My rogue is cool with fun, 

is able to hide while on the run, 

I have to roll to check,

20 side die, what the heck,

Its a natural one. 

My next-door neighbor taught her flowers how to talk.
They think I cannot hear them with my human ears,
but I hear them whispering.
They gossip and spread rumors.
I know they hate my cat.
They think the garden gnome is ridiculous.
I learned what terrifies them.
One day I walked over to them and said,
“You better watch what you say.
I’m bigger than you, and
I have access to chemicals.”
I haven’t heard a peep
out of them since.

cigarettes, one after the other, and I miss stepping
     alone into the sun or the dark, apart from others
          who had better sense than I did.   

I admit it: I miss the nicotine, even while telling            
     myself between puffs that this dependency                        
          would not be bad for me. Look at my father:  

He smoked 65 years in a row, from the time
     he was 9 years old, and sure, OK, he had some
          emphysema in the end, but that’s not what killed  

him. My friend Ron used to say a little nicotine was good
     for you, but I never got the hang of just a little nicotine.
          The blast of that first cigarette after breakfast  

with a second cup of black coffee is unparalleled. I miss
     smoking in my car. I miss finding the secret smoking places
          where smoking is banned. Hospitals are especially tricky.  

Once I followed two nurses through the corridors
     after I heard one of them say “let’s go smoke.”
          We exited by a side door onto a sad alley  

with benches and ashcans, a half dozen people in scrubs
     studying their phones, cigarettes balanced
          between their fingers; their patients languishing  

inside. My own mother was dying upstairs
     while I was smoking outside with hospital staff.
           Still, I miss huddling with others in frigid cold  

while the smoke scorches our lungs. I don’t wish to glamorize
     it like some old black and white movie filled
          with cigarette smoke. Even the stench  

of it—I never thought of it as nasty. I miss
     the planning: check my pack, where’s my lighter?
          Always arranging to burn the next one.

Aestival pause, when breath holds in heat,

                        Mist
                   rising through
                 the hollers at dawn,
               where whip-poor-wills sing
             and coal seams sleep beneath
           ridges worn smooth by ancient time.
         Rhododendron blooms along creek banks,
       while winding roads follow the mountain's curve.
     Generations have called these mountains their home,
   working, praying, singing, and weathering hard seasons.
 Stories drift like woodsmoke through the evening valleys,
 carried from porch to porch beneath the glow of the moon.

            The Appalachians endure,
              older than memory,
                steadfast and proud,
                  holding the faith,
                    the grit,
                      the beauty,
                        of the people
                          who belong
                            to them.

Hollered up the stairs
Do you want the last kombucha?
No – I reply, you can have it
I’m gonna leave half for you!

You left nearly the whole dang thing
I poured out a little
Returned the bottle
Closed the refrigerator

We do this dance gracefully
Until I’m splitting a tiny piece of dessert
You laugh
This is absurdity

To be loved is to be considered
I know you’ll be tickled
So take the last bite, please
I’ll see you at home for dinner

looking through your boxes
you paused when i came in

who is to say what was said
when truth is what we hated

            “There is no fear in love; but perfect love
              casteth out fear; because fear hath torment.
              He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
”

                                                                   — 1 John 4:18-19a  

It has been said that courage is not lack of fear, but rather
seeing the reason for fear, recognizing the necessity for action,
and then choosing one must face it
anyway.

             I say to you:   I am not arguing against such a thought
            but I am claiming there will come a day when trust
            is made complete—and when trust is made complete,
            Fear will stand like a beggar on your doorstep,
            bones visible through sallow flesh of its body,
            and you will be too busy to answer the door.

Even so, Lord, that day is not today.
Today, I do feel fear.  Today I trust,
and I speak that trust, I claim that
trust, but Fear sits fat on the couch
of my chest, Styrofoam and cellophane
accoutrement of cast-off, fast food
receptacles making a wasteland
of my spiritual living space,

his legs stretched out in geometric rays
from his bloated backside to the tips
of his swollen feet, taking up the surface
of the coffee table.  He snores—his apneic
reverberations trembling the inner cavities
of my torso, my mind, my heart.

             I type and the words won’t come
because there is no room for anything else
when I see the evidence piling up in his
detritus, rotting, stinking, showing me
the life I so believed in breaking
apart, falling to the ground, shattering
around me.

That day will come, but it is not today
so I pray and I confess my state
and I pray for today, pray for it to be
today, pray for his eviction from today,
pray for today not to linger,

forever
a day
away.

Frances seeks a reception with me.
She’d like to discuss my soul,
waves me under the fairytale spruce where her
great guardian cerebus whimpers but
she will not let him devour me,
not even a nibble for the left head.
No, I’m special, attractive even.
Normally, the oracle tells women coyly that
she likes their shoes but
my dimples have earned me “attractive.”
She points and smiles.
I am essential to the development.
It was a beautiful prayer she heard about my soul.
I do not need all these material things, silly, silly.
I will do greatest things for the community.
That Jeep across the street, she doesn’t care for.
I agree (with all).
Did you know I am very special?
Well, who am I to argue with magic?
My soul is in good hands up there I hope.
We have the same G-d after all,
her Catholic G-d slightly less argumentative than my Old Testament.
“Are you talking to the old Catholic lady down the street, Jewish G-d?”
I ask on the way home from the spruce.
Behind me, a gurgle.
Water bubbling up from the asphalt.
I look for someone who could have thrown it, a drain overflowing.
But there isn’t one.
A small miracle, courtesy of the Oracle of Avon Avenue.
Next week I will bring her a bracelet.
She likes the beads.