel is especially tender, my son says.

outside, the new year ticks over like a metronome,
and we wander back home a different way we came,
shivering under the streetlights but hugging each others
shoulders, wondering together if the japanese bathhouse
is open, the pools still hot. 

The old creek would flood into the shallow bottom 

spring is slow to warm this year,

                                                                  so the wildflowers sleep a bit longer.

                                        they fight the urge to crack themselves open;

                                                                                                   they resist the temptation

to peek through the soil’s soft surface,

                                                                                   to stretch for the sun,
                                                                                                                                 

                             
                                                     to sway in a whispering wind,

                                                                                                                    because–

                                                                                    they know

they cannot be tamed. 

Where is happiness?
Is it in a smile?
Is it in a hug?
Is it in a kiss?
It is in something I missed.

Where is happiness?
Is it in a beautiful sunset?
Is it in the sun’s early rising?
Is it in the moon’s glow?
It is in something I would like to know.

Where is happiness?
Is it in the innocent laughter of a child?
Is it in the warm sugar cookies Grandma made?
Is it in the untrue tells of Gramps younger years?
Is it in somthing that I fear.

Where is happiness?
Is it in only my dreams?
Is it in only my prayers?
Is it only found in others?
Is it only in my drouthers?

Where is happiness?
When you find it, call me.