poem
Blank Page
We love a blank page, actually.
All that possibility can go
anywhere forward or back.
I once drank spiders under
the porch or they drank me.
Sandbox sunshine glittered far
from the school bullies.
My aunt’s willow tree hide-away
down by the stream was a house
I could not see from a distance
and did not care to visit. We
bring our childhoods with us
if we’re lucky or not, and fingers
that once learned to play
scales now type softly to
tinnitus in one ear.
Ladies Lunch
(For Cathy)
Limned in the undersea glow
of the choice, fish-tank table
at the DLC, we meet
to swap news or secrets or
maybe truths. We dispel our
mothers, invoke our children,
compare mittens. What do I
want in a real friend, really?
Someone less heartless than I.
One clear-sighted and pensive,
who wields both hammer and pen,
who calms her anxious student,
who breathes French toute seule, and paints
cabinets blue. For me’s the friend
who respects hibernation
and stealth, who nudges me toward
my black fears and… Continue reading
Misty, Windy, Gloomy
Misty, windy, gloomy autumn
has arrived. The outdoor palette
has witched over from green to reds,
browns, and ephemeral oranges.
When the sky darkens and the sun
goes down, I wonder if this is
the last time I’ll see daylight, if
the world will founder in the night
and take us all down with it, like
a doomed Titanic, like Pompeii
daring its friend Vesuvius.
But they are only rogue children
at the door, disguised and eager,
satisfied for the instant by
another candy bar, a spare,
clinking coin in the dragon hoard.