Posts for June 12, 2026 (page 9)

Checked the blue bird box
Neat, even nest- three blue eggs
Not a house sparrow

The porch boards creaked beneath our chairs,
worn smooth by years and summer air,
while lightning bugs blinked in the holler shade
and Granny brought the beans we’d gathered that day.

A galvanized bowl sat at her feet,
green as June and smelling sweet,
and she’d snap each stem with weathered hands
that knew these hills like they knew the land.

“Now don’t waste nothin’,” she’d always say,
as bean strings curled and fell away.
Her voice was soft as creek-worn stone,
steady and sure as a churchyard home.

The mountains rested blue and still,
their shadows stretching across the hill.
Somewhere a whippoorwill called low,
and the evening breeze began to blow.

We’d talk of kinfolk, living and gone,
of hard winters and gardens strong,
of coal camps, floods, and Sunday clothes,
and things only mountain people know.

The sun sank slow behind the ridge,
painting gold on every bridge
between the past and where we sat,
with a lap full of beans and a porchside cat.

I never knew then what I know now—
how time slips quiet somehow,
how one day you’d give anything
to hear again those beanstrings sing.

For Granny’s gone, and the porch stands bare,
though her spirit lingers in the mountain air.
And every summer when the gardens yield,
I find her waiting in the bean field.

I snap the stems the way she showed,
following that old familiar road,
and for a moment, the years grow thin—

And I’m stringing green beans with Granny again.

The cake that an aunt used to make

In addition to the German chocolate one my stepmom used to make

And my Cookie Monster sheet cake

My mom earlier used to make

Thank you, you beautiful ladies

What can I serve you, what can I bake?

Little one, yes, you,
skittering ever so lightly
across my bare foot,
out of the darkness
and over the threshold:
your life / my life,
your wild / my kitchen.  

I think, cat! oh rat! but no,
little baby possum, it’s you,
innocent among innocents,
blinded by light, quick-glancing
over your slight shoulder,
red-rimmed eyes in a mask
of white, pink-lipped snout,
open, panting, oh, oh, oh!

Finally, my husband and I
(and yes, I called for backup)
find you tight in a corner,
eyes ever-fixed on mine. I fancy
I might whisper you into calmness,
softly clicking, it’s okay, little one,
it’s okay, but you are not a believer and
it’s way past my bedtime,
so like it or not, and none of us do,
out comes the broom.

We barricade all escape routes but one,
and with a well-timed push to the right,      
to the left, now behind: Shoo, possum, shoo!
you do, into the unlit night.

i wish to write more poems about
the length of their eyelashes
as they get closer and
    closer
to mine, when our lips brush gently together

how soft curly strands of hair feel
wrapped between my fingers when
that kiss deepens and i pull her in tighter-
harder 

but, i still feel i am not allowed to write poems about that,
like i am not allowed to be kissing girls 

i was never supposed to be close enough
to her lips
to know each fleck of color nestled in her iris

like i was not allowed to know the scent of her this intimately
to write about it as if it were a sonnet:
shakespearean; dark and unattainable 

i was not meant to think of girls so long-fully,
dreaming of more fruitful words i might love them with

more poems i wish to write

zodiac elder,
neptune’s daughter
guided by forces even she doesn’t know

affection junkie trailing sea foam kisses
from salt-cracked lips

caught in the cosmic in-between

we had a pact between us
a joyous pledge of accession
swaggering falling down crown
first thru our own palace gate

we used to discuss miracles
sing along with patsy and hank
shop together for butter and eggs
to bake your red angel food cake

each day now I lift our sceptres
climb into the nave behind our two
thrones to consider then reconsider
my familiar sad trip to your grave

“I am not an old man having an existential crisis at a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry” – boygenius (Leonard Cohen)

Today, he wore black slacks and a black belt
Unknowing it would push me to the brink
where his crisp shirt meets his waist I could melt
his grin so coy I couldn’t start to think

On Friday he drives home to his great wife
who he cares for like I would want to be.
I’m cursed to care for me all of my life
or change who I am fundamentally.

on Saturday I’ll lay in bed all day
and dream about the boy inside my head.
my friends will tell me that’s just not the way
to feel something before I’m good and dead

They say I’ll find an alternative soon
I’m blushing cause some boy could make me swoon