You Understood

The children’s meeting hall where I teach

is painted pale pink.

A memory of Mr. Croutcher rises

sitting at his desk in a 6th grade classroom

every wall Pepto Bismol pink on his request.

Rumor had it he was gay, hence the pink

since people saw his car at Bobby’s

but this day he told us jails and asylums

are painted pink to calm the patients.

He boomed at me good naturedly

“Rachel, when I say, ‘Speak up,’

who is the subject of the sentence?”

I had a sense, a hunch, but my pink tongue and lips

had no words for it. Pink walls abandoned me.

“You understood!” he shouted, “You understood!”

Once I did, I never forgot.

Walking the Burn…

…my new collection, available from Middle Creek Publishing on March 1, 2025

“If the life lived is the burn, then these poems are paths through this charred landscape that allow us to not only see what is scarred and wounded, but also the astonishing beauty of how things—and people—heal.”

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of Hush, All the Honey and The Unfolding

Post-Election Mourning Song

In morning circle, chins raised,

restless boys and sketching girls,

still flat chested, hear their teacher say,

“If you are like me and disagree that

you have only two choices, you can write in

a new candidate or not vote at all.

There is always a third choice.”

The next day, votes mostly tallied,

girls barely spoke, boys did not tell

of their fathers’ morning dread,

their mothers’ tears as it became clear

who their sons may soon choose

to mimic and their daughters’ hold

on their own growing bodies

would erode, unprotected.

When the teacher, his recent

sour mood noticeably uplifted,

picked up his guitar and began

to strum the morning song,

the boys and girls sang

along sweetly, as directed.

Throat a knot, I could not join them,

only nod, when they whispered truth

that afternoon among themselves.

Nov. 13, 2024

spontaneous circle

I walked into a spontaneous circle

started by a small girl, arms out, hands reaching

for the hands of unknown adults

heading for their cars

after the local food producers’ shindig

they made room for me, smiling

she spoke quietly, blessed the fire, the wind

the water, the food of this valley

looked at me, said, your turn

Pruning Nasturtiums

It hurts to rip them out

nasturtium vines, sweet blooms

green moons afloat on strings

smothering young lettuce

with shade, perfume

Hacked to the stem, I wait

They will come again, unspool

I will notice when

they are just right

potential Hydrogen

The calico Shubunkin goldfish hovered motionless

over water lily gravel.

Two days later, I touched his side with my finger.

He was not startled.

I promised myself to tend to him, listless child’s hand,

after a full night of sleep

and dreamed him as anglerfish, huge, blood red

with bulging eyes.

Come morning, I found him floating on his side,

a wilted quarter moon,

desperate, sucking the surface of the pond,

upper gill working

like a blinking eye. Why? Starvation?  Smaller

than the other

more aggressive fish, always last to eat,

if at all. Disease?

If so, I thought to scoop him out at once to save

the school, but, cautious,

read it could be simply water chemistry. Hard to believe.

Four days ago,

pH was perfect. I quickly fumbled out a test tube,

filled it,

dropped five drops and shook. It turned blue, a nine,

far too alkaline.

Shit Shit Shit. Was it decaying leaves? Maybe. Ammonia?

No. The drop in heat?

I turned on air stones, poured in the necessary powders,

feared over-correction,

my specialty, a wild swing toward acidity that could shock

and kill all four gorgeous fish,

more important to me now than dill, tomatoes, carrots,

beets, kale, basil,

merlot lettuce. I stirred the pond with a net

and prayerless prayer

measured pH once more, pleased it had already dropped

to seven. Balanced

on my knees on a six-inch board bridging the length

of the almond-shaped pond,

I set my fingernails upon the yellowed leaves of water lettuce

and trailing nasturtium

mimicking lily pads. Driven, I pinched off leaf after leaf,

each disintegrating,

fish-killing culprit. Then, in my peripheral vision, a swish!

The fish—what?—stood up,

so to speak, righted himself, whirled into the depths

from the brink.

I named him Lazarus. I am no Jesus walking on water,

healing the sick,

raising the dead. This was no miracle—simply the power,

the potential

of hydrogen and hope to orchestrate breath.

The Children’s Highway

they are calling it

as if a romantic name

and convenience

can ease the blight

of the long hard gash

the shock of shins

on white concrete

through a green belt

where my feet

prefer the parallel

sandy path

that breathes

and gives beneath me

Ways and Windows

There is a way to do dishes

              a way to make a bed for friends

              a way to play ukulele

              a way to feed birds beyond a window

There is a way to be stolen

              a way to stroke black glass

              a way to starve a lover

              a way to get lost in little windows

There is a way to hold a first grandson

              a way to sing him soft

              a way to wave from far away

              a way to be a cracked, smiling window

There is a way to write a thousand poems

              a way to move the pen

              a way to give the voice a bed

              a way to backspace across windows

There is a way to walk a sandy trail to town

a way to crack a piñon nut with teeth

a way to notice autumn mist

a way to not reflect upon a window

Crestone Poetry Festival is around the corner…

The Poemfest 2024 schedule and registration is live! Get ready for an unforgettable weekend packed with featured readers, live music open mics, poetry playshops, probing panels and unique, immersive experiences. We're pulling out all the stops to deliver a fun, creative, and magical time: a true party of poets! Best of all, registration is free to all events except for poetry playshops. Register for them here.

Goldie

The footlong goldfish belonged to a fashion designer who died last year of an aneurysm                    now it swims in our thousand gallon metal pond in the dark                       solitary as it ever was but in cleaner water                  after three weeks it still hasn’t come to the surface to eat                it swims in the middle depth gold glimmer swishing elegantly through greenish water               ignores aquatic floating plants        fledgling lily pads inches beneath the surface                too deep for the right amount of light                   colored pinches of flakes I drop to entice it simply float and disintegrate                  contribute organic matter to the dance of pH                     I tell Rosemerry the fashion designer’s young granddaughters told me the fish’s name is Goldie                     I scoff at the awful cliché of it                   she says We had a fish named Goldie once!                of course you did I laugh                   she pulls up an old video album from 12 years ago                   in which her living son narrates the lives of his two fish, Goldie and Food                       his boyish voice remarks upon their particular talent for searching sparkly blue rocks                   for pausing time to time to look in the mirror which they seem to enjoy                     between clips my friend had slipped in field trip footage of a large aquarium shark                          its teeth jagged and close                   swimming its own tank                   looking back at us through glass                   duhdun duhdun duhdun              spliced in for comic effect                 what boy doesn’t thrill at a shark                 I laugh at her clever production full of post-prescient dread and love               the soundtrack of its life approaching ours