Posts for June 30, 2025 (page 9)

The backbent arch peers
at my depositions
from a 2003 murder. Given
ocean, canines, and oranges,
we made prison. The interns
love to watch trial like TV.
A shattered femur
and a video of a shattered
femur both hurt me.
I have nearly no
convictions, work-numbed.
No surprise—still, logic
sneers. It’s like no one here’s
ever heard an acoustic guitar
and laid down on the floor.
A broken necked deer
in the city, a stingray
picnic blanket. The cruelty
of weaning. Trying to end stop
this with tape. Screwing shut
my gut when I clock out.

Feel free to stop by my dreams tonight
You are a treasured guest in my subconscious mind
Linger as long as it pleases you
For the pleasure is really all mine

And if you would, before you depart
Bestow upon me a kiss, a brush
Of wind-chapped lips to escort me 
Through to morning

Thank
you.
I say 
to every
open heart who reads
these signals I send out in hope.

                                                             —   for Kathleen

It seems an ordinary house on an ordinary street
if you do not know that behind it a creek flows,
with a bend widened by dozens of ducks 
quacking up the bank to be fed by their neighbor.  

You would not know that wrens warble by day,
that at dusk a great blue heron drops
to a branch above, her folded bulk balanced on one leg,
one thin line that by magic keeps her upright.  

Nothing would tell you of their efforts to tame
passionflower vines, to scrape layers of red paint,
of their evenings stargazing round the firepit,
work done, hot tea in hand, voices in a whisper.

Cracked black leather revealed
veins in the old ballet slippers
exposed like the veins on a leaf,
a metaphor for her life.

The slippers hung on an
old wrought iron hook
nailed to a wood beam,
forged by an equally old lover.

The dance shoes dangled close
to where she sat each morning
relishing the drizzled light 
with coffee and birds.

Black slippers within her gaze
a reminder of younger adventures
as a dancer when
her movements were loose and free.

She laughed as she remembered when
she wore them one evening dancing
out the door of a college in Worcester,
donned in a yellow felt A-line mini dress.

She twirled into the arms of a
young man, amazed at the initial
connection, he noticed she was
wrapped in the scent of jasmine.

Remember how she could glide
across the stage
much like the red-tailed hawk
glides across the southern sky.

Her legs were wings whisking
across the the rivers in her mind
as she moved her chair, feeling
connected to her winged friends.

last day, first half
fireflies now greet each evening
hot wind today ushers morning
we are in the middle, exactly
waiting what the remainder will bring
knowing full well
a chill will come
but until then
we exist, amongst brightness and blooms

the summer sun shines on Princess
she seems to swell with pride through trips long and far
she has been the stable keeping us safe n happy with o’ the stories to tell
some are true and some just may be fable.
shine summer sun Princess reflects on them all
from the light to the sappy to the story to tell  

In
a
perfect
world I would
have written a poem
every day this month and picked
more black raspberries before they shriveled; and so I
missed some sweetness, seeds in my teeth—still glad I was here
with Poet Pam and her cowboy
rolling down the tracks
sharing words
eyeing
next
June