Two sisters.

All blonde, black velvet and sparkles,

amongst the church poinsettias.
The enchanted mother pulls out a phone

and captures earlier versions of herself.
Should I tattle

when the youngest,

lying on her back

beneath the pew,

begins to draw

on its underside?

In the dark, I pass a Schwarzwald. Pine trees drip and drool in the obsidian pre-dawn. The thick black copse is cold and damp like a grave and thin frozen firs scrape the dirty oily sky without giving shelter. No lingering for me. I feel unease and the apprehension that Hansel and Gretel should have had. Dank, inky winter forests drive ice worms into my soul. This dense night wood …

Chasing Rabbits Your first treatment you mercifully sleep through. Your first chemo and you sleep and sleep and sleep with your IV’ed hand propped on a pillow cross-stitched with magenta hibiscus blossoms. I’m glad you are oblivious to the gory war stories recounted by your fellow infusionees. Your gentle hand twitching, lip wiggling, and ankle rustling show me that in your dreams, you’re chasing rabbits– You and Queenie, your beloved …

I wonder what she would tell me if I could understand Like spies of any age, I want the key to the code that will unlock her secrets. Oceans Secrets of the deep Our desire to know drives us ever deeper Struggling to crack the code Yearning to understand our siblings Whale, Orca, Dolphin Do we really want to know what they have to say? Rivers Secret patterns of movement …

Waiting on Life The silhouette of an old woman rests against the window of her car. A red light gives her time to muse. She remembers translucent memories and holds her gaze steady. She is long past the memories of porcelain words uttered in false wisdom, broken utterances dropped like smashed plates on the dinning room floor. But she remembers the drive home. Seeing bronzed faces of men, Men with …

Sinking Daystar I have seen 23,011 sunsets or so. Each one different than the night before. Each one a newborn, crying out on an early eve. There is something about a newborn cry. Your heart opens wider just at the sound. Your eyes are softer. Your soul more gentler. Their inch high fingers touch the sky. They enkindle the heavens. The clouds light up. Laden booties stamp golden dust from …

Hokusai’s wave Stands still in time, Each tiny drop perceived, Its foamy edges clear, Far off Mt Fuji Fixing its location, That single wave That certain day. Hokusai’s wave Has been around the world One hundred thousand million times And touched the shores Of every land with bordered shores. From beginningless time Hokusai’s wave’s been drawn to heaven And joined the procession Of clouds that drift and sail Across deserts, …

Home is where the heart is, the saying goes. I bow to my gypsy heart And the many places I have loved. I. Oklahoma I was a child here, Feeling the way only children can– Learning what children learn– All life around me mysterious– In touch with my senses Of touch, smell, taste, sound. Pictures petrified with companion feelings Remain. Storms turning the mid-day skies to black Send us running …

Water wheels grind wheat and corn, drive the bellows that heat the iron furnace. We think we harness the water, in reality we are only borrowing its power. Paddle boats roam the rivers, the rivers that provide their power. Steam engines, invented in my own back yard, combine fire and water for greater purpose. The mighty Susquehanna powers a dam, the dam turns water into electricity. One leads to the …

I Stardust and a twinkle in your eye converge, you and I become we. We love and become us. A seed becomes a tree. A mighty redwood, statuesque ever reaching higher. A cedar of Lebanon, wizened bearing witness as centuries go by. Their roots a deep foundation. A dandelion, numberless as the stars in the sky wild and untamed. Their seeds take to air, carrying wishes and potential. A divine …

In our garden, Grown over From years of inattention, We find what’s there And work to set it free. Here’s a holly bush, Strangling From the death grip Of a honeysuckle vine. Under the cherry tree A rock garden emerges From beneath the grasses And fallen twigs. Out back we hang The rusty metal treasures We’ve uncovered. Chains, pieces of gates and boats, Weathered garden tools And buckets. An old …

Words are tough enough, and now you tell me to measure them in meter and rhyme. To dress them, position them like fruit in a bowl. Words, ink blots, charcoal smears, audibles, never good enough, always second best. Word sage? Please, tell me how to put fire words on a cold line, tell me how to save the gut words that drown in my throat, the ones that never reach …