speaking your truth
losing old friends
empty vase

Trump struts
              his triumph like a peacock
The successful drop
                         of 30,000 pound bombs
Speaks of obliteration as a beautiful thing

A shameless PS:  God, I just want to say we love you  

The ancients believed
                the regrowth of peacock feathers a symbol of renewal  

Yet that evil eye on the plumage – 

In Buddhism, it allows them to take in the poisons
            of life while still pursuing enlightenment   

But conflicts escalate, poisons perpetuate,
                         obliteration a vain figure of speech

So many nights
we almost came together.
We were young and life felt cosmically immeasurable
set apart from reality
       by whiskey and giddy social exuberance
there was a liminal space we could meet
for a moment
before reluctantly leaving the charged air between us
we could never talk about.
You went back to her
me to him
neither of us knowing that the other
also left behind the warm comfort and closeness of our communal friendship
       for a chilling lack of both 
       at home.

It seems wildly, laughably improbable
and also as if it was written in the stars
all this time later
to now
have a do-over.
Softer with years
worn from our respective stumbling off the path of
Happily Ever After
we never let go
and now just might find that moment again
       move beyond the liminal
       into each other’s arms. 

The aroma of cooking oil hits as we pull
into the parking lot and pass customers
walking out with slabs of lamb and pork,
custom bundles of frog legs, in-house
country hams and hams from around the world.

We head for the biscotti on the discount shelf,
push our cart down aisles of sauces, frozen dinners,
and find a half-price key lime pie for the holiday.
We compliment the produce manager on
the samples of local raspberries

and linger before tables and tables of baked goods:
eight-pound jam cakes with caramel icing made from scratch
and Grandma Opal’s Chocolate Truffle Cake Bomb.
Maybe next week we’ll eat at Butch’s Grill:
home style fried chicken and hush puppies

with mashed potatoes and green beans.
The cashier compares the herbs she rings up
with those in her garden and the fellow
behind us explains how he likes to cut his beaten
biscuits, butter them or eat them with ham.

Here is an offering

of the poor and weak

for an ounce of power, please.

We will attack you
if you don’t make peace,

if you don’t
yield up your bodies,
soft and bruised,
arms as thin
as olive twigs.

We will drop our
big, beautiful bombs. We’ve
already dropped
such beautiful bombs,
they sail the air,
precision doves.
They detonate
                peace
                       peace
                               peace.

It rings in your ears
in the aid line.
It rings in your ears
in Tehran.
It will leave you with nothing
except this
                                  peace.

It transcends
all understanding.

The geraniums bloomed in the shadows of the solstice moon
as the bombs fell

The caladiums grew wild along the old decrepit fence row
as the bombs fell

The bergamot released its sweet minty scent in the summer heat
as the bombs fell

The hollyhocks climbed up the sides of the tilting barn
as the bombs fell

The magnolia blossoms fell like opaque tears
as the bombs fell

The weeping willow reached to embrace the earth
as the bombs fell.

She could not grasp the dichotomy of 
what has happening.

Compelled to move
to prove we’re not dead,
we wiggle our toes and blow our nose,
issue decrees and climb trees,
change like weather in wind and degrees,
rhyme our time as if singing a song
pray each day we’re not doing it wrong