Posts for June 28, 2026 (page 3)

There is little that a simple 
And single thank you shows 
To a man who tirelessly works 
And gives his best, all to his family 
That never really knows how much 
And how often he could’ve given up
But because of them he kept going 
And gave them every ounce of love 
He never got, but most definitely deserved 
And he never complains when days are short 
The nights are long and worrisome too
And he has to keep his focus on the goal 
Thank you seems it’s not enough to say 
And I will do my part to make sure 
This man doesn’t forget his worth 
And knows he is loved beyond all measure 

I walk up my parents’ driveway
stepping over the place I used to sit 
on summer evenings like this one

To my right is the house where 
an elderly couple once lived 
and before them a couple and a kid

To my left is where a new family
moved in when I was in middle school
and now that family’s grown 

The white dog with brown spots
that wags her tail as I approach the door
is new, too, but I am so happy she’s here

Like a slow inhale,
then an answering exhale,

each wave
another letting go.

The measured pulse
that drowns the noise of the world
until only silence
and the sea remain.

This is where I read,
where I dream,
where I wander,
where I feel,
where I simply am.

Here,
life loosens its grip.

I have never feared solitude.
I have learned
to savor its quiet gifts.

But—

your company
might alter even this sacred ritual.

Like a cool breeze
crossing the water at dusk,

asking nothing,
yet changing everything.

The kind of grace
one never thinks to long for
until it arrives.

I miss you like a good dream I’ve woken from,
the color and splendor dissolved into daylight,
a gray hazed bedroom, life stunted in the stale air.
I wanted to grow up with you. Our radiowaves
used to amplify a magic. Glitter in the frequencies,
smoke my sadness out with paint fumes, foolish hope. 
Big plans, schoolgirls, off to college, then fresh-faced
adults. We would’ve come to no harm. We would’ve 
set a force field with our joy, you could’ve swept up
my fragments and they would’ve rejoined in your palm.
Now I’m devastatingly lost. You’re in greener pastures. 
My time loop doesn’t accommodate for texts begging
to bridge me back into good days. There are no good days
when I’ve mazed myself into such a bleak dead zone. 

In every breath of summer,
a head of hydrangea and
tumble of honeysuckle
trumpets twisted through
the paint-peeled chain link fence
in memory’s backyard—

A pulse of sun
white and sharp as July
bringing the sizzle of cicadas
to a nearly unbearable boil,
while umpteen mosquitoes
rise from the lawn, a tsunami
crashing above the clover and
clumps of crabgrass, its shadow
a hungry tangle of legs—

And the creek runs jagged, cold,
carried over flat, polished stones
resembling the wide, umber
arrows of copperheads,
its voice licked against bramble
and roots gnarled at its lips,
a slip of minnows flickering from view
as if ghosts, as if one could wade in
and catch a handful of souls

the first time
I tried them on
I knew destiny
had tumbled
off the cracked
faded hanger
at my beloved
thrift store

high waisted
dazzling pleats
hypnotizing
my onlookers
by casual debut
of legs, legs
beneath ode
to grandmother

five dollars
spent or squandered
only time
can confess
the payoff
of parading
a perpetual
wedgie

A canal of green,
creatures scamper through this terrestrial sea of threads,
each apparently a living blade.
The ground is solid, it holds my feet so I do not float through cloud matter.  Towering pillars of brown scratch at sticky
air, veiny tendrils extending above me in an unfathomable web.
Bipedals vocalize in discordant sounds that nonetheless
feel like they belong in conversation with the soft breeze.
I will ponder how light comes from a sky gray with the absence of stars.

The Guardian of Good
needed a champion quick
lest the entire world,
nay,
the entire UNIVERSE
be lost to the forces of evil!
He bought an official
Champions for the Forces of Good™
blind box from the local super store
and frantically pulled it open
to see that he got–
no, no it can’t
be not that
one, any one but
that one…
*