To Day
Here is what I bring to you, Day: A restlessness haunting the hours, Like the moon behind the trees—here, And here, now here. A belief In the core, the place of origin, Creek water walked in as a...
View ArticleMy Brother’s Glass Banana
When he was 10 and I was 13, He pulled out all the stitches From my baseball glove And strangled a GI Joe with them Because I called him a pansy And a lily-ass and something else I don’t remember...
View ArticleT-Ball
The boys running the bases like rabbits scurry to far-off places, not moving toward targets—just moving. Montie Jean recalls the ballgames she played as a child in the dusty pasture where milo died...
View ArticleIn Dead Grass
In the field of dead Johnson grass, The red-winged blackbird landed. It swayed the desert-colored stalks With its weight, then held its place. Like a swollen tick plucked from a dog Then dropped, it...
View ArticleWithout
Each morning has stopped being the same Though the dogs don’t pronounce this. It’s something in the sound of the car Responding to my touch, something In the sleep left in my waking bones. Last...
View ArticleA Winter Dream of Spring
Let’s get lost in a ditch where the hoary bindweed grows, where the sun is at half-mast and the wind won’t reach our toes. Let’s pretend it is forever spring And the May apples call to us In their...
View ArticleAbandon
I am looking at you through a window I work to keep open, through the world At 50, and I’m seeing a landscape I had not anticipated, a life waving In this still image from the abandoned garage We found...
View ArticleYour Skin
I came to you after the scars, came to your skin In our fifth decade when it wears its past, Two pale circles at the base of your spine Almost glowing in the dark, and on the other side, Your navel...
View ArticleHolding Your Hand
We parked the truck and stepped out Onto the road that used to be a highway Of my childhood, winding through Mayes County To the Grand River bluffs, where my mother Said hobos made cave camps and where...
View ArticleAlmost, Almost
We wait for the crabgrass and dandelions and wild onion To shuffle aside the fall leaves, our feet crunching What has died, our attention focused on sun and wind, The beauty of not-yet-spring, oh but...
View ArticleIgraine’s Letter
It is not a chaste kiss One wants from another Who is the focus of drowning Desire It is not that Merlin: a life of magic with no love –only obsession at the end yet His empathy for Uther His empathy...
View ArticleThe List, The Poem, The List
I am not a poet. I don’t understand poetry. I can’t write a poem. I am not poetic. The mantra of negatives, Half spoken truthfully, Half intended to hide The fact that You are a poet. You do...
View ArticleNuisance
for Ken The burn pile is full of branches You wrested from a neglected arbor. They will light the November sky When we find the perfect chilly night. In my living room, you left The artwork of...
View ArticleEnter Reaching
Red. Yellow. Green. Hint of blush and falling leaf, Necessary as bread, sweetness of life lived Out of time and in the stolen, hidden moments We forget even as we breathe them in. Red. Yellow. Green....
View Article13 Welcome Back Things
Since we met over a year ago, Ken has sent me lists. He says he is not a poet, but I tend to disagree. Here is the list he sent when I returned from a long weekend in San Diego. Red Dirt Redbone Hounds...
View ArticleWhat Remains
Cabin fire by Ken The ravine is littered with fallen branches From elm trees refusing to become corpses, With the crumpled bark of sycamore And the decaying cedar that crackles Like popcorn when you...
View ArticleAfter October Rain
You lie on the naked bed, the sheets Finishing the spin cycle, the trailer walls Shuddering slightly with the motion. One cat is at your feet, the others Line the rooms like Egyptian statues On guard...
View ArticleJanuary
Shower the world with crackling leaves, Dead and limp before but now firm From frozen dew, this ground your signal To the creatures you watch in the night. Shower the broken places with jangles Of icy...
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