Posts for June 1, 2026 (page 10)

The speech pathologist says he said the word pop, 
but she is wrong. He cannot say the word pop. 

We’ve been watching videos of family and friends 
saying tree and more and toy and mama and pop.

 I say, Ecton, watch my lips. I say mama. My mouth
squeezes each syllable until the last one pops. 

Ms. Rachel wears a pink turtle neck under her blue jean
coveralls. Bubble, bubble, bubble. Bubble, bubble. Pop!

We have a plan: I’ll say mama 100 hundred times
a day. I’ll make silly songs in his favorite genre: pop.

Woodrow Wilson Dill Jr. passed away four years before
Ecton was born. We would have called him Pops.

He’s current best word is bicycle. His second is pizza.
Even though he can’t say it, he loves a popsicle.

For the em-sound, circle your lips with your pointer finger.
For pah, tap against your cheek, like a ballon popping.  

We already have a plan, for when we are grandparents.
Meredith will go by Dolly, and I’ll be Poppa Chris, 

and maybe I’ll get to share my silly song with his kids: 
millions of maniacal monkeys mimicking mommy as she mops. 

the magnolia blossoms   
                                    last
only one day 
                    when stolen
                   

Holy cripes, that’s today?
I was gonna do better

than last year: write more
poems, better poems,

set aside time, line up
exercises or prompts,

at least have given it
some thought. Not realize

halfway through 
that today is the day.

I dream of eating pomegranates

The seeds popping like thunder cracking against my teeth

Purple red juice down the sides of my chin in vamperic lust

I’ve drank pomegranate juice

From grocery stores in their tall plastic bottles

Not too overpriced for me to afford

But a luxury either way

An escape by way of capitalism for a special treat

But I want to open it wide the pith thick and damp from the juice

The seeds cascading out like jewels from a thief’s caper

Stains deep in the sides of my nails

That even my own bath water can’t wash away

The seeds bobbing

Up

And down

Glistening against

And with

The iridescent bubbles that float alongside my thighs

Water beginning to turn pink

Pink flush of a blush to my cheeks

As I stare up noticing the black spores of mold doting the ceiling

But tomorrow I’ll scrub those away

Today I’ll let the pomegranate juice seep into every pore

My little luxury to myself

I could spend eternity wasting away,
turning letters into words
and words into lines
stanzas upon stanzas 
just about you 

about the way your soul shimmers
beams across any room
like a lighthouse
guiding me ashore

or about your laugh
and how it stands out
echoes no matter how loud

or the kindness of your heart
sweeter than honeydew
and even makes sunflowers shy away
warm like a cozy blanket on a winters day

But you are not perfect
Far more complex

You are the thrashing waves
Against a now ruined city

A hurricane carving its path
As land crumbles and the sky falls 

Thunder against an oak tree 
Down to root, shredded, set aflame

You are the embodiment of pride 
And when tears manage to escape those eyes 
The oceans weep and it only showers acid
As there is no more water left to pour

You are so giving to a fault 
Your heart sprays and feeds the land 
In which vultures can’t help but to steal more
Relishing in your slow, cruel death

But death will have to keep up
As you’ve been running since 15 
The first kid, the first apartment
 Never quite could catch a break 
Always had something on your plate 

I always wondered where you got that energy
All while you had so little to create

All that to say, yes you are imperfect
But the world made that way 
And while it’s hard to give you grace
Amidst all the hurt and mistrust
 I think that’s a part of being human 

As I grow older and anger has dissipated,
with hard conversations and tortured healing,
forgiveness is on the horizons
And hope is surely brewing.

Sunlight, it stirs across my map
as day approaches noon
a stranger comes with gentle tap
breaking with playful tune

my silent litany on display
forgot in cheerful mood
that world for which my eyes might pray
through words falls into view

A surprising amount of the Torah is written in inventory.
G-d came down from on high loaded up with lists.
The number of sheep was 337,500.
The cattle came to 36,000.
From each group of animals, G-d levies a tax.
Some of all, for Him.
There are similar lists of men, families,
the amount of able bodied from 30-50.
These too are for Him.
To mount the tent, guard it, keep out the riff raff.
The book is called Numbers.
Numbers is neither the most inspirational or engaging of
The Five! Books! of! Moses! (Ft. lists).
Seriously, even the Rabbi’s talk was a stretch in terms of
relation. The Torah is a tree of life, for those who grasp her.
And so the sanctuary begins to chatter.
Not the same revolt as it would have been in the churches I knew but
still, more buzz than usual.
A conservative shul, despite its misleading name,
traffics in the lax and genial.
The man in front of me who has been honored with the Fifth Aliyot
takes a long look at an email before deleting it:
These Asians Have Bigger Penises than Black Men, Here’s Why.
I am more scandalized by the use of the phone in the sanctuary than,
well, the email.
The young women behind me discuss,
if there are any good baby names in the parsha this week.
There are not, I looked.
I rush to record all this in my little red notebook,
concealed in the Tanakh.

when i entered the grove of you
i needed only the slightest convincing
you were meant to be a gift

our days and nights were quiet then
we had the good luck of just starting
with nothing misspent or lost

you said we were like aspen trees
pushing up with a shared root system
building a sole crowded refuge

your aspen need to thrive in full sun
your habit of spreading even in winter
eventually pulled us apart

Scavenging I notice boxes

        poking out of your blue bins standing at attention for the trash collectors

in this little town where the only recycling services are

called chickens

Far from France where recycling is radically inclusive of everything, grime and all

But I am back here now

Texas woods

this year

making gardener friends who

ghost

me after they learn my politics

But the sun doesn’t

care

young boys moving dirt

a smooshy cherub with cherry cheeks tagging along

their nurse grandma pricing

the mass destruction of this

rose vine

hideously archaically

pink

a vine whose briars are mass destruction

My dirtpile can’t help showing off

blooms everything that floats by it

I owe the begonias a hundred dollars

                for blooming naked thrown into the yard, not even planted

    would that we could all do this!

My cough subsides after I put some wanky concoction into me whose name I can’t say for fear of being lumped together with the political wackjobs who tout it.

But it keeps me alive

I think this week we’re on my forty fifth round of covid.

The planter is finally put together

that stepped over the “assembly required” line fully

into carpentry

and I learn

I should have been applying sealant with

paper

towels all these years that I avoid

finishing my wood for fear of

mineral spirit use incompetency. MSUI

My idiotic home word processor with no logic keeps unindenting everything I type. 

So begins a gardener’s summer on the first day of a poetry challenge

I found a new coffee shop today 
well, new to me at least;
parking was ample, sandwiches warm,
there’s even a few open outlets

bright open windows bookended
by walls of exposed, rough, red brick
giant monstera and pothos abound
grounded in the scent of deep comfort

I write this review with the thought of you
how we will never visit together
because I see the value 
in places like these and in people like me

but you’d never give up your Starbucks.