Posts for June 13, 2026 (page 6)

Little friend Beth her
    shiny
            brown         Shirley Temple curls in which the mathematician
                            in me always desperately wanted to place small pickles

                                                                                                                                              geometrically

                                                                                                                                              perfectly

the spirals perfect to keep track of

Later talking myself                                 out of
    OCD
as I skipped down the sidewalk noticing every crevice crack and
    extra
    impact
    my
    foot
                    did and didn’t make

never telling anyone

not everyone can think their way out of that

I don’t want to skew understanding

water down the struggle

my neurons were so plastic

my brain so logic-bound

pragmatic

I can’t keep worrying about sidewalks or bounces or light switches. It will take up too much of my time

the mathematician calculated

        got off easy
                        just think my way out

sticky brownness of tobacco drying in the wind of the heater on cold green Volare seats
            rankled skin protesting poison vinyl before I knew to know

me dreaming of the applesauce at the Danville school

this weak body ecstatic at the sweet brown adrenaline in the air from these barns

a      l  o  n  g  e  r        d  r  i  ve   
than usual

but more tobacco to drive past

and Beth

Like Stepford wives?
I viewed too much on social media yesterday—
of a conference: “Make Women Great Again,” run by men.
A hat worn: “Good Wife.”

Women to return to lives of what past?

                            (Already I am telling, not showing.
                            Good grief— how do I show?)

Perhaps it’s been forgotten—
the threads of history:

Women around flint-lit fires, potbelly stoves, modern kitchen islands—
rationing politics, working out news—
summations that wound up influencing nations.

Women skinning animals for blankets, guiding sewing machines,
demanding fitness, financial ease, and the right to think.
Surviving. Supporting families.

Women in European salons, the fierce circles of Gertrude Stein
and others of her kind— putting novels in our hands,
pottery dishes on the table, mathematical equations in our minds.

And threads in the needles of surgeons!
Do not believe otherwise, a history plagiarized,
swapping her ingenuity for his name.

                            (Am I telling too much again?)
                            Maybe instead:

Clinks of teacups,
kettle whistling validations,
a basket tipping autonomy,
poetry across a worn oak table.
Spaces filled to the brim.

And here I am—
blue dots dance on my screen.
A heart for me, a heart for her.
I call another friend. Hearts galore.
I want a hat for that.

No— I have poetry.

Tell me, do they make a “Good Husband” hat?
But I would question that, too.

stone blossom blooms
my mountain rock
warm wind, wild
my poetry breathes here,
can climb the vine

Silence.

Interrupted by thoughts.

It never existed.

Below in his courtyard the poet writes
but knows nothing about me
or my flight from the sea,
my holding pattern over Rome,
a feathered tourist leagues from home.
He scratches, oblivious in his verse,
ignorant of the ache of wings or worse—
the inefficiency of a beak, or claws
that clutch but cannot pause
to stroke the skin of only one,
and my loneliness oh my loneliness.
He hears my cry,
thinks it’s
cackled mirth—
complaint, commentary,
cajoling, critique—
doesn’t know I’m calling,
                                               calling,
                                                             calling.

I really hated moving into the basement 
and I really hated that you never finished it
or put hvac in it
or fixed the flooding problem when I called you about it 
and you did nothing but bitch about coming home early from your weekend getaway.

I really hated when I saw your brand new car today,
the one with eight miles on it that
you bought your little Juliet as a birthday gift
even though I still don’t have one. 

I really fucking hate that you call her kids your own 
and made room for them in our home
when I had to wait for your love and acknowledgement for the first twelve years of my life.

But most of all,
I think,

I really hate that I’ll never be permanent to you 
in the same way that four failed engagements,
hundreds of unanswered calls,
thousands of unfulfilled promises,
and three daughters 
never were.

Junetime again in Kentucky, and favoring sweetest of fruits,
Tantalus eagerly waits. He’s not forgotten their taste.

Clusters of pawpaws pull lower the slenderest branches o’erhead,
ripening, swelling but green. Tantalus twitches a hand.

(elegaic couplets)

(An imagined conversation with my AI chat therapist, in the not so distant future)

Without so many birds, isn’t the sky today much bluer?
And anyway, who really misses those little sparrows—
so plain and unremarkable, who cares if there’s fewer?
Without so many birds, isn’t the sky today much bluer?
You miss birdsong? So quaint, digital’s the future—
choose anything from classic rock or nature sounds to Ravel’s Bolero!
Without so many birds, isn’t the sky today much bluer?
And anyway, who really misses those little sparrows?

The sun rises every day
Galaxies pulse & spin
The oceans fall & turn
The universe created a miracle
& we dare to build a 
world filled with hate?

fireflies as I made my way down the sidewalk
how delightful it must be
shining as night falls

a white, small butterfly fluttering around the produce
visiting the farmers market
seemingly carefree

all the semblances 
how I hope I am becoming
purposeful yet whimsical