Cowgirl
A saddle back heart
Reigns loose, head back
Laughter only wind can hear.
This time is different
she is sure
she is not the same anymore
there is something that draws her in
will he be a friend or lover
time will tell
it doesn’t have to be one or the other
maybe both that’s ok
you need to take a chance
that is the only way you will see.
it requires a leap of faith
starting over in a different place
life holds no guarantees
let’s take a chance
She walked to the end of the pier to
My better
Angels,
I have restocked the travel kit
with extracts and suspensions:
calamine, for
Like sumac, ivy, and oak,
sometimes in a grove,
up a wall, to the canopy
I’ve crawled just to feed the birds
yet left you burning in my wake.
drawing salve, for
The aftermath of the blow I struck
splintering my own makeshift raft
to pieces, to bits
using the first sharp heavy stone
I found after my waves
crashed us into that shore.
eugenol, for
Your broken tooth.
When we met, I never should have
punched you in the mouth. You
never mocked me,
nor tugged at the braces
on my ankles, my vestigial toes,
nor placed them there to begin with.
witch hazel on a branch, for
Whatever purpose you see fit.
coarse dirt, for
Scrubbing away the dumb graffiti
now that I’ve covered most of my walls,
your soft shell, your goosedown wings.
I was too fucking lazy
to open a damn dictionary,
or to run the gotforsaken
spell check feature that’s
built into the system, for
Fucks’ sake. I lost any
sense of relative bearing that way,
as always, letting up,
getting sloppy when I should be
triple-proofing the charts.
lanolin in a square tin, one
fine-tined silver comb, pure
hot lye soap, strike
anywhere matches, placed
on a dish besides several curls of
fragrant birch bark.
Ephemeral waterways boil today,
but walk with me still,
let’s go as far as we can,
see when we reach water
and I can wash my hands or,
if we walk far enough then,
maybe, for us,
You can
at least at last
call in the tide.
Neatly dressed
Hair in place
Boys in ties
Girls with soft white gloves
We form a circle
Under the ballroom chandelier
Boy, girl, boy, girl
Taking turns, exchanging partners
Waiting for that moment
My hand in yours
Yours in mine
Your smile, your smell
Touching through gloves
The fire in our hearts
Sitting at the pine kitchen table
bathed in morning light
trying to forget . . .
writing to remember . . .
how the wave of your wand went “poof”
all hard edges instantly soft
a loud crash at the kitchen window snaps me out of my
writing reverie
i open the door
perched on the rail i’m greeted
by a bright eyed bird
staring deeply into my eyes
my heart tells me
you’ve been struggling to stay on this side
thoughts of our indelible “family sign”
the one about three birds
flying into our front window
any time we had a family member laid out at the mortuary
bird’s stare entrances
dove tells me you’ve transitioned
tells me you’re OK
tells me not to worry
phone rings . . . John the mortician our family friend
his voice low whispers, “i’m sorry . . .”
morning dove, you told me you still tell me every time i hear coo coo ~ coo coo
The neighbors
fireworks are just
far enough away
from the fourth
to be annoying
A glance at your
phone reveals
it’s past midnight
The feeling that
June is almost done
crashes over you
like the waves in
Santa Monica
They knock you
to your ass while
he watches and
laughs, pointing
Still, you sit there
like an idiot and
let the water lap
at your chest
Because with you
everything, much
like June, ends
in quiet defeat
I wish I was a sun-croaking cricket—humming through my humid days.
Finding salvation in the short summer. But, I’d bargain for the bareback
Hammock of a horse-fly—outlaw, taking a free-ride away from free will.
