no she’s not dead to me  

we just don’t talk anymore 

in fact, i don’t even remember

what her voice sounds like 

i bet if she opened her mouth 

all i’d hear is air or maybe 

a whistle or a thousand 

bees coming at me all at once 

buzzing & electric & full of stingers 

& pollen & she makes me wanna sneeze 

or scratch my own skin off 

& my words are never enough 

or maybe i speak & all she hears 

is sobbing or siri 

maybe i’m the dial tone on her cellphone 

a year ago she waited for her ex

boyfriend to pick up 

he begged for her life force back

& i wonder if all my ghosting has made 

me a phantom to her too do i 

haunt her like she sometimes haunts me?

am i dead to her? 

the problem with ghosting someone for 

the first time is that you will always 

remember them an afterthought, a wrong

turn to nowhere, separate 

divided teeth 

biting into the hand that feeds me 

my teeth just go through 

every time someone says her name 

all i smell is fumes like an aftershock 

& i still defend her sometimes 

bad aftertaste & backtalk she never lets 

me breathe anymore the weight of her

ghost permeates a room & she’s better off without me 

& i want to be her villain origin story 

but so many people have wronged her

i guess i’ll have to wait my turn 

guess i’ll settle for haunting her instead

Ollie Combs stood up for what she believed in
Or rather, she sat for it, right in front of a dozer
Meant to strip mine on her farm, take away the
Lush greenery for the profits of a coal hungry
Nation run by greed and lined pockets and not
By integrity; The Widow spent Thanksgiving in
Her jail cell, locked away for refusing to let that
Dozer through based on a deed that said she had
No rights to what sat beneath the farm rich land

Mineral rights, the broad form deed, a way to put
Profit over people, time and time again, a signature
All it took to strip away your livelihood for a rich-
man’s dollar, one piece of paper and a trace of coal

Twenty-two years slipped by of protests and hardship
Twenty-two years since Ollie “Widow” Combs put her
Life in front of that dozer to save her farm, her family
Twenty-two years too long, but not for Ollie Combs who
Never gave in to the black gold beneath her feet; not one
inch; she stood strong, took her stand, and won the battle,
hard fought, against Falcon Coal; an Appalachian heroine

The green lake slowly shimmers in your brown eyes.
We talk too loudly, and mercifully you do not mention
the blackness growing into a shadowed haze in mine.
Dark as mold, it creeps inward like pond scum to flood
and choke out blue lotus flower irises. We watch as 
the two white swans beyond the concrete pier dive
down to hell, rushing backwards in memory and time,
finding at the lake bottom: our childhood, my open heart,
and years later, your sad, pitying smile. It drowns me. 

Is it summer
or is it me?

Yesterday
I was evaluating myself
using numbers
I never do that
but a number came to me

I spoke across the table
and said to my husband:
“I think I’m about
75% today”

He silently nodded
to what I was saying
and sipped his beer.

But it was only 5:30
it was still so early

Any other day
I would have just said straight out
that I felt really tired
and even too tired
to have gone out
to this darkly lite Neighborhood Restaurant,
where the danger of falling asleep in the booth
was pretty high,
And I would have kept going on
listing my thoughts on
why I was so tired,
what I had done and not done that day
wondering out loud whether I should have
just stayed home

But last evening
I did not say all that
and I think my husband appreciated
the economy of numbers

When shards of strife
burden your life
let sudden pleasure
bring moments to treasure.

A scent, a caress
a whisper of trees

a taste that’s divine
a color that soothes

a breath taking view
some sweet thoughts of you.

Watch butterflies dancing
bright blossoms beaming.

Be open to bliss
a scent, a caress.

Let sudden pleasure
help your soul to relight.

When I was barely 8 years old

On the threshold of prepubescence and childhood

I visited my best friend’s family farm

That day both a rabbit and dog gave birth

Being young and naive I held the babies

Mere moments after exiting the safety

Of the womb

I cradled the babies

Gave them sweet kisses on nearly hairless heads

And returned them quickly to their mothers

Exhausted from birth and plump with milk

I returned later to find the rabbit mother

Had eaten her children

More gruesome a sight

Than Kronos consuming his own

I was told that my hands had killed them

My scent had made them foreign

Stranger to their mother

Who in her maternal mercy

Slaughtered them

I returned to the puppies

One I’d named Bandit

Who had a perfect brown patch around his neck

What I thought resembled a bandana

But should have seen as more a noose

For he did not survive the first hour of birth

He failed to thrive after tumbling into this world

That day I learned the power

That even my sweet, well-intentioned hands

Could have

My compassion was a harbinger of death

And I have loved cautiously

Ever since

A polished penny, 
From rain,
Shines in my direction

I try to spot the year
Without picking it up

A quarter with teal stains
Corrodes in the corner
I look for any misprints
I will find a million-dollar coin one day

I will

The thin soprano
of Grandma’s voice
singing ‘Ar hyd y nos.’

Stepping out of my car
to the fragrance of pines.
Welcome back to Chase Lake. 

Candle-lit church, multi-colored
robed choirs singing into
the early dark of Advent.

Shuffling through fallen
leaves, kicking the smell
of autumn into crisp air. 

My mother’s stories
the ones that were true
the ones that weren’t. 

Floating in the pool
wine and idle talk
as sun sets, moon rises. 

Long nights in hospital rooms
dozing in upright chairs
my mother speaking in tongues. 

Waking to silence, knowing
that winter’s first snow
has stopped the world.