keep pace with an old crow’s shadow through the grass / stir up dust enough for it to linger / keep my composure / mind my training when i must / trace circles along one end of a rope / bond with humans and other animals / pull a cart / pull a plow / go blind and crazy without my companion / crush wild apples / trace a narrow stream down to its source / take shelter where i can / lie down to rest

wringing welts into hands
thinking it might
wipe the guilt away

i wish 

you would take the daring plunge
to self forgiveness
the fault isn’t yours to carry

god’s love is softer
than the whispers 
that tell you 
it amounted to nothing

My throat catches when I enter—such familiar
everything. My brother’s quiet kitchen. Home,
not mine but nearly. No matter how long
I’m gone, it still feels right. I drop my bags
and follow the voices, through the dining
room, up the stairs, and down the hall.
Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
My entrance. I see an Aunt Em looking at me!
And I see three Withenburys in a row:
my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew—
now finally old enough to turn the pages,
to squawk an approximation of “Em!”,
to swill water from a water bottle like he
means business. He remains a perfect
mystery, a mysterious perfection. I squish in,
it’s my turn to read the next page. (Good thing
I got here when I did.) We’re sardines in a tin,
peas in a pod, cards in a deck, like no time has
passed. But the lump in my throat says otherwise.

Oh, how I hated you
when you first came out.
The hype surrounding you
soured my stomach,
made me want to shout.
However, my sister was entranced
dazzled by your mediocre story,
and jazzy (scratchy to my ears) bops.
She couldn’t stop singing them
over and over and over,
played the DvD on repeat
until they were scratched
and couldn’t play the movie
smoothly, the bumps on its track
gone skewed, wack.

You would always be gifted back to her,
though, one way or another.
Mom and Dad buying another DvD,
watching it on the Disney Channel
on a boxy TV,
Nana buying you all the merch,
And Granny buying Disney Plus
so that you can continue to watch it
in your older age.

My sister is now 32
and she still finds enjoyment
in those High School Musical tunes,
for while the years pass,
her mind remains
at a young, innocent age.
Extra chromosome 21,
causing her mind to remain pure
but her heart to become poor.
With each passing day, we can’t help
but wonder, how long until the end
and will she outlive, even my father?

So, while I used to hate you,
your Bops to the Tops,
your all things Fabulous,
your I Don’t Dances, and
your Bet On Its.
Your Boys Are Back,
your Screams,
your All In This Togethers…
you’ve brought my sister immense joy
and many a storm you’ve helped us to weather.
You’ve better connected us
in more ways than you could know.
So thank you, too something that seems insignificant,
but has made my sister a world of difference.

she asked if I was with him,
you mean when he died?
hell no I said
he was with who he wanted to be

put Clarence Gatemouth Brown
on the Bose speaker
born in Louisiana
grew up on the Texas side
of the Cajun slide

VFW hostess, the ugliest woman
in the most beautiful way
I mean from the inside out
I wanted to take her out of there
right then…some place nice,

asked if we wanted to push
the tables back and dance,
god-damn with the ashes
right there on the counter
but we did

*****

bearing his crosses
stopped going to Saint Rose
of Lima Bean, stopped living
with his wife is what the priest
said but I was the one bearing 

five genius grandchildren
from another state
not knowing how weird 
weird can be with mourners 
mostly drunks from

the backroom bar and buffet
of cooked cabbage,
the hostess pressed her flat
chest against my back,
the priest never showed

after dinner, romantically,
at a wedding, with family and/or friends,
expression, shapes and form,
emotions, joy,
story,
connection, hearts and hands,
history and nature,
socializing, meeting new people, building with old,
culture, celebration,

to seduce.

I can’t do that.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Let someone behold you.

I’m ugly!…
I look ugly when I dance.

some people dance to look beautiful,
but I don’t have to do that.
I can find my own reason.

I want to be beautiful.

That is okay. You are not less than for wanting that,
or for feeling less than.

I am less than.

It is okay. States, not traits. Come home, where it’s safe.

I want to dance.

I won’t stop you. I hope you won’t either. <3
Hugs. Swaying. Still.

If there is indeed divine intervention
then why won’t He come down and fix this
Why does He seem fine 
with all the suffering

If it’s intelligent design
then why do these kids keep dying 

I can’t find the reason why

They say we can’t know God’s mind
or even question his divine timing
Logic aint really lining
up but it’s about faith
they say

one day

might be your saving grace

Today I heard Ai scraping was not optional to US residents
So, if you make something TRUE
They use it to train their Ai
So basically, if you make something
Meta owns it
So I declined Fb access to my gallery today
Don’t know if that means they would have “scraped” that too

I took several pictures of the moon
With my new phone
And close up videos of bunnies

I feel like I’m using my mom’s telephoto,
But when I look (zoom in) even closer I can see how lines of images have been created or guessed by the trained machine

I’m in awe
Of this powerful tool,
With it’s endless capabilities
As for recording songs you wrote, mixing them, making movies, eternal notepads,
lightning fast video upload and internet, incredible battery life.

We are living in a golden age

I walked to the old schoolhouse
Lined up six *kittle hearts
To pacify the beast

Fireworks for the baseball cats tonight
The breezy sunny day
(Hot, if you stood in the sun for more than a few minutes)
Melted away into a satiny evening
Really
the thing you most wanted
The kind of day
That you sit outside and then sit outside

And sit outside some more

The breeze is the most optimal temperature-I could have a sweater and it was 90 earlier, wasn’t it?

Earlier I saw a small, purple thistle sprouting from
what looks like the ruins of an old theater or department store, held together with those star shaped staples

And she told me that was where you’d have the graveyard. Right there in the city so you could visit your loved ones
Maybe anytime you wanted.

*cat treat

The sky blooms
             sunshower,
iron grove scatters
             crystal dewspirals
earthbound,
             their descent
the gentlest drum,
             window pane serenades
a whisper,
             a crack,
                       a point at which
the world breaks in

Hand over stovetop, 
the gap a spark of odd hope: 
the pleasure, why wait?