We were hiking above the tree line,
so green in life and love, 
when a storm moved quickly in
making us easy targets 
for lightning pulsing behind 
low clouds gun metal gray. 

The first drops seemed to wake us 
from our manufactured calm 
and we began hurrying down the trail, 
scree and stone growing slick 
from unchecked rain that filled our eyes:
the world appeared through aquarium glass.

The boom of thunder — I cursed 
the metal frame of my pack —
and we began to run, full on panic
down that peak, sliding through 
switchbacks, hopping 
over ruts like jackrabbits,
caroming against each other,
finding a rhythm, covering ground,
we began laughing at our unease,
when back beneath the canopy of trees,
we slowed to a brisk walk, hearts pumping, 
breath in our ears. 

We heard the strikes behind us,
we felt the air compress. 

Your hair was matted to your face. 
Your lips were wet, I remember. 

Thank you, your Honor.

Lilith and Eve are not enemies,
nor foils of one another,
nor the “wrong” or “right” way for women to exist.

Lilith and Eve are not friends,
nor conspirators,
nor whatever fiction men conjur them to be.

Lilith and Eve are bound in time and circumstance–
Members of the jury, Adam is not the pillar upon which we should rest our understanding of their feminine perspective or perception.

Lilith is not a demon,
she does not eat children or baptize us in seduction to steal our innocence.
She is a creation of Mother Earth’s clay,
the very ground upon which we stand.
Imagine that–
our balance relies on her.

Eve is not fashioned from a rib,
nor is she subservient and pure.
She strings together sweet fig leaves,
but not out of shame.
Her eyes opened to the possibility of edging closer to nature,
to the awakening and welcome reception of revealing what’s covered,
hidden from view in plain sight.
Eve was framed.

Lilith and Eve are not criminals.
Lilith is self-employed and prefers solitude on business trips,
though she does enjoy the occasional one-night-stand–
who could blame her? 
It gets lonely on the road to freedom.

Eve is a fruit connoisseur and a fashion designer who
suffers the blame for eviction from paradise,
but makes no apology for biting at the chance for an upgrade–
wouldn’t you?
A garden can provide without satisfaction.
We all deserve answers.
We all deserve satisfaction.

Lilith and Eve are not unlawful,
their reputations have been soiled by millennia of patriarchal slander.
It is imprudent to continue to entertain this smear campaign.
These women are not guilty of the crimes the prosecution presents before us.

All charges should be dropped.
On what grounds?
Insufficient evidence and false testimony.

The defense rests.

They’re moaning today –
all of them in chorus with
complaints and sorrows

I didn’t know they had –
all louder than joy, no sign
of yesterday’s encouragement.

But then perhaps it is easier
to be cheery in the sunshine,
before the thick clouds darken

and the heavy rain comes 
to grow flowers, and wash away
the pretty birds of spring.

 under your tongue
before you
    take your dose

it will work too slowly

   take a few doses
if you think ahead

Veronica stands in the court room
It’s cold, a December day
The decor is stark with
Sash from floor to ceiling

She’s dressed in glacier blue
Her aura a vibrant rose
Hot air vents are
Wafting round her up do

The sunset shafts of light 
Crawl up the judges late afternoon faces
A church bell tolls out on the square
Her eyes bore into theirs

She does not see the room
The sun, the bell, the frigid day
She steps right up
Speaks her reasoned argument

Early in the day on Christmas eve
She gets a decision
Her client would be
Executed

So her reasoned thoughts
Her prayers and pleas go unanswered
So she wants to go to midnight mass
She wants to know

Who is this evil god they worship there
She stands in the wet outside on the curb
Pulls on a veil
Goes inside

When the palavarians kneel
In reverence to the host
She stands in defiance
With disregard and irreverence

At the sign of the cross
She’s a hissing block of burning ice
Insence collides with brimstone and soot
Hellhounds compete with bells of choir

A tall black bearded priest
Descends to his supplicants
A velvet cloak drags
In the filth and the ashes of history

He raises the Monstrance
Says: “Venite adoremus.”
She examines him
And the scene prostrated all around

She says: “No.”

Give one baby bird
a worm and you’ll see. Never
could you curb the want
of new mouths now held open,
chirping, gaping pits of need.

in a place with no signal
just for this poetry
I pay for more
xfinity says its free but cost is $20
the math doesn’t work but I choose to enter the code
give the extra
in order to remain in this place
not miss another day

I was named celebrity
judge for Nashville’s foolishly
popular pet parade. My column

printed three times a week complete
with a headshot. That’s me reporting
on death, crime, the newest

Pizza Hut. I juiced mundane
specifics, the tangled
details—How many guns

in the arsenal?  Exact time
of death? I rarely fessed
up to what was mushrooming

inside me like the rhizomes
of a rootbound Hibiscus.
Please understand, I was

a success, a seasoned
professional. I met brutal
deadlines & kept my workface

face intact until, after clocking
overtime, I’d unlock my front
door & collapsed on the over

stuffed loveseat. Unopened bills
scattered on the floor like dead
trout. Once-green Calathea withered

to bacon-brown curls. One night
Princess Maragaret, my Goldenface
Parakeet, dropped dead in the cage.

Hard to talk about, I still
want to run. A family of mice moved
into the folds of the davenport, where they

begat chestnut-colored babies, each the size
of a coat button. Once a tiny one pranced
across my blue gym shoes. Was she

trying to save me from success, my personal
Chernobyl? I got better slowly. Recovery
at the speed of a rusty tricycle. No one

at the newspaper knew why I took
an extra week of vacation, that I’d started
meds, that my boyfriend left me

but came back determined
to help. It took four days to clear out
the trash, pack up what I could save.

                ~ with thanks to Coleman Davis ~

If I could plunge to the depths of my soul
I would see that it can never be cold
I would feel the contours without depth
I would trace the arrows of shallow needs.

If the doors of perception were open
I would feed my muse and not my patron
But they are clear
I am the dust they are near.