March still brown, not yet
green, relief of the in between.
I relish lack of expectations,
heralding holidays, demarcation
of calendar year like commas
in sentences and stanza breaks
in poems. That pause, breath
I inhale. Moment before affords
space for reflection and energy
to gather for tasks like rocks
stacked, each balanced, support
for the next, toppling over
haphazardly, as it is supposed to be.
I wrote for June 5,
thinking of butterflies,
but they were a week behind,
like everything else I love.
The archive says June 12.
The magazine,
tucked in some library’s hush,
must wait until next Thursday
to spill its colored plates,
its ghosts, its nets.
But I had already started walking,
mistaking
the mimic for the original,
the shade for the leaf,
the Mourning Cloak
for a memory.
So let this be
my false anniversary,
my misdated page-glade,
my premature wingbeat.
Nabokov showed
how to fold the carpet
so the pattern overlaps—
a butterfly pinned to nothing
but breath.
I remember Grandad’s orchard
with apples, pears, and plums
and near his hillside orchard
Gran’s pretty multi-colored mums.
Autumn would bring many colors
after a season of picking fruit
and hiking into the mountains
to dig sassafras and yellow root.
These simple mountain pleasures
were a blessing here on earth
like reading the classic poets
who crafted the written verse.
Grandad’s orchard was a special place
with many memories and good times
on a hill above the blackberry patch
and below the Virginia pines.
In all the squares people’s lips are moving.
They make no sound.
I shout at them,
announce the deaths of children,
tally the starving millions,
document the fool’s postures,
chat about those imprisoned without cause.
bemoan the dismissal of excellence,
list the lost futures—
raise the hand icon over and over.
Do they only see my lips moving?
Every time I get better, I get worse
Every time you’re gone, you come back
Dragging yourself out of the muck
A discarded nightmare come back to haunt me
Eager to wrap your hands around my throat
And hear the melody I scream, your name
Ripped out of my body, my dignity
A masochistic wheel spins in my brain
It replays only you
Like a hot iron to skin
I hear it crack and screech
Feeling the pain
Watching it shrivel
I’m so scared of so much
You coming back
You leaving again
You staying away
But more than anything
I’m scared you’ll never leave me
If your muses aren’t stopping in
and left you grasping for ideas,
grab a sharpie and try this exercise:
Draw the doorway to your childhood room
on one arm, and list three things
you loved behind its hinges.
Now draw the front entrance to inspiration
and the exit to boredom on your other arm.
Write the address above it.
If the block is still there under your follicles,
walk to the park or shop for groceries
in a short-sleeve shirt
and soak in everyone’s reaction.
Look for the faces
of your lost muses
as they blink back to attention.
The heat of June reminds me
of the year I spent in the log cabin,
prompting me to buzz my head,
no climate control and hoards of black flies
banging their heads against the windows
begging for release, not unlike myself.
There’s one bathroom, the size of me
with my knees to my chest and
my feet caressing the damp shower floor,
which never dries because a cold shower,
the only relief from the dried salt on my skin
But the cabin has two spring fawn
who don’t know they should fear me
and when it’s too hot to sleep,
I bring a pillow to the porch and sleep
under the stained glass sky with
the call of coyotes
and the company of turkeys.
I’ve noticed this
about goats: their
surefootedness—
it’s all a trompe-l’oeil.
When they land
precarious, they
simply spring
with dog-leg grace
to a new perch
(over and over).
Try it the next time
you cross a creek
or you think a fall
will be your last.
