If I can, I want to spend the day outside with you and then go for ice cream with the smells of earth and strawberry custard tickling under my nose

Knuckles grazing as walk back to my car so we can drive back to my place to let sweaty limbs intermingle in thin sheets as kisses clash teeth to teeth

If I can, I want us to sit in my bay window sipping tea out of mismatched mugs looking at stars before the moon pops out in the bluesy black night sky

Knees knocked so close together as if we are supporting one another up with crowns of our heads exposed to ink black nigh of wonder and delight 

If I can, I want to lay my chest upon your back as hot water showers down on us and the bubbles of my soap shine iridescent from the overhead light

After we can wrap up in dryer warm towels deciding which parts of life we’ve enjoyed most with one another as a twinkle of memory dots our eyes

If I can, I want to sit beside you as we drive aimlessly down country roads with mountain air blowing our hair every which way but never in my sight of seeing you

Later to sit upon rocks above a tiny waterfall still cool from the slickness of our naked bodies but hot from the sun that so quickly dries us out 

If I can, I wish to love you for as long as the world allows me while being in moments of silence and brilliance that ebb and flow with no awkward force

To spend our days in ways that bring forth more curiosity and delight that enlighten me with the excitement of joy and longing 

when the new hire had never heard of the Monster Mash,
the way they mime phones with flat-palmed, hand flippers,
when NFTs came out and I said, “these are digital pogs,”
they’re calling it the late 1900s now,
when Snapple Elements came back, and I remembered how lovely the rain tastes

lost
the
forelegs 

it
used
to
pray 

composting.

seeking.
sifting,
stirring.

pondering…
meandering…

picking.

it won’t be ready
until tomorrow.

(i am going slow.)

Granny etched our board
into the earth.
Dirt paper with a stick pencil. 

Barefoot 
we collected our pieces: 
snail shells found by dusty feet,
then washed cold 
from creekside mussel hunting. 

The water rose.
Our pawns turned into boats. 
Checkers are meant for smart folk,
we were too poor. 

But Granny had buttons
in her wicker sewing basket.
She placed them on the brown inside
of a Sugar Chex cereal box 

and we were rich again.

God created the animals first. Then he said,
Let us make humankind in our image.
According to our likeness. He spoke to them as kin
and said Should we give them this chance?
Together they chose the word dominion. 

The animals gave us permission to play
one role in a world they’d already built,
regardless of us. And dominion,
from the Latin dominium, see dominical,
you’ll find it’s just an adjective for Christ-like.
To be in dominion is to be in service,
a simple title, an act of love.
God and the animals trusted us
to be gentle in the love of dominion.

These days, they watch our crass
stomping around and wonder about
our joylessness. Where in the world did we get it?
And why do we carry it around when gravity 
graces us so much forgiveness. Rest now, they sing
in the air and the sea, for what is reward
without joy? They know we have forgotten love,
which is the same as forgetting the Lord’s real name. 

Patiently, they watch us, the bees and the cats
the dogs and the clover mites, all wait by our tiny chests
as we rise and fall, up and down, in and out
against the brims of life, of coffee cups, our steering wheels,
and bathtub boats just hopping across creation
like we’re big. Screaming like we can live without love.
They are always in conversation about us.
Where are they going? The animals and God
blow wind, and sand, and so many sounds around
the earth as if to ask louder than they ever have 

What on earth is all this fighting for? 

She is a queen
Dancing on magenta clouds
Envy of the evening sky
Ponders why
She doesn’t dance among the stars
Her spirt shines so bright
The moon knows she’d be an asset 
Adding sparkle to the team
She knows it’s among the clouds she feels at home
A place her heart can freely roam.
Here she is free to be 
The  queen of her own dreams

SLB

I am the creature who floats through life,
         allowing it to unfold as it does
I am the creature who dreams, the gentle one,
         the giving one who empathizes
I am the creature that swims with the flow
I am the creature that follows my dreams
          transported by
          music and dance
I am the creature that rarely thinks about
          ambition and wealth

I am the creative creature 
          lost in my own little world
I am the creature who is a visitor in this time, in this space, and
          passes through in the moment
I am the cryptic creature with my emigmatic ways
I am the peaceful creature who
          enjoys material comforts, yet has no desire for
          money itself or worldly success
I am the creature who holds quality in high regard
I am the creature holding purity highly

I am the creature that values intellect
I am the creature who is a work in progress
I am the creature feeling deeply
I am the creature for whom everything is alive
I am the intuitive creature who sees
          what others feel

I am the creature whose intuition goes deep
          without any conscious effort, connecting strongly
          with the sixth sense
I am the creature that feels energy around me,
          reading clearly all those I encounter
I am the creature that moves between both worlds
I am the creature with close connections to 
          the spirit world
I am the feeling creature who knows
          the dead are present

She called from Louisa, the mouth of the holler slurring syllables like muddy water dragging branches downstream. Said she missed me. Said she was coming. Said her husband was helping his ex-wife again, and the anger bloomed like bruises under her tongue.

I said come on, I said I could use some family time. But what responded wasn’t a cousin—it was the ghost of every drunk and addict I ever loved or tried to save.

She poured herself into my ear like whiskey from the bottle— confession without repentance. Memory opened its floodgates: the sister with a needle smile, the daughter who vanished into a high I couldn’t reach, the husband who coughed blood in a hospice bed, the gurgle of his breath sounding the end of our story.

I felt selfish for wanting her to stay away. But selfishness is what we call survival when it wears a woman’s name.

And I wondered— what fork did I miss, what turn off the path left me standing here, again, at the edge of someone else’s undoing?

There is no one left but me. She has burned her bridges into ash. Her trailer sits borrowed, her bank account emptied by the price of being needed by a man who wrecked her toys and called it love.

And I— I have peace now. A husband who doesn’t shout. A home where silence means comfort, not warning.

But guilt—it is a parasite with clever hands. It tells me I should, it tells me I must. It whispers you are the last one she has. It never tells me what it costs.

I want to unlearn the way I was taught to hold burning things.

And yet— there’s a voice beneath the floorboards of my chest, saying if you were good enough, clever enough, holy enough— you’d fix it.

Some part of me still believes I am going to hell because I cannot save the world with casseroles and calm phone voices.

I am not a shelter. I am not a sister-savior, cousin-caretaker, mother of the broken and the breaking.

I am in the remaking. The child in me still watches from beneath the floorboards but she no longer runs toward the fire.

I am not cruel. I am not heartless. But I am not the answer to a question she refuses to ask herself.

I light a candle for her pain, then shut the door against its storm.

This is mercy too: to love someone enough to let them find their own way home.

Even if part of me stays kneeling, in the dark pew of my own doubt, whispering prayers I don’t believe— forgiveness for the sin of survival.

And still I ask: Was there a fork I missed— a kindness not given, a visit not made, a silence that echoed too loudly?

Or have I always walked this road, faithful to the map of my own becoming, learning too late that not every call must be answered just because it sounds like family.