A Mug’s Life
coffee aroma
hot pour
brim full
steam halo
sugar drizzle
cream splash
spoon stir
clink clink
lips sip
drinker’s ahhh
coffee aroma
hot pour
brim full
steam halo
sugar drizzle
cream splash
spoon stir
clink clink
lips sip
drinker’s ahhh
My eyes are closed at my drafting desk
And I am scraping a little residue of concentrated evil
off the surface of a reality pressed against ours
Very delicately so as not to tear the membrane
Essentially using a teaspoon to remove paint from a balloon
But the teaspoon is narrowed and dense intent
and the paint is a grey thing that moves like a kitten
But sounds like a train’s compressed air breaks
which shrill at long distances
in a human way but at a jarring volume
I will isolate and neutralize it before it enters here
By showing it my favorite comedy movies and feeding it
Egg yolks, broth, lemon juice
Rubbing olive oil on its sharp little nose
So it quits coughing distilled fear onto the couch
washing it with dawn like oil spill ducklings
until the water stops running thick,
nose bleed red
salting its bed to remove the stench of malice
scratching its ears through black latex gloves
Until it stretches its blurred uncountable legs
and purrs
like a great engine churning in reverse
from an unknowably malicious goal
The sweetest growth
has been getting to know her voice
held at quarantine’s length
for far too long
while watching her videos
over and over
just to hear her speak.
Time passes
and the world has healed
enough at the moment
to allow us more chances
at being physically together
where conversation
draws us ever closer.
Her voice
now sings to me
even in the written message
from cute to sass
to a growing love
that will see us
through any separation.
The Queen of Hearts
Made vinegar tarts,
meticulously while we watched.
With cinnamon, sugar, and raisins piled high,
we ate them while waiting for our suits to dry.
Her judgmental rasp gave way to a laugh
swelling from deep in her chest.
She taught us and quizzed us on nursery rhymes,
a test of which cousin was best.
I focused my eyes on the tea towel
the one with the family crests,
Our family was Spanish Armada,
invaders of Ireland’s coast to the west.
In the darkness while everyone slept,
I carefully crept to the wooden buffet
to sneak sugar cubes from a cut crystal bowl
then lay wide-eyed until next day.
The tarts were almost a delicious treat
that she almost had let us help make,
never quite as sweet as one would have hoped,
but we all pretended for her sake.
Wild chestnut hair blows
across his sultry sable eyes
that glimmer, sparkle and
hunt me down
as he sits barefoot in nature
cradling his cello
cascading waterfall as his
backdrop.
Coquettishly he smiles with
a roughhewn shadow on his
chin captivating my full
scrutinty.
Classics and pop ignite his fingers
Lighting my fire
with youthful awakenings and
longings of Yesterday
when it was all so new
as morning dew.
A time when I lived a life…
instead of contained to
isolation
clinging and clawing to
stay safe on my desolate
island.
His melodious fingers draw me
in to a different time
a different place with yearning.
She knew the answer. Still, she had to ask.
Pushing the envelope is her thing.
Can we hang out in my room?
“We” are she and the new beau.
The response comes unapologetically.
No. (Just) no.
Common areas only.
My smiling eyes intend to soften her disappointment.
It doesn’t matter if she’s old enough to buy her own beer.
It only matters that we, her parents, live our convictions.
After all, she lives at home with us when not in school.
Call us crazy. Call us old-fashioned.
Principle, a small great matter of dignity and respect, is non-negotiable.
The world may call us whatever it wishes.
Being prophets of reasonable boundaries isn’t easy.
When has parenting ever been easy?
I think you know the answer.
Age strewn boulders rest
on steep terrain, lime green,
sky blue with lichens grown,
carpet of fern, white-haired
golden rod, rhododendron,
mountain laurel understory,
canopy of hemlock, cucumber
magnolia, hickory. A shelter
deep, secluded in a U-shaped
bend in the canyon. Iron ore
deposits sinew, weathered proud
of gnarled walls, stacked
in foregone faulted layers,
gurgle of a faint cascade
could lull a cool adult to sleep
as fast as an infant;
stretched above, across
rock house expanse, an arm
of sandstone thin and elegant,
a great grandmother, sage
and steady, reaching
down into the crib of her
granddaughter’s new born.
Arch of stone, fragile and resilient
as the ferns which grow beneath,
dainty, yet defiant over epochs,
of earth’s incessant tug.
social distancing uncertain as a blind
date
not six feet but four, or two with
friends and family
some look into my
face, smile sweet as a kiss
others hug
their feelings like misers, eyes an open
vault to guard from robbers, the alarm
never stops ringing
COVID’s lesson:
we need each other
quarantine makes
human contact tender to the touch
