Lattices and flowers climb my hands like fire, flickering with movement. 
Heat distorts the lines, revealing earth brown, sunset orange, and blood red. 
If the dye burns, it is because no finger nor palm has done enough. 

In the land of olives and vines, bare hands cling to their mothers’ for warmth. 
Fists curl to capture the heat needed for a different kind of fire. 
They wish to ignite the spark in the heart where a soul no longer burns.

The colors jade, pink and lavender
lacy scarfs, shawls and fans
the soft touch of velvet and silk
the sound of fog horns
love notes any time
baby’s giggles and smiles
deep red velvety roses
the kiss of soft breeze
welcoming smiles
fluffy clouds on baby blue sky
tender kisses and hugs
fancy butterflies having their meal
an old love song that once touched my heart.

So much beauty to name
so much to savor, remember
in these days of political pain.

The dandelion puff in fall

One last wish for all

I guess I should be sorry
That my dog is tearing apart your leaf pile
The one swept into a perfect brown row, waiting by the curb
I see you standing just inside your back door, mug in hand, watching with chagrin
As she plunges chest deep, snuffling and snorting with glee, kicking them here and there, again
But it makes a satisfying sound and I can’t help but laugh a little
At her joy, your discomfiture and the futility of it all as the cold wind scatters more debris across your perfectly manicured yard

What you don’t know is that this sweater-wrapped rescue usually avoids terrifying things like grass, and water, and cold weather and crunchy autumn leaves
And that apparently there is some special magic about this particular pile, because it has beckoned her each morning this week on our walk
Maybe its perfect orderliness invites her chaos
Or maybe the joy of scenting a cat or a squirrel or something equally exciting can only be properly experienced from chest deep in the frosty leaves

We drowned our days in music
Snapping fingers on the front porch
Jazzing the heat with beach waves
The four of us joyriding                                    
Doo-whopping with the top down
It was our gospel            
            Our riff of salvation                            
                         Our syncopated heart             

My guy would wander over
At the end of the day
When he got off work
And the cool came out to play
My sweet temptation            
            My funky wonder                        
                        My untamed soul   

After the sun went home
And the kids toddled off to bed
We turned up the volume
On those moonlit smoky nights
Feasting on the rhythmic intoxications            
               Those mercy mercy miracles                        
                            Those streets just made for dancing      

She used to tell me things
maybe of no significance
like on her wasy to work
she’d angle the tail 
of the mustang
on her steering wheel
up or down
to signal her mood.

Who else would know that
about her?
And why now
after all these years
do I remember this?
This tiny detail
either does or doesn’t
make a difference
but its another layer of knowledge–
the dailyness
of what we can know
of the mind of another.

For entirely too long, I watch

videos of people eating

raw frozen caribou meat.

Salivating over a bowl of pebble ice,

I wonder why I want to tap my veins

like a maple syrup spout

to slurp the erythrocytes.

I feel like a bald queer Dracula.

My doctor orders labwork.

I drool as the phlebotomist draws my hemoglobin

through a straw-like tube.

Inside I am sure I look at least rare done

and I could go for a good steak.

The #6 mine closed
You missed daddy’s drinking
You missed the knife Mama
Mean as ever threw
Clear across the kitchen
Right before daddy got sick
The doctor took a lung
Blamed the smoking
But couldn’t do a thing for him
Then they all took to leaving
For work up north
First Tootsie then J.D. and even Poochie
So many trips to the bus station
Even in my sleep I see the Greyhound
Pull away and picture me
Running to catch it
No one left to miss me
You missed me disappearing
If you ever get out of prison                    
Come and get me       
I’ll be working in the mines
Over in Jenkinjones
I’ll be a shift worker
At one of the factories
I’ll be at Tech on scholarship
I could be any of those places
                                Or
None of them
Lost as I am
Without you, brother

I can’t help but marvel at the sunlight,
Jaundiced as it is mid-March, mirrored on grasses
And still-bare birch branches,
Its deformed late-winter luminosity
In this narrow hill-flanked field
Just upstream from Devil’s Kitchen Lake,
Is the same as that which squeezes through
The clunky orbits of moon and asteroid alike
To land chilled as a former lover’s fingers
On Pluto’s methane crag.
In a dazed sort of way, I, shrouded in sun
As I practice losing civilization
Here in deeply rural rust belt Illinois
Am a speck in Pluto’s future, basking in light
That will traverse those lonesome distances
The following 5 hours or so.  

Your future awaits at the end of this sentence.
Time travel, courtesy of syntax.
Again, into the unknown future, beyond the line’s
Faux horizon, hoping for a view
To erupt from the drudgery of dutiful grammar
Like azaleas spilling their monochrome marbles
From the fist-tight shadows, you wonder
If the crystal balls will enunciate such a view,
If they’ll include you, the perpetual dreamer,
Though in dreams you always move among the faces
You observe, scattering with the whimsy of dandelion
Seeds into the emancipatory gusts
Of the future, this time in cold front packaging,
That kind of detachment, and you realize
Capitalism does your dreaming for you,
Dispenses in doses, enthralls with doldrums,
And personality is more than just an excuse
But a suit, and then another and another,
According to bliss and occasion—
And, lo and behold, here you are
In the future, reconvening with yourself
Some 8 seconds later, the time it takes to
Pull apart blossoms in love-me, love-me-not prognostications
And the gibberish tarot they leave on the ground.