Covington, Kentucky on the Ohio River across from Cincinnati, Ohio, a child of a saxophone, clarinet, harmonica-playing father who started a band at 17, and a mother who at only 16 he hired as his pianist. From a house full of jazz, blues, classical, swing, big band, country, singing Mitch Miller Christmas album songs from sheets of words. I am from Catholic grade school, exchanging holy cards for Valentine’s Day, daily mass, wearing a chapel veil. May crowning, praying rosaries & novenas—ingrained in guilt, unworthiness, beseeching forgiveness.

I am of German descent. From goetta, braunschweiger, German potato salad, grilled baloney, potato pancakes, skewered city chicken, grilled cheese sandwiches during Lent, Barq’s cream soda & vanilla ice cream floats. From Reese’s produce truck, Finke’s meat market truck, the ice cream truck’s soft serve, Eskimo pies, & drumsticks. From candy cigarettes, jawbreakers, nonpareils, wax lips, candy necklaces you wore all day around your neck before you eat it, & Nabisco wafers we pretended was Holy Communion.  

From old streetcar tracks, the woods of Lookout Heights, tree houses, vines to swing on, honeysuckle licks, blackberry & mulberry picking, collecting buckeyes, & shiny rocks. Outside games: Red Light/Green Light, Simon Says, Kick the Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, jump-roping, Cat-in-the-Cradling, ice-skating on frozen lakes, roller-skating on sidewalks, dragging wagons up hills, riding down at breakneck speed, electrified & terrified.  

I am from family walks after dinner, hanging our warsh on a clothesline in the backyard, fried chicken picnics for summer concerts at Devou Park bandshell, Coney Island rides: The Wildcat, Wild Mouse, & The Lost River. Weekend country drives, travel to state park campgrounds to tent & pop-up camp, singing in our old Ford station wagon, counting cars & states on license plates, naming shapes of clouds.  

From a mother who sewed us Halloween costumes, dresses for Christmas & Easter, who taught me to sew at 8. I’m from hand muffs & mohair sweaters. Noxzema cold cream for sunburns, Vicks chest rub for colds, stinging Mercurochrome for cuts. A paternal German grandfather who started a drycleaner business my dad & uncle continued. I am from a maternal grandma who prayed for pets & people as she walked her neighborhood, nursed cats, dogs, & neighbors back to health. Because of St. Vitus Dance (Sydenham chorea), she wasn’t supposed to live past her teens, was warned not to get pregnant because of a bleeding disorder, but birthed two daughters & lived to almost 88. Who told me Never let anyone see you cry, a belief I reject with all my heart.  

~ Inspired by George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” project

Covington, Kentucky on the Ohio River across from Cincinnati, Ohio, a child of a saxophone, clarinet, harmonica-playing father who started a band at 17, and a mother who at only 16 he hired as his pianist. From a house full of jazz, blues, classical, swing, big band, country, singing Mitch Miller Christmas album songs from sheets of words. I am from Catholic grade school, exchanging holy cards for Valentine’s Day, daily mass, wearing a chapel veil. May crowning, praying rosaries & novenas—ingrained in guilt, unworthiness, beseeching forgiveness.

I am of German descent. From goetta, braunschweiger, German potato salad, grilled baloney, potato pancakes, skewered city chicken, grilled cheese sandwiches during Lent, Barq’s cream soda & vanilla ice cream floats. From Reese’s produce truck, Finke’s meat market truck, the ice cream truck’s soft serve, Eskimo pies, & drumsticks. From candy cigarettes, jawbreakers, nonpareils, wax lips, candy necklaces you wore all day around your neck before you eat it, & Nabisco wafers we pretended was Holy Communion.  

From old streetcar tracks, the woods of Lookout Heights, tree houses, vines to swing on, honeysuckle licks, blackberry & mulberry picking, collecting buckeyes, & shiny rocks. Outside games: Red Light/Green Light, Simon Says, Kick the Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, jump-roping, Cat-in-the-Cradling, ice-skating on frozen lakes, roller-skating on sidewalks, dragging wagons up hills, riding down at breakneck speed, electrified & terrified.  

I am from family walks after dinner, hanging our warsh on a clothesline in the backyard, fried chicken picnics for summer concerts at Devou Park bandshell, Coney Island rides: The Wildcat, Wild Mouse, & The Lost River. Weekend country drives, travel to state park campgrounds to tent & pop-up camp, singing in our old Ford station wagon, counting cars & states on license plates, naming shapes of clouds.  

From a mother who sewed us Halloween costumes, dresses for Christmas & Easter, who taught me to sew at 8. I’m from hand muffs & mohair sweaters. Noxzema cold cream for sunburns, Vicks chest rub for colds, stinging Mercurochrome for cuts. A paternal German grandfather who started a drycleaner business my dad & uncle continued. I am from a maternal grandma who prayed for pets & people as she walked her neighborhood, nursed cats, dogs, & neighbors back to health. Because of St. Vitus Dance (Sydenham chorea), she wasn’t supposed to live past her teens, was warned not to get pregnant because of a bleeding disorder, but birthed two daughters & lived to almost 88. Who told me Never let anyone see you cry, a belief I reject with all my heart.  

~ Inspired by George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” project

One-hundred-twenty
give or take
mostly finished.
Thirty-some-odd
even compiled, formatted,
in a thin, rainbow-bound book.
I can’t push it to the finish line.
POMO is the largest audience
my works may ever see.
I think it’s the fear of failure;
these words,
like my own children,
won’t be as special to others
as they are to me.
Maybe it’s the unique horror
of being truly seen
that anyone could know the deep dark recesses
of my mind— even some stranger on the street?
Or maybe it’s just my ADHD brain
marking a task finished when
it’s 90% complete.
Whatever it is,
fear or atypical neurochemistry,
even though my finger rests
languidly on the enter key
it remains a Sisyphean effort
to press down
let it go
out of my control. 

reckon we’re all right for the night–
strong campfire, good cover if
the Apache approach, fresh water and
cook made beans and 
cornbread, but there still ain’t no 
meat

stars sure look pretty tonight–
the Great Bear is high in the sky
so I reckon the Apache will have
good hunting soon

hope it ain’t us

doc’s still got the fever and
ain’t one of us knows what 
to do with his little vials and
powders and creams

I sure do miss my Sally girl,
back in Missouri, waiting
for me to send for her

I don’t have the heart to tell
her the truth–
ain’t no future for us out here 
in this God-forsaken territory

way things are looking,
ain’t no future for me
at all

Great Dragon of the East.

takes   the bull
(s) by     the horn
(s)and    the ball
(s)until   the milk
      runs dry

The days danced long and wide
with the sweat of an eerie summer song  

Forget the past, she tucks it in her heart 
to drown the pulsing of that eerie summer song  

Stitched tight at the start of a quiet dream
embroidered with flowers quieting the eerie summer song  

With fine threads of silken bliss intertwined with a darkness
splashed to cool down the melancholy of an eerie summer song  

A Jane Kenyon poem, sultry dew dripping from early morning clouds
will she be allowed to block out such an eerie summer song  

Will it haunt her, full moon on a latent August night
drenched in the shadow of memory buried in an eerie summer song.

​I can’t remember where I put my car keys​,

The great gift of our
generous biology
may be our downfall.