Posts for June 17, 2026

a couple toasts 
champagne and smiles

for the camera

on a beach

as tanks tear

through the distance 

Disregulation is causing great disturbance and ultimately dysfunction in my home.
Discipline is distorted.
Dishonesty is rampant.
Discord is often sown.
The sound of dissonance is the tune.
I want to distance myself from these behaviors because it’s discomforting and discouraging.
On all sides we’re all distressed and it’s such a disgrace.

Outside folks confuse the behaviors for disobedience and disrespect.
When I try to educate, they tend to be dismissive.
I dislike and distrust these woulda, coulda, shoulda gurus.
We definitely can agree to disagree on this.

It’s hard to disregard when this is every. single. day.
It’s plaguing us like a disease.
I know I’m looking disheveled after dealing with it.
It’s disgusting if you ask me.

This is something I wish I never discovered.
Please disappear because it’s very much a distraction.

I’m sick of dis.

She slides next to me on the seafoam cushioned bench
Walnut hair dips beyond shoulders    loose wavy curls
Olive skin     earthy undertones as fertile as the ground 
Ella no habla  inglés
Her belly swells with life
I am afraid for her      for them  

Standing across from us
A Middle Eastern woman
Wears a cardamom colored hijab
My heart hums
Assalamu alaikum
I am afraid for her  

I arise from the bench
As the Spanish speaking pharmacist
Bridges the gap for the señorita    
Whose voice is as soft as a baby’s blanket
 
I glance at my heavily melanated skin     blackberry brambles
My eyes dart across the hallway
Focusing on the Muslim woman
Before resting upon the young Latina girl
Sorrowfully realizing this apothecary
Carries no medicine
That will heal our societal ills
I am afraid for us

That time
          when the fireflies rise mid-calf
                                                above the grass          not quite dark           but the light
                                                                       has  already switched from gold to silver
the yuccas standing sentinal            frilled white helmets
                                                                            on the hill     thunder
rumbling beyond the canopy
                                      of  lush green              That’s where
                                                                I’ve been

After seeing two more pizzas named

for various states of grandmothers,

we had far too many questions

for our overstretched waitress.

But with names like 

“Sexy Grandma”, “Drunken Grandma”, and 

a general Grandma pizza style,

we sought the tale of what had gone so wrong

that pizzas all over the city

bore the details of your transgressions.

Was it a night or weekend laden with the fun

that everyone had cautioned you against reaching,

or was the decision for this label

the sum total of a life lived outside of the lines?

We never received an answer about the history,

partially because our stomachs craved answers concerned 

more with whats than whys,

but we could tell that grandma was deep enough 

to require a pan style canvas to tell her story,

and we could tell that we would search for her again

at the next place lucky enough to remember her.

To realize I love you
               most ardently
with the sweetness of the blackbird’s song
                that I might love you, even now

as the thunder rolls in
like a blanket covering
the cowering hills, the lightning
bugs have come out to play again,
painting the scene like little specks
of hope or nostalgia
or just enough to get us
back to the morning

We look at demands on a screen
at the hands of people
who know nothing of our lives

We complete tasks 
at the mercy of a corporation
that would never notice
if we were gone tomorrow

Running around crammed spaces
with only the capacity to
hold onto what doesn’t matter

Sometimes, though,
the pace shifts and
we take a moment to
look at one another

Someone cracks a bad joke 
and someone playfully insults in return
Everybody laughs
forgetting all of the to-dos that
can wait another moment

And suddenly I remember 
that we are all human, after all

because today the back yard with these grandsons is all tragicomedy.

The four-year-old makes a grab for the foam bat 
his little brother is using like a golf club. Little 
brother screams bloody murder, and then his face–
all scrunched up and red–smooths out as he realizes
he is still holding the bat, so he turns to his older 
assailant, grins, then swings the bat like a tiny pro 
but misses because older brother is a step ahead,
racing, shrieking across the yard.

I chuckle 
watching the scene devolve into slapstick
and hope tomorrow might feature a bromance.