Black clouds above us,
thunder rolls in the distance,
lightning streaks the sky

The gods sent this weather to us,
a sign they knew it was time
to ease you of distress,
to call you home,
to welcome you where you began

We hope the journey was quick,
and that you get to run free
that you get to smell wildflowers
that you get to dance in intervals of infinite sunshine
and happily dodge droplets of chosen rain storms
and that you get to laugh and fill your heart with joy

You are missed already dear friend.
Thank you for all you’ve given us of you. 

I see myself in the jade of the river Seine,
and by that I mean nothing morbid anymore. 

When you tell me there are bodies in the water
you mean not mine, just our lost reflections
wavering in the day heat, pickpocketing the sun.

By that grace I assure myself I’m cured,
and by that I mean give me a week or two,
and by that I mean I want a life of this:

living in the daylight, wandering.

Happiness is a tourist, I learn to be a good host, 
asking how many sugar cubes for her coffee.

I guard her from the rails, tuck her shadow neatly
into the folds of mine, let her stare into space
at the foreign tongue of my sadness’s relics
echoing from the catacombs below the sunshine. 

For her sake, I pretend I don’t believe 
thank you sounds a lot like mercy. 

I don’t let her know I’m tired of the word sang,
I’m tired of overdone metaphors,
I’m tired of industrial habits.

I’d rather watch time pull me backwards
into the future on the metro line,

so I think of tattooing a meaningless graffiti tag
onto my upper arm to keep a part of the city:

Manta. Rose. Gone. Love me,

explode like Roman candles burning into pale eyes.
Musicians spill into the street for this.

There are many people to search here for you within,
to pretend you’re leaving clues for me to follow.
Every breadcrumb magpies swallowed but every
indifferent expression could house a heart like yours.

I walk overtop the place where Diana died and no one
is weeping, no one is critiquing the routine.

And I don’t know what you’re coming back to earth as
so I am kind to everything. 

Smile at the soft tresses of the field trip babies,
nod at the men who’ve become walking cigarettes
with their head on fire like yours once was.

I’ll never be a smoker.

There are sirens playing when I’m trying to sleep
on the park bench, ambulances wailing but
they are not for me, and they were never for you.

The river unwinds in the background,
the unconnected thoughts pack their suitcases
and head towards the train. Joy lingers.

There is no point to this but to say I am healing.

On a lichen-covered
Decaying tree in the wood
Shrouded by overhead branches
A beam of sunlight breaches the canopy
And illuminates a spot where
A Monarch comes to rest on the rot
Her wings open and fold, open and fold

In a tiny home on some street
Unremarkable from all others
A woman wakes
Just as daylight breaches the horizon
Baby to breast
Then, on with the rest –
Laundry, and work, and meals
Lunches, hugs, and soccer fields
Her arms open and hold, open and hold

All we have
is a small
glass
of water.

A magic land
Glitter on the pavement
Exploring the unknown

I told my second husband
that had he smoked
I would never have married him
when he smoked 3 packs of Kents,
at 42–almost died of a branch blockage, 
then grew a scraggly steel beard, 
recouped in their dining room, 
tilting his hospital bed up and down
to amuse his four year old daughter.

Today, however, 
in Kroger parking lot,
I saw a man
with caramel skin,
a red dishelved shirt, tucked out,
most buttons open, long legs
wrapped up in black denim jeans, 
leaning against a rusty old truck,
waves of dark hair, a funky straw hat,
eyes just cruising up and down a blue blue sky.

Long white cigarette
in that mouth,
at an angle–
he was smoking–
so so so
sexy,
movie star sexy, 
third husband sexy.

The hardest lesson to learn
Is that not everyone in life
Has your best interests at
Heart

I have made
my mother the sum
of all of her mistakes,
the product of
all that she has overcome.
I want
to forgive
to forget
to forge
a path for us
to find commonality
in existing
in the same space. 

I have made
my mother a failed martyr,
a combination of
circumstance and
nuclear fallout.
I want 
to help
to hold
to heal
the child she
never was,
and the daughters she
could not shelter
from fate. 

I have made
my mother everything
but
a mother,
but no one
taught me to be
a daughter. 

It’s almost time to head to painting class
I am getting my creative juices ready
I love when I get to put the ideas floating
around in my head on paper
either with paint or words
It is a good day when I make something
beautiful out of something that began
as an abstract thought

It’s almost time
but I think I was already successful!