i feel myself flip

between existential dread/

optimistic joy 

Walking barefoot through
our grass watching for bumble
bees, searching for that
elusive four leaf clover
treasured for lucky bookmark.

1. Thou shalt include
a seasonal
reference
2. Thou shalt not
refer to multiples
as haikus
3. Nature shall
be featured
heavily
4. Thou shalt not
include a
title
5. Thou shalt not
impose wit
on the art
6. Five-Seven-
Five is now
incorrect
7. Thou shalt structure
in two parts
Hook and Truth
8. The poet’s
ego shall not
be stroked
9. Locations
and dates are
right out
10. Thou shalt capture
a moment
of insight

He shuffled her memory, a dealer with a deck of cards,
she watched unable to stop him as her awareness
became some one else’s mingled on a misty night.

Her voice was like the smooth silks of a jockey,
soft, colorful until he took it and locked it
in his heart as a bank teller with the coveted key.

A malodorous smell of time decayed
slid over her body like the runner rounding
third base, sliding into home plate.

It happened so fast she had no time to react,
feel swollen in the muddy driveway, laden
crust of red clay too heavy to run, like Lot’s wife.

For a handful of blackberries,
a bucket of sweat.

A dozen webs across my face
to hear the thrush’s song.

Muddy boots, grassy shins, gnats in my eyes
for a single centimeter of purple silk,
chicory petal pressed
between finger and thumb.

I tick check, chigger check, poison ivy check,
but mostly, I am out here checking—
Am I alive?
Am I a part of this?

The spider dangling from my lashes
assures me
I am.

I remember the six of us – 
 piling into a Chrysler,
a cooler packed with colas
and bologna stashed in the trunk.

We’d drive to Daddy’s old farm,
before his parents sold it and moved
to town. Park along the road and
hike through the undergrowth
carrying that cooler between us.

The farm sat untouched for years.
The owners dead or in a home. Their
children miles away from caring.

Down we walked the overgrown roadbed,
a remnant of tracks that led to their house,
now gone.

Past the tree Daddy said 
he and granddaddy slaughtered goats.
I could almost hear the bleating, almost
see the blood, dried long ago.

On we walked, over fallen limbs,
dodging briers in the stand of cedars.
We’d come back to them in December.
When, if we were lucky, snow would fall
as we chose the perfect tree
to sit in the living room corner,
covered in tinsel and hope.

Sweat would trickle down our necks
by the time we finally reached our Blue Hole,
a pool of sparkling green, not blue.

Trees stood high above it –
filtered light danced upon the water,
and summer heat vanished as we
stepped in letting the water rise above
our knees.
Let the cold catch our breath as water rose
to our chests.
 
Schools of small minnows
flickered away. Water skippers
skated on their arachnid legs.

Here, Daddy told us, he and his boyhood
friends came to swim in their summers.
I sometimes  thought I could hear echoes
of his laughter in the leaves
and the moss-covered sandstone.

Now, so many summers past,
I wonder if bits of our laughter
can be heard there, too,
among the cedars, or lifting
from a spring- fed pool where
minnows flicker in filtered light.

parched–

hitching my roan,

old saloon,

hope they have whiskey

and a friendly bartender

they’s a card game in the corner

and, cross the way, a lady in a pretty dress

dirty glass, but I’m thirsty

leave the bottle, I says

bartnder sets it down

he don’t smile, but I reckon

he can see it in my face–

the horror I done seen

out in Buckskin Gulch–probably

in the newspapers by now–

all the bartender says is

“dusty from the trail, ain’t ya?”

The Senior Center exercise instructor on Mondays is chill, very namaste, but on Wednesdays it’s Wendy, who probably never said namaste in her life. She’s got iron gray hair, two sleeves of tattoos & buns of steel, the last of which she says we need, too. Squeeze those butt cheeks, she yells like a drill sergeant, squeeze ’em! We obey as best we can, squeezing to the oldies from all the best eras—”Downtown” by Petula Clark, “Stop! In the Name of Love” by the Supremes, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, all synced to thirty beats a minute—but the music can’t keep us from dreading where she’s taking us, into what she calls our Discomfort Zones, where we trade pain for gain.

my butt cheeks burning
like a pair of rubber tires
in a trash barrel—

The hardest part, which Wendy says is just as much for our brains as our bodies, is picking up her combinations of marching, walking, squatting & lunging, which she’d never admit is choreography. It calls for coordination & rhythm & a smattering of grace, not much of which most of us have because our brains are just as atophied as our bodies. Might as well be line dancing: Up, back, out, in, up! Up up back back in in out out back back in in out out up up! Jesus Christ. Squeeze the big yellow ball between your knees & with your right hand, toss the little blue ball in the air! Now squeeze the blue ball between your knees & with your left hand, toss the yellow ball in the air! Turns out the Discomfort Zone has many precincts. Stay in your body! Think about what your arms & legs are doing, not what’s outside that window!

There’s a robin’s nest
swaying in the tree outside
wish I was in it—

We know Wendy’s got a kind heart under that full metal jacket, drumming from inside like the Tin Man’s. We wish she could be our sergeant when the moment comes, leading us into the Discomfort Zone for our final battles with the enemy, time. Till then we sneak peeks at its advance on the gym clock, ticking down toward the end of this skirmish: cool-off, our favorite part. Give yourself a hug, she says, & we lift our arms up & out like a robin’s wings unfurling, lay them gently across our heaving chests. Now pat yourself on the back.

unexpectedly
I feel stronger, almost good—
give myself a hug

Rest in Peace, Pup:

I have some strong opinions 
sitting in the waiting room 
of Dutch Ford while
my truck tires get rotated
and I pour the sludge
the mechanics call coffee
into a Styrofoam cup 
and add powdered creamer.

There’s a woman about my age
who wants to eat hearty, delicious dinners
and find seven simple ways
to bring summer beauty inside
and find some lush new looks for the patio
and to plant some no-fail fall bulbs
and maybe get some baby goats.

There’s a high school couple here
at 7 am, she’s made up and perfumed
he’s clean like it’s Friday night
And he’s teasing, and she says
Stop it, Danny. Stop, I mean it. 
But she doesn’t mean it, and we all know it
Because she leans in and touches his arm
Because her contour is doing its job

There’s a mechanic with no ass who wanders in
sunburned, jingling quarters in his hand
talks to the vending machine -powdered donuts
honey buns, toast chee sandwich crackers-
lean-rolling back to look at the bottom
of the dusty racks, what is expired there
skeptical, but oddly hopeful
he will find his future in C5

And I sit here, having connected
to the guest wifi, having wasted my June
again, with only four poems, when
I had such good intentions,
so many strong opinions, those opinions
so strong, they make me weak
and I realize:  the hill I will die on is
covered in sawmill gravy.