wordweeds

More beautiful now
Snow rests upon new places
Full bag of dog doo

2019

Despite the time
Change, I slept,
My body its own bed
Of buried salt water.
Lithium infused, my dreams
Lounged around
My edges like fat elders,
No longer self-conscious
Of saggy arms draped
Along pool ledges,
Outstretched like a hug
Headed nowhere.

2019

after Nathan Brown

To the touch, my face feels
like a bloated marshmallow
when I wake, the kind
about to slip its skin over fire.
Puffy, warm, loose. Not so
fine lines and nearsightedness
combine to make memories rise.
My mother’s voice in her late 40s,
50s, 60s, 70s, before her vanity
on a small red-cushioned
wrought iron stool
in the master bathroom,
magnifying mirror parked
like a goblet of mercury.
Hearing my morning approach,
lifting a folded, cold wash cloth
off her eyes, wide blue and bright
with disgust at her body’s betrayal,
she would bark, “Look at these eyes!”
and jab an accusing finger
at the soft face, not the mirror,
that has always loved me.

2019

Though there was that boy with Florida
Eyes who listened to strange, blue
Music yet smiled like a guiltless child.
A child with muscles, cool tennis shoes.
Football player, track runner, woods walker.
Rain chased him everywhere, across fields,
Over water. He couldn’t escape. Neither could I.
Not on the sail boat on Lake Springfield
Where we fell asleep, ever virgins, prom night.
Not in his dad’s blue-black Corvette, hugging
Back road curves through corn to Riverton.
Not in the woods on our backs looking up
Into yellow leafed hearts of giant oaks.
Not in the catfish slip of the Sangamon,
Dangling legs daring the river-cut cliff.
Not in my basement’s windowless dark
Where an endless kiss could end in salt.
And it did. We did. On the frontage road
Witnessed by headlights and stars.
I couldn’t hold the bruised cloud of him.
He drifted off, past Tallahassee, Atlanta,
Over the panhandle, casting a shadow
The shape of a boy all the way to Illinois.

2019

For Sue Ellen and George

Teacher of my teacher
Shares morning snow
With my pen

2019

Ivory tower dismissal for being too personal,
I banish you to ice-locked thesaurus
of endless abstract synonyms for objectivity.

2019

For Sue Ellen

Piñon filled window
Unwashed dishes and bodies
Usurp a timely arrival

2019

When you have kids and dogs,
that’s all you have, a grandmother told
her daughter once, who later told me,
a young mother bemoaning the slow
disintegration of my precious things.
Dog-scratched leather couch.
Ripped loveseat. Urine scented rugs.
Walls smeared with strawberry jam.
Shattered handmade ceramic bowls.
Vomit-stained, dog-haired car upholstery.
Kitchen table scarred by knives and forks.
I fantasized a future in which my stuff
survived mayhem. Now it has arrived.
I can guarantee: when you have kids
and dogs, you don’t even have them.

2019

Trail divided lengthwise, half mud half slush,
each foot struggles with different problems,
like a brain walking a body alone through piñon
while simultaneously overlaying an older scene:

a dog’s tail wagging yards ahead and stopping
mid stride to run back to check she is still there,
past and present always gathered beneath her,
beneath each moment like two competing feet.

2019

His bare, warm face
My favorite herald
Of spring

2019

Fearless my youngest
Son refuses tasks
Of Sisyphus

Ascends simple hills
Descends on skis
Risks slips

To soar and switch
180 degrees
Masters steep

Snow slopes
He assembles
Himself

2019

Tiny horizons
None are forgotten, all traced
By eyeless snow storm

2019

Picnic table
long white cushions
a snow feast

2019

Turn toward a door
Miss clump of wet snow
Slipping off lamp post

Cloud drapes wide shoulders,
White scarf blown back
In the face of Crestone Peak

2019