A LONGING LONG FORGOTTEN
Outdoors, I find gifts for my son:
White, hollow snail shells
Rocks with holes or bits of glimmer
Fresh dandelions.
On nature walks, his dimpled hands
Point, gather, receive.
IF IT ALL CAME APART
One day the boats were all unmoored
and pulled into the sea
They drifted till, by storms and time,
they sunk mercilessly.
MY SON
I don’t know why your mood can shift like a cloud
why you’re unhappy after breakfast
not wanting to stand on your new step stool and brush your teeth
You’re twenty months and ten days old, my son
and you cannot tell me what pushes sundry feelings to the surface
and you may not even know yourself
SELF STORAGE
“Self Storage” read the sign
(a little worn with time, like the best of us).
An intriguing idea, so
I pulled into the parking lot,
meandering inside.
Compass From Wreckage To Grace
Rain folded the frozen earth in her arms, said
“Let me embrace you awhile. Let us transform.”
A world hard as geode, scintillating.
Glassy overcoats of ice for all the trees
Lovely changelings, till the branches, with dismay,
Succumbed: the new weight pulling, cracking, crashing.
PASSING STORMS
Lightning trembles across the night sky
White punches which glaze the deep blue darkness
in shades of purple
(a bit of royalty, a bit of a bruise).
BENEATH THE LEMON TREE
Death kindly came to visit me, and though I first was scared,
He has a busy schedule, so to come must mean he cared.
He stood beneath the lemon tree, which never does grow fruit.
The summer sun shone brightly down as we eyed each other, mute.
OF LOVE AND IMPERFECTIONS
My baby slurped at his bottle with a commendable, if not alarming, focus and ferocity. One would think he hadn’t eaten in ages, when in actuality it was more like two hours. Towards the end of the bottle, his eyes fastened onto mine. He stared in the unabashed way of babies, then his face broke into a smile. I grinned back, my heart melting.
“What am I going to do, not smile back?” I teased.
FREE PAYPHONES
Lend me your candy cigarettes
White smoke to cancel black regrets
Steady now, too sober still
No drink can swallow down this pill