thirty poems isn’t too daunting when you’re in love
Thirty poems is
chill, when you’re in love. All I’ve
got is this haiku.
Thirty poems is
chill, when you’re in love. All I’ve
got is this haiku.
I see it near the trail’s fencerow.
Bright white lying against the lush greens of sumac and honeysuckle.
The white leather Nike looks brand new.
Bulky dad sole, ugly enough for a privileged tween to launch
unwanted into the scrub. Not in this poor county.
The shoe glares like a flare, bone white.
It’s too clean to have been left by floodwater.
Dropped here from a tornado?
Mud scoured by wind?
Bibles, wallets, photos,
tufts of pink insulation
found for a hundred miles.
It’s weird, wrong.
I stop walking.
But, I don’t move closer.
I can’t allow my eyes to look for a foot in the shoe, an ankle jutting out,
a body camouflaged in the Johnsongrass anymore than my mind can bear that
we created the horrors that strew pieces of us in fields and deserts all over this world.
The dog would know.
She’d alert me.
She’s confused at my stillness.
Wrens and robins drown a distant siren.
Above me, a confetti of barn swallows swoop and flit.
The dog knows the path; I let her lead me away.
5 minutes ago it was sunny
30 minutes ago I was forcing my way through a pizza
1 hour ago I was unclenching the steering
Wheel
2 hours ago I was shivering by lake Como, struggling for breath
favorite ice plunge
3 hours ago we righted a flipped side by side, thankfully no injuries
4 hours ago I was again struggling for breath atop the mountain range
But right now it is raining and I desperately miss my old Kentucky home.
There is a note
In my phone
And it just says
Try
And I feel like
I need to say
To my past self
I will
I went to the DMV today.
And I bet, upon reading that sentence,
you told yourself a whole damn story about going to the DMV.
See, you don’t need no stinkin’ poem from me.
I read somewhere
that Sputnik 2
along with Laikas body
circled the Earth
2,570 times
before disintegrating
in our atmosphere
How can that be true?
I saw her pulling
Helios’s chariot
just this morning
In my waders I feel big, rehearse what I’ll say
to you while fishing trash out of the marsh,
and after, sitting in the cordgrass, turning pods
until the seeds pop out, waiting for a sign
while garter snakes slip over our shoes.
Despite the gloves, you splintered your
hands with Japanese rose. You hold them
close to your face, mumble something
about your grandparents’ cattle and living
fences, then place them palm-up on my knees.
Houses are for birds and homes
are the places from which we run away.
We can paint them as many pretty colors as we want-
but there’s no guarantee the inhabitants will stay.
Spaces shrink, and the memories seep into the walls.
You can outgrow the structure and fill all the space-
move from one house or home to another,
and still feel stuck in the same place.
Home is a never ending reckless hope,
that pulls at our soul.
An unfulfilled promise
that eventually takes its toll.
Do not roll your eyes.
A woman lives beneath this armor.
Look at me.
When rain comes, my only want is to dry your shoulders.
Look at me.
When winter approaches,
my summer wants to warm your limbs.
Look at me.
When the fight in our words will not quiet,
my love cries for a slow kiss.
Please,
I like your color, my beautiful cardinal.
Look at me.
