Posts for June 18, 2026 (page 13)

At sunset I water the pots on the terrace
left by Brother Gardener who’s off to Ireland
where God waters everything almost all the time.
But here in Rome, God is busy elsewhere
(perhaps across the Tiber in the Pope’s office).

But here, I fill the plastic watering can and visit
each pot: the lemon tree, which has grown very pretty
with sweet flowers indeed, tho’ no fruit to sample
for bitter;  the abundant basil with leaves to rub
and sniff for memories; the mint likewise
(perhaps a leaf to chew); the peppers planted
(but not picked, for they will not yet yield a peck)
by Jan Dominik, somewhere off in Slovenia
and the 14th century; and the many other pots
whose plants poets perhaps know—but I do not.                                                                     
                                                                                          Being ignorant
of what graces this rooftop garden at sunset
where gulls circle in their nightly conference, commenting
on tourists who suffered the day’s heat. The noisy conclave
ignores me. They have a better view of the sunset.

Smart enough
to be an engineer.
Handy enough
to work construction.

Yet somehow
dumb as a loaf of bread
for a short moment.

One drill.
Straight through the wall.
A careless mistake.
Violent spark.
Kitchen goes dark.

Luck feels terrifying.

You cheated death.
Somehow
life protects fools.

Glad to know
out of all idiots,
it protected
my idiot.

flick (you in the long dark kitchen, egg, buttermilk, cornmeal, leavening,
a bacon grease seasoned skilled slick as Narcissus’s reflecting pool)—
flick (dim green gradient skies,
silhouette black riverscape, the familiar woman watching from the bridge)—flick
(around every hallway bend, its mirror, every stair, its next flight,
until, God forbid, the uppermost landing)—flick…

try not to rise in anger. think about Kellogg’s inspiration, last night’s popcorn. in the quiet lonely morning, leftover cornbread for breakfast.

fruit basket

bashed in, bruised and

browned bananas

tasked with

a hand thats armed

to swat fruit flies

dead; abandoned

slack gnats, bug

smacked, guts stain

my palms

didn’t even mean to trap it

i could be dramatic

collapse quick

everyone knows my gripe with insects

taunted, when they flaunt

such small hips

tipped over into nostrils

flutter by, lick my ears

slick, please

stop

it with

the tricks

i am big thats

my disadvantage so

ill have the blue light

catch flies

for me

be careful

landing

I ain’t been down 

I click on the smiling picture
of me from three weeks ago.
I refuse to take a photo now.

I look for the full moon—
for the direction I used to know—
but I am swallowed
by a sky gone black.

The doorway keeps making space.

There is a gravity in my chest now;
everything collapses toward it.

The moment you appear,
I sew my mouth shut.
My thumbs hover above the glass;
I open our thread and come undone.

American favorites. Picket fences white, and yellow tulips. From beneath the nitrogen black of dirt and eggshells—the grubs and fireflies pushing.  When, as children, we rose Sunday mornings full of grace, moonlike angels landed.  Please catch us.  Hold us.  Softest approach in winter singing safety to us, grey woolen socks, and burnt the taste of custard flán. I was frightened, each apparition arpeggiated screams on triangles, tricycles, baubles on Christmas trees—fashioned of spike, wire, and smoke.  1976, I fell down a flight of stairs, caught in air who promised the world leavened bread.  No poverty.  For an instant I did not have a name.  

Naming the birth pain
call the bird before the rain
come whatever May

We shivered as the 1980’s government sought to anesthetize us with My Buddy and My Kid Sister, Barbie —affluent and clever.  Perhaps we were terrified and the world ate canned shit because Ron and Nancy Reagan chanted Just Say No.  That incomprehensible demoralization. Children violated by agendas, prepped for sleep, urged to see a problem where they had none.  

What is the rag doll
that sits low upon my knees
—mediocrity