Spring is starting to fade
Summer is ready to get started
Berries are ripening
Flowers are blooming
Homegrown vegetables are right around the corner
I dreamed about this time of year
As snow and temps were falling
Though I enjoyed the hibernation
I look forward to sun kissed skin
Hello June, I missed you

Juxtaposition
Lightning and Fireflies beaming
Against the night sky

sassie 06/01/22 haiku # hmmm..not many so let’s say 6

Flecks of red pepper coulis
and shards of burnt crust
launch onto the table,
like baby birds chucked from their nest.
The particles, expats from her mouth,
concern me more than her words,
emotionally involved and traumatic.

Her story unfurls,
its tentacles unwelcome in my ears.
Every time we meet, her stingers
cause my skin to crawl,
and my chest to seize;
but I tried again anyway.

Instead of properly molting for spring,
I’ve shown up in full fluffy white coat.
Loneliness does not stalk me anymore
on limber paws or silent wings
through snow falling like tears.
My prey instincts have quietened.

I don’t have to collect people like acorns
when I am allergic to tree nuts.

My blood, my broth
my bones, my bullet
pocked blessings container
spins a slow arc
from sunset towards dark.  

Limbs collapse
like the mold
covered camp chair
we left on the cliffside.  

Mom’s brain went first.
My knees & fingers are going.
I don’t know who’s luckier.

For twenty-two years, I moved through steam and silence,

not because I loved the dark,

but because the work demanded it.

I knew the pulse of boiler lines,

the hum of pressure vessels whispering truth through their seams.

My hands, steady and calloused,

traced blueprints like braille—

translating risk into readiness,

chaos into code.

There were no parades.

No ribbons pinned when I kept the system breathing,

when I walked the line between shutdown and disaster,

between regulation and reality.

I earned trust in measured doses—

not by name, not by title—

but by showing up when the others flinched.

I mentored quietly,

solved loudly,

stood shoulder to shoulder with men

who didn’t always expect me to last.

But I did.

And I delivered.

Now the site is nearly quiet. 

My badge, still warm from long days,

Will soon rests in a drawer beside a folded vest

and the list of systems I walked from birth to burial.

They say the mission is all but over.

That the work is finally done.

But no one tells you

what to do with a lifetime of vigilance.

I scroll job boards instead of piping schematics,

wondering how to reduce

decades of fire-tested precision

into two pages of bullet points.

Wondering if they’ll see

the woman who stayed late,

who rewrote procedures until they could be lived,

who spoke with data and never backed down from pressure—

literal or otherwise.

What does a mission woman do

when the mission ends?

She sharpens her tools.

She rewrites the ending.

She waits—

not for permission—

but for the next place that needs

her spine of steel

and her gift for seeing the invisible fault

just before it breaks.

sparrow song at dawn and
sundrops along the walking trail
lit my brain with sparking neurons–
an electricity too fast 
to become finger taps later, 
emerging in letter-shaped burns,
black lines left
where an idea struck,
meaning smudged,
a half-remembered dreamscape

forward 

Press

Press

Pr             e
         s
                    s

Note: found/black out poem. Gaps represent blacked lines

The sound of soft wind in the ocean breeze
the skittering chirps of parrots in the palm
fluffy white clouds like slow floating boats
fluttering butterflies’ wild flower feed.
Myriad ways to refuel your soul.

Imagine 
17 years ago
You buried yourself under the ground to grow 
You fed from the root fluid of trees
Nestled deep in the dirt 
A naive, yet hopeful nymph 
You dreamed of the world you would awaken to
On shaky limbs you unearth yourself 
You birth yourself from Mother Earth 
You climb the nearest tree and hug its bark 
A shell of your past self left behind 
You take in the world and realize 
You’re surrounded by 
This 
Shit 

Hell
I’d spend all of my surface days
Screaming too

I would make the collective mating song 
Louder than a jet plane

What bravery
To make music 
During all the madness

You once said, “A woman must
have money and room of her own
to write fiction.

It’s a good thing I have no desire
to write fiction, to weave worlds
and make-believe into such a concrete thing
as a novel or short story. 

There is no quiet in our little house
and I must pluck the words from the air,
between making sure everyone brushes
everything that needs brushed, my eight-to-five
that pays the bills, keeping everyone clean
and healthy, and doctors appointments
that are always a day-long slog.

The phrase will bubble out of my oldest’s mouth
or drift down the hall to simmer,
to shimmer, in that shabby corner of my brain
reserved for self-indulgence,

and, later, with my hands in dough or folding laundry
or wiping another poopy butt who’s owner
hasn’t mastered it yet,
a poem will take shape, slowly blooming lines
and unfurling its stanzas that I must remember
until the chaos slows its swirl
and I can pick up a pen.

Don’t get me wrong, Virginia, I’m not saying
a woman shouldn’t have money 
and a room of her own. I can imagine
it makes the whole process of world weaving
easier, less rushed and harried. 

What I am saying, though, is that simmering
snippets of conversation, distilling the marrow
of joy and pain into words on a page
is magic afforded to everyone, 

regardless of money or a room of their own.