It’s a summer night,
I’m nineteen years old
and catching fireflies.
Their lights don’t shine
as brightly as they did
when I was little,
and it feels much easier
to let them go.

Sometimes I wonder,
will it ever be the same again?

There’s something about this time of year 
That gives a sense of edge in the air 
Everything is heated yet recoiled 
Like a snake in an outhouse 
That has been waiting to shed its skin 
There’s no sign that it’s been there 
Just the leftover skin 
And smell remains aloof 
Laying low in the corner somewhere 
Waiting…..
for just the right time to strike 
Like most snakes 
When strikin’ seems appealing 
You’ll never see it coming 
Swift…. smooth… suave 
Snakes just being snakes. 

Flagstones snake through moss carpeted paths
and my body hovers above,
takes imaginary steps.
Enchanted memories
of garden alees,
Austen, Brontë,
wuthering
thoughts shake
me. 

The clock is ticking one second slower each day. It’s ten minutes behind now. We’re ten years behind now. The same sequence of events as last week. Now play it back, louder. Your argument is invalid. Your argument never existed in the first place. You bit your tongue too many times and now it’s bleeding. The clock is the same color as your eyes. You’re both watching me. I’m talking too much. I can’t understand what I’m saying. Sounds like a prayer being uttered over and over. This again. You’re no longer listening. No such thing as comfortable silence in this house. A book is opened to the last page. The ending is the same as it was yesterday. You don’t remember the beginning. You take my word for it. The fireplace has never been used because you’re tired of putting out fires. My smoke signals go unanswered. I regret asking. I ask again anyway. The book is burning. The curtains are pulled shut so the sun can’t see us. Call it shame. You haven’t taken your clock eyes off of me. I’m reciting the same prayer in reverse now. It smells acrid in here. I forgot what you look like when you cry. You forgot how to cry. We’ve done this song and dance before. You know how to sing. You won’t sing for me. I can’t hear you over the clock. You can’t hear me over the book. The book can’t hear the clock over the smell of the smoke. The sun can’t see us ticking one second slower for every argument we didn’t have and now we’re all just passing time

Pulling and tugging

       Roots unmovable

Clinging on for dear life

                Letting go means death

Holding on, the vines cover the ground

                                    Grass no longer seen
               
                            The vines were left to run free

            They were in control

   But out of control

No limits

No boundaries

No one to tame them

                                        I am in control

                                                            I will tame them

They will have boundaries

                                    They will have limits

The vines will no longer be allowed to run free

                    I will break the vine’s hold

The grass will again be seen

The vines can’t hold onto life

I pulled and I tugged

Their roots released

                                             I won my Vine fight.

we stood in the drive
watching a satellite 
hurling across dark sky 
making no noise 

while the neighborhood
still hot from the day
murmured the songs
of the living
transmitting through 
thier illuminated windows
end of day routines 

I can already see
the end of the summer 
in the summer haze thick 
between the trees

even before the first 
firework has sent 
it’s colors across the sky 

Why
do you think parenting
is a competition
you lost before you started
simply because you think it is
people that are good at something
just do
they don’t think about it
they are
natural
they don’t consider their partner
a competitor
because they are not
they leave them to blunder
in another failed attempt
to curry favor
It doesn’t work like that
That’s it 
it’s not work
it’s art
the art of love
unconditional
to love someone
more than yourself
not many can
but most mother’s do

I want to find a place
I can hide out on rainy afternoons,
before rush hour clogs arteries,
all meat and potatoes.
A place to watch the river,
hear the rain slap leaves
until rivulets run like blood
from the sacrificial lambs.
Where ozone stings my nose
with each lightning strike.
I can taste the air, like words
on the tip of my tongue
never quite fully formed.
A place I can sneak out of
and no one will notice,
and I can wander home
like nothing has changed at all.

I.

When the princess

finally realized

she had always

had the key,

lo those many years

gone and wasted,

her heart grew hard

and she never loved again.

II.

The princess realized

with relief

that she actually

had the key

to her own tower.

Happily, she unlocked it,

skipped all the way to town,

and married the first man

who could make her laugh.

III.

The princess’s whole world

was a keyhole

she would often look through

to see the outside world,

all of the windows being too tall.

But it never occurred to her

to look for a key.