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I am daughter, sister, cousin
niece, aunt
I have long been mother, teacher,
caregiver, friend
I was wife life times ago
Always I will be mother.
6/5/25
KW
This morning
I will write a poem–
not about the challenges
of my house–my daily toils.
There is one thistle poem
I need to write about, challenges
for future fescue hay rolls.
——–
It has one bloom, magnificant,
but I will destroy it today
before its seeds, white fluff,
——–
mature, wind blown, indignant
to the poem’s protest, as is its way,
better suited for Mikinos’ tough
burros’ mouths than angus cattle.
I Bleed Blue.
Kentucky girl,
through n through.
a southern hint
when I’m pissed.
I like basketball
and barbecue.
pour sugar in tea
until Jesus tells me.
I Bleed Blue.
curse traffic daily on
gosh dang new circle.
my love for quilting
is practically genetic.
bake pies till midnight
with butter for days.
seems I’m homesick
just crossing to Cincy.
Cause I Bleed Blue.
Let moss whisper
a flood of stories
long forgotten—
murmured not in words
but in velvet hush
on the surface of stone.
She speaks slow,
syllables green and damp.
She has no teeth
but grips
what we drop—
names, bones,
the seeds of prayers
never spoken aloud.
She covered the boots
of a man lost in thought.
She kissed the back step
of a house swallowed whole.
She grows on old pews
in chapels the vines
gave last rites.
She remembers
what we meant
when we first sang.
She holds lullabies
no mother recalls.
If you kneel close—
closer—
she will tell you
how the mountain learned silence,
how deadwood still dreams
of leaf.
She is the psalm
before paper,
the balm
before wound.
Let moss have
the last word.
She will not shout.
She will not forget.
The rumors of her mother’s wild affair
were golden! Golden as the fire,
but never so close as here in the city.
Clandestine, her husband bored with her
babbling neither listens nor speaks.
Surprised by sunlight,
hatched from sleep
one of us remarked with laughter
“as for Evil, it became too much trouble.”
We all look on disorder with relief.
The thin hands of trees blow away,
waving goodby,
until nature was a white, blinding thing.
As for evil, it is the steel trap and the fox.
Long have I toiled at this thankless task –
red as any ink and the air
is silent of cures or praise.
I assure you, the new language will come.
I learned it for love. It is the antidote.
I, if not beautiful, am beauty’s maker.
***
Author’s Note: All lines have been taken from A.E. Stallings book, Archaic Smile
We are reminded that we too shall die—-
time, like snails, moves faster than we expect
2pm on a Thursday, mouths stuffed with red grapes,
white wine in your cup, vanilla ice cream on my lips
How innocent indulgence is, that we’d partake in it,
forgetting that too much pleasure makes pain all the sharper
It seems like when
I try to write
about the other parts
of my life,
my brain will let me
two, three days
of the whole other entirety of my existence before I fall headlong back into writing about my husband that
died that time.
I think
the temptation you might have is
that the two days of all Maude’s creation is
some kind of
Vacation from agony but
No time with my love
is a tragedy
even just here
in these words it is good.
It is good.
I am good.
