Watercolor sky
The divine selects each hue
Eternal canvas

When I awake
I feel 200 years old
each bone and tendon
waking at different rates
until I stretch
to fit into my skin
when I stand
somehow I manage it

Through the day
—it may be an illusion,
but
I seem to be younger
while busy
painting

Later on
when there is music
I dream a little
about dancing
but instead
sit to rest 

then I see dancers fly by
spinning and turning
defying gravity

Before they go—
they kick the front door wide open
making me look up
with enough time to see
today’s
Sunset
with perfect timing

Colors pour into making a staircase
which I instantly run up
to travel the universe in
a split second

It makes me feel
I have come far today

I was always jealous of cool girls
So much so that it made me mean
Not in an outward way, not like thorns snagging anything they touch
But like venomous fangs, waiting to strike if provoked
Guarding the edges of a treasonous tongue

At the core of that jealousy 
There is a question mark and an insatiable curiosity
How do some people just know what to say?
How do some people just know how to hold themselves?
How do some people get to be cool girls?

With time and all its antivenom, 
those answers, if they exist, matter less to me now
but in my lowest moments 
sometimes my heart still coils 
protecting a memory of myself as a sixth grader getting laughed at

If women really could dragon, trade
their fragile human forms for giant
fire breathing serpents

then maybe we could finally
stop the men who want to take
away our rights, make us small

so they can feel superior. One roar,
one flash of teeth, one exhale of fire,
then we would finally be our true selves. 

Loud. Outspoken. Dangerous. 

we have been conditioned 
to be divided 
like our attention 

we have been conditioned 
for more and more  
for less and less

we have been conditioned 
to promote
our own surveillance

we have been conditioned
to scroll by babies
being blown to bits  

we have been conditioned 
to think a god up there will 
make what he made right 

I will never
ever
touch another apple,
pear,
or berry.

Did you know they become sour?
Did you know they rot?

And I’m sick of the sun setting
at different times
throughout the year.
at 4pm in winter 
and 9pm right now in June.

Did you notice that it’s different?
Did you know it’s supposed to change?

Watching a summer evening sky
mimic the winter’s afternoon,

I wrap my arms in armor.
I take a deep breath in.

I won’t be eating any more produce.

I s’pose I’ll reconcile with the sun.

When I was a child
this book loomed large.
It’s still larger than standard
in my hands—a grown man’s.
I read it to my boys
twins of three
their eyes follow each picture
ears and minds
engrossed in the sea
of the words I read aloud.
This book
once my favorite
looks brand new
twenty five years later.
Enjoyed by a new generation.
They are growing up
in a wildly different world
than the late nineties.
A love of dinosaurs, though?
Common to every little boy’s brain.

I hadn’t seen it for years
It was the bowl she used to mix her homemade rolls
Large and heavy
Ceramic, I imagine it to be a wedding present
She never spoke of its origin

My gramma’s been gone for many years
Her home stood empty for six years
I became caretaker
I stood alone in her unkempt kitchen
I felt her presence
A calling to make her rolls filled my spirit

I told my Dad I planned to make Gramma’s rolls
Do you remember her special bowl, I asked
Yes, I have it.
May I use it to make her rolls
You can have it
I will treasure it

Whenever I make her rolls
I make them in my grandma’s bowl
The bowl and the rolls keep me connected to her
And keeps her memory alive
As I measure and mix the ingredients
I see her in her kitchen mixing, kneading, and dipping them in the melted butter
Gently placing them in the pan
I remember counting the minutes, tempted by the aroma of baking rolls
Gramma’s rolls were on the table every holiday and special occasion

It may be time to get out Gramma’s bowl and make her rolls

the ancient yellow and green
John Deere riding mower
a 145 automatic
keeps slipping its belt
like a horse that refuses
the bit

the battery in this ancient
plastic and metal housing
keeps dying, reminding me
that someone had left
this damned thing behind
for a reason

in the middle of the yard
with the sun bright and heavy
beating down from 
93 million miles away

my hands under the deck
one eye on the belt
the other on the phone screen
trying to figure out
what to do

because the grass
isn’t waiting
for a man
lacking the knowledge
to fix things 

Oh the pain of a mother trying
so hard to keep her children safe
so many die in this life
What fear mothers living through genocides must feel.