the tomatoes were luscious
on a bed of radicchio with a dash
of salt, peper, and olive oil

I watch my body walking on the beach.
Today there is no wind. 

The Sargent Schultz in my Gulag 13
shouts “I know nothing!”  

He suggests I imagine something
to grab hold of.  

It’s all that sky that makes him crazy.
No missus, no fire, no wiener schnitzel.  

The beach is empty.
Even the sand is silent.  

I don’t hear waves in the penumbra
lapping at my shore.  

1.   
There was never a prison
There was light
There was a breeze that moved
The tip-tops of trees the swish
Hush as branches brush-
Stroke the sky          

2.   
There was always a prison
There was darkness        
There was air so heavy
It shut every door a rush
Of metal that made me forget
There was a sky  

Peeling white rickety doors open a 
black tobacco barn.
Smoky, dusty leaves, rafters of cobwebs
curtain a lifetime of memories.

We were the antithesis of antebellum
but new paint, new draperies, new owners
could never erase stories.
 Bones now on the garden tour.

Oh sisters.

Do you remember the 
sweet breath of a new calf?
Cold, dark winter morns witnessed 
father kneeling, pulling, saving.

My hands then calloused from twine,
stacking haybales because
“Didn’t your Daddy want a son
instead of three daughters?

We flew like the barn swallows,
away from skeleton rafters,
lessons tucked under our wings
of all kinds of failed love

Except ours.

wind in the reeds
sings like ghosts

blows on the pipes
of the dead

who have no breath
of their own

One thing I don’t do
is startle the cat
with loud trash bags
or swoosh back
the shower curtain
when he asks for water
as if I don’t care
that it makes him jump,
change his mind
about thirst or whether
he can trust me,
as if I think he needs to
get over it 
because the world
is full of trash bags
and shower curtains,
so he might as well
get used to it, no
one thing I don’t do
is cause him alarm, or
make him feel unsettled,
one thing I don’t do
is abdicate my role
in his feeling of safety
and one thing I keep in mind
is the consequence
of my own two hands. 
                                                   

a therapist asked me
“so what does poetry save you
FROM?
how could I answer seeing  
myself at the bottom
of a deep
well with no
escape the sky
gone
nothing but
cold
empty
dark?

If you can’t find
joy and
you’re weary of
tragedy 
find whimsy catch the
wind and……fly

The toad overload                                                                                                                                        in the road                                                                                                                                              stopped me still.

And I wondered:                                                                                                                                          Where are they going?                                                                                                                              Why are they exposing                                                                                                                        themselves so blatantly,                                                                                                                          boldly?                           

An army on the march,
or, should I say, on the hop

What is their end game,
these toads
who look at me askance
as though I have no chance
against them?

Very unnerving
and quite disconcerting
this toad overload in the road

“Write poem,” I tell myself.
“Be profound. Offer insight.”
“Reveal something new
about the universe. The
human condition.”

So…I think. “Uhmmm.
Well. I could–
nnnn…
how about?…”

Nothing. Big ‘ole
nothingburger.

I “found” nothing, 
much less something
pro-found.

Then, I see you.
And you see me.
And you smile.

Suddenly, it’s
all there.

Poetic.
Human.
Real.

We move toward one another–
gravity heavy, as at the event horizon–
words no longer needed
for that which follows.