Undone diction
etherized upon a table.
Is or isn’t. In or out. For or against.
Ones, zeroes, x’s, o’s.
Klaxoned opinions clamoring.
A crisis indeed.

Many nights I go to sleep
a teenager and wake
up as an old woman. Mid-
life plays out in dreams

Since dawn Jesus has walked the streets
with different faces and portable PA’s
expounding on hell Jesus has nothing good to say
before the flowers come roll down the road on wheels
on floats made of roses and rice and lentils everything organic

we are called to rise when our souls awaken
collapsing over the edge of an orange sun
moving through its own heat
we awake from the deep
blue hair mussed
we are called to rise beyond the blood of the blind

Courageous Frida, icon to millions
who know no more of you than your eyebrows
on the t-shirts your face adorns,
what is your name worth now?

In two weeks’ time, I will depart,
and you will see me fading out the doorway,
disappearing from your time and space.

Nothing, no one ever leaves completely,
and so you will not see or hear but sense
the presence, the silence, the smile/frown

For years the school bus took the same path
past your grandmother’s house—just uphill from yours

each day the fields flickering past,
sometimes filled with corn,
autumn filled with hay bales