I once knew two babies
who shared one cozy home
both the same
hair
eyes
toes
nose
but one was eager to enter the world
the other a wee bit slow
one born on the 29th
the other a wee bit slow
born on the 30th
yes
we’re identical but different
uniquely born
each twin
with their own special day
Happy Birthday – Two Yous
The rainbow flag, once a defiant splash against the sky,
The name can change
as quickly as you adapt.
I name you
Pollutant of Fresh Water
Adaptable Octopus
Crab Killing Scorpion
I name you
Banana Bruise
Starboard Swelling
Irradiated Sore Spot
Cell Epidemic
Parietal Pressure
Parental Mental Block
Silent Symptom
I name you
Better Living Through Chemistry
Keeps Piling On
More Calls Per Week
Likely Relapse
Wall To Be Climbed
I’ll name you whatever you want
except the dreaded 6 letter word
that starts with “c”
that means there isn’t anything
I can do anymore.
can’t count on you to
make me full so i’ll knaw on
my own marrow to
save me from your deep
apathy for my cracked psyche
i can climb out of
the abyss you think you left
me trapped in. happy
to be away from
a shallow boy and
a life in your oppressive
solopsistic stench
Tongue lashings
belittled, battered, barated …
Like the tentacles
of
an
octucpus
squeezed the heart
wringing it so tightly—
swallowed into dark water.
It’s more difficult
to be on the receiving
side of the 1,2
3,4,5 of exercises
than let’s do 5 more reps.
He sat in His seat
before me,
created me,
set my soul free
to choose
from my own
creation seat,
a lifetime
of choice–
possibilities,
like a warm wind,
dance in the air
before me,
waiting for me
to choose
I choose
then, I
find myself
in a new
creation seat,
considering
what may
come next–
another choice–
an infinity
of possible universes,
waiting for me
Behind fading moon
mist settles down like a cat,
we sleep in coolness
Good morning Robin
could you come into my house
and catch my last dream
Summer flu
keeps me off riding mower:
lush clover for honeybees
midsummer malaise
vacation bible school students
run through God’s sprinkler
A truce with the Skunks,
still you must lecture a teen
who’s Squealing his wheels
All day I wish
it would have been different
until the evening breeze
At night I wonder
why so many are sleeping
under my pillow
When I write about my grandmothers
something happens as I am transported
to other times and lands and languages
juiced in majestic memory,
in a splash of the
ocean waves they traveled.
When I think I have forgotten a word,
a story, a gesture, a recipe,
it comes to me in the night as
grandmother moon transforms the
dark into gold that granddaughters treasure
in glass boxes lined with velvet.
Velvet of deepest purple, the
color of grandmother veins, the
color of ripened eggplant, the
color of budding cornflowers
in early summer
when the salt sweat drips down my face.
I taste the memory of old women
who traced their lives in migration, work,
desire, hardship and the pleasure of their
children, the dreams of their grandchildren,
tucked away
in glass boxes lined with purple velvet.
