Transgressive Horse at Teatime
Apples, carrots, and oats
are fine enough fare for a goat.
But for this equine to dine
calls for fare more divine–
prefers scandal alongside her toast.
Apples, carrots, and oats
I believe it’s going to rain
here in a bit
both the sky and the forecast predict
my thoughts drift to realism
the fact that life can take a turn
or two or three and perhaps
it’s perfectly acceptable to look forward to the rain
to anticipate with open hands, ready to splash about
march through puddles, watch through a window
allow what seems an inconvenience to morph into a blessing
and sometimes we choose, don’t we
how it will all turn out, whether we’re saturated and changed
or left simply standing in the downpour
Wings all a flutter
floating your tiny body
midair, hovering
as you pull sweet nectar through
your efficient siphoned beak.
Give me a moment,
it will come back to me,
names pressed into my life,
notes embossed
on sheet music.
I heard our heartbeats,
fast lub – dub over
slow steady maternal sounds.
It’s like breathing in deep
without exhaling,
without dropping a beat,
silence between notes,
silence that is melody,
one moment, breathing,
the next moment, still.
I cannot talk about that day,
I never could
say even a word.
No goodbyes,
only an X-ray cocoon,
a Monarch Butterfly,
wings folded
between cushions
of pink endometrial tissue.
It will come back,
a dream of
blond curls that bounce,
blue eyes like my mother’s,
and the sky,
full of wings,
lifting and drifting,
like the melody
before the stillness.
Today’s our Anniversary
Happy Anniversary to us
34 years ago
I pledged my love
Forever
To the man who
Looked into
My soul
And
Saw his Soulmate
Before that day
We each carried love
But there was a missing piece
When our souls connected
It sparked a new heartbeat
Two hearts
Forged
One Heart
Once, as a teenager, I called
my parents from the dungeon
of a hospital’s laundry room,
with its bank of phone booths,
its humid heat, its rattling tumble
of dryers, to say their son was dead.
In the instant of trying to tell Mom
and hearing Dad in the background
I could not imagine the words to use,
could not explain the cold-hearted doctor
who evicted me from my brother’s room,
or my sister-in-law’s hugs or the nurse
who pulled my arm then put quarters in my palm
or the woman from housekeeping who
slotted the coins and asked for our number,
our number instilled in me from infancy,
the only one we ever had: 442 – 0406.
She dialed. I tried to remember why.
When all my best poems come from pain,
Sunrise, Sunset
Lying in bed, burning
with the night’s heat
shared unexpectedly,
the way the sun burns
through an early fog
that hides the way ahead.
A different bed, shivering
with the day’s betrayal,
equally unexpected,
the way the air goes cold
as the sun reveals a new way
between horizon and storm.
(after an undated and untitled image by Roman Rivera, seen at https://www.facebook.com/share/jvRhzGtfuZLF6Frn/?mibextid=WC7FNe)
