Posts for June 19, 2026

Peek a Boo

It was only a matter of twisting the doorknob…
of letting out a stream of freshened breath.

On the right, the bed- a pattern of laziness crosses
from floor to twisted top sheet…scuffed heels, pencil nubs,
forgotten coffee cups.
Evening punctuation lingers near the windowsill, and with
the breeze, a dampness comes.
In towel and stillness, she is expectant but soft,
soft but able to pour and rub and
pull sweet oil from knee to ankle.
Perfume fiddles itself  between breast and rib,
across lace and seams. 
For a moment, her sweat thinks of winter, then
it’s hand to lips…carefully lining the dainty peaks…
from lips to neckline…pausing to decide, chain
or cross… from neckline to waist…here it is, the
slow pull jerk of freeing zippered teeth from
a starched cotton fold…
and the skirt’s fullness is admired.

Tonight, tonight, tonight
she will go and laugh with the comfortable faces.
While she waits…when there is only water left to drink…
she will look up, asking the stars if they also found her dance pleasing.

At the post office to buy stamps,
workmen outside on tall ladders
putting up a sign.  Inside, notice
says Post Office Closed.  I ask
the man at self-service machine
why.  He says holiday–
Veterans Day, I think.
Then, go ahead of me–
mine will take a while.
I touch the screen
understanding
it will tell me what to do next.
But I know if I need assistance,
the man will help me.
This is the sea I swim in,
small kindnesses from strangers
like buoys bobbing in water.
They keep me afloat.

Today was meant to be a sonnet        
                                                “More Like the Butler than the Baker”   
                                                          Lincoln Oliphant  

Planning to an excess            
            I schedule paratransit rides days in advance            
            know exactly where accessible restrooms lie            
            expect a friend to arrive on time
                    “If you say noon, let it be noon. 
                    “No, I’m not impatient,
                    “lateness is rude.”  
                    (Do I blame my brain or my military officer dad? Both?)
         check MyChart daily so no appointment is missed
guides required in this fractured life.  

Dyscalculia, dysgraphia, “She doesn’t pay attention.”
        No one knew about “masking,”
        but that’s where my attention lay.
        Pretending “normalcy” requires attention.
        Make up your mind: I can pay attention in class,
        or I can try to appear “normal.” 
        There has never been enough of me to do both. 
     
Unless with horses or dogs,
my brain communicates confusion
misunderstandings prevail –            
        “I heard what you said.”/”That’s not what I meant.”            
        leave me as frustrated as they do others.  
        Why is my world so literal?
        Absurdism and hyperbole weave through my writing;
        few comprehend, others are offended. 

Monkey wrenches tossed into an agenda
put this brain in freeze frame.
Adjusting to complications comes hard –            
           a fraudulent debit card charge and an ableist credit union
           a cancelled ride to Aldi
            storm induced power outage
            my printer died
            pharmacy sent the wrong test strips
            “Yes, I sent my financial documents; you lost them.” 
            CRPS in my left leg and now the left side of my head?
                        days and days in a dark bedroom
                        a hat and sunglasses to walk the dogs
                        Ubrelvy did nothing; this isn’t a migraine           
            the anger of my irritable bowel.

You asked for wind, 
you got gale force–
even if you petitioned
for threat of rain, mostly. 

This morning, the mulch
delivery is delayed, branches
brought down yesterday.

This morning, you discover
what your spellwork cost:
The dragonfly bird bath
broken into a coven

of pieces. You
had the nerve
to conjure wind. 
Nature didn’t leave
you unanswered.

The sky is a menagerie
of birds like islands
murmuring in solitude

but no feathers touch
the cornflower expanse;
each is a wisp, a ghost
of baby powder

but less
tangible;
pareidolia
                           (as ever)

my mind making sense
of ambiguous stimuli,
merely cumulous 
dreams in the day.

Here is Roald Dahl’s rhino
with wings, drifting purposefully
amid one-bird flocks
to trample an orphan
from an unlived
life.

There is an owl, and wise
to the coming storm,
rising higher as I watch
his witchcraft expand
with gravity.

And then there’s the phoenix,
curled beak plumage afloat
like an angler’s illumination,
distracting, distracting,
wings pressed tight
in a dive,
                   in a dive…

does he come to divine
or devour?

little creatures
light up my life
love their features
lined up by science

In 1977, just after my first birthday,
an astronomer discovered what would become the first of a collection of space objects
          called centaurs.
And because astronomy loves mythology as much as I do,
this icy hybrid asteroid-comet became known as Chiron:
          the tragic centaur teacher of the ancient Greeks,
           a symbol of our core wounds
           those we work a lifetime to heal.

Astrologers – astronomy’s hippie cousins –
posited that the phenomenon often dubbed “midlife crisis”
could be an effect of Chiron’s 49-51 year trip around the signs of the zodiac.
The majority of us will experience only one return of Chiron to our natal sign:
a transformational, revelatory period
when things come together or fall apart (or both)
when we begin to heal our oldest wounds and transmute them into lessons
when our past and our future collide, and divide.

My Chiron return begins today, at age 49 years and 266 days,
at the comet’s tail end of the most spectacularly explosive episode
of my life.
All color and stardust
still reeling from the impact
I can see a little me
barefoot in her driveway
looking up at the stars
and I know they are the same stars
but also
that they couldn’t look more different to me now.
As a child I gazed up with all wonder and inexplicable possibility
Now
I know what’s out there
and, charting my path,
          I’m returning to her dreams
          and etching them into the night sky.

6/19/26

I stumble upon,
to my shock,
an old friend’s obituary.

Even as a teenager

Who knew?

Her ability

to talk

on the phone

& track

every one

—plus

fearlessness

telling others

what to do,

who knew?

—the bliss

that skills for

executives

looked like this