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POETRY: IN PRINT & ONLINE JOURNALS
Secret-Keepers of Eastern Island
She Could Have Lost A Hand
Featured inVol 6, Issue 2, Fall 2021
Rocking Chair
The Bullet Guys and Me
FEATURED WRITER FEB 27, 2021
Clocking Time
The Impermanence of Sandcastles
The Haunting of Room 125 at The Campus Inn
SOMETIMES, WILD PLUM TREES WEEP
After Kelly O'Dell's 2017 art installation Remain(S)*
Gone.
My father’s first grocery shop, where once
he’d stacked bushels of sweet summer corn,
rows of watermelon, and peaches by the peck
outside the shop door, with the bell that rang
crisp and pure as a prayer.
Gone.
My childhood home, where once
blue hydrangeas and white honeysuckle
spread their roots beneath our front porch, and
dripping swimsuits hung along the rail.
Spiders knit lacey webs that lasted all summer.
Gone.
My elementary school building, where once
Peg Leg Bates tap danced across our creaky
gym floor, a wooden stump strapped to his thigh.
And when he jumped!—arms and legs straight out,
he looked like a starfish shooting for the moon.
Yet.
There, still standing in a distant corner
of the schoolyard, the small copse of wild plum trees
where once, I’d slipped between the trunks, into their
shady circle to steer a pirate ship, fly a rocket
or let down my hair from the castle turret, calling
to my friends, "Let's pretend...."
Now.
Overgrown, my once secret space gives me no entrance.
Along the tree trunks, glinting in the August sunlight,
amber tear drops cascade down the bark. I study
the bits of black, flecks of brown inside each drop, looking
for shapes of my past—a bell, a web, a starfish—
for something of me that remains.
* Museum of Northwest Art, 2017
BEFORE GRAVITY
Remember when we skipped everywhere?
Arms moving like counterpoint melodies,
knees rising, pedaling air,
ponytails swinging, whipping our backs,
slapping our faces.
Bouncing along concrete squares
cautious to never land on a crack
(even on days we cared little for mother).
Skipping swiftly, our bodies lifting from earth,
repeating that singular sensation, that beat of a second
when we were suspended in space —
no longer rising, not yet falling.
So light, so light.
STAR 82 REVIEW
ISBN/EAN 13: 1499371276 / 9781499371277
MiPOesias
ISBN-13: 978-1499708882
MOJAVE RIVER REVIEW
HOW TO TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF A TRAFFIC TICKET IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
And Officer, it was as if the tree reached out from the woods,
just there — do you see the slick of leaves and snapped branches?
And the rain beat down so hard the wipers wept
and my eyes stung with smoky mascara. Sir,
the mascara — it’s not supposed to run. Why does everything run?
And that pine fence blew loose, blocking my path.
And the funeral, it’s started by now, and I’m not there, sir.
Lo siento, sir. It’s getting cold. You have snow on your mustache,
sir. Yes, so easy to brush away — still, snow can smother a boy.
Lo siento, sir. My papers must be here, buried in my bag.
Do you have children, sir? Niños? You’re lucky. Perhaps
it was the mailbox I passed — with its latch undone. And I was wondering,
will the casket be open? Do they do that here? I was wondering,
will my son’s blue eyes still shimmer beneath his brittle lids?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TWO APRONS
She hangs the gingham apron loose around her neck. Frayed grosgrain ribbons edge three pockets. Sewn in her youth and stored in her hope chest, the apron hangs low over breasts heavy as breadfruit. She pulls wooden clothespins from a pocket. Bites them between her teeth. It is laundry day on the prairie. She hangs her man’s clothes — lets them stiffen on the line. An errant rooster feather clings to his shirt snapping in the wind. She plucks it off and tucks the bit of red in her pocket. She will tickle him with it later.
She pulls the butcher’s apron over her head. Wraps the ties twice around her waist. Her white sheath catches drips of red as she lifts a tray of beef scraps. It is hamburger-grinding day. She pushes twenty pounds of cow through churning metal teeth, blends it into strings of red meat. Smeared with blood by the end of her shift, she flicks errant bits of gristle from her chest, wipes the knives clean against her white thighs. She will cash her check at the corner bar — lick white foam from atop a stream of beers and kiss any man with clean nails.
CATCH AND RELEASE
Father’s thick fingers bait our hooks and cast our lines,
sending shimmying circles across the lake. When
the ripples smooth to nothing, I sigh, as if with them. I am five.
Dragonflies helicopter overhead. My line jerks with my first fish —
too small to keep. Father releases it — it’s mother-of-pearl scales glimmering
in the morning light, cold body undulating deeper until it disappears.
Shrimp carapace scattered on a white plate. I am twenty-five.
The difference between the wind in my hair and the wind on the waves —
nothing more than quarks in motion here or there.
Buttery fingers wiped on white linen leave the DNA
of ancient crustaceans. On the table, a splayed lobster tail,
crab shells sucked dry and the diamond ring I’ve cast aside.
I slip from the room while this man who once seemed so alluring
takes a call. Survival is a question of instinct, moving this way
rather than that. Seeing the bait bag for what it is — an illusion.
NAMING AN HEIR, A PARENT
THE SQUAW VALLEY REVIEW
ISBN 9780988895331
SILVER BIRCH PRESS
"ALL ABOUT MY NAME" POETRY SERIES
SOUTHERN BOUND WHITE GIRL
Traveling slow as heat along the Dixie Highway
we pass bare bottom brown boys digging in dirt.
An old woman sits outside her one-room shack
fanning her skin, creased as dried mud.
Further on, a khaki-covered white man
sits atop a horse — rifle in hand.
Bound ankles shuffle, chains clink a dusty song
and twenty sweat-soaked black backs
bend, digging a ditch already dug. Across the field
a bright Georgia road sign promises
Peaches Grits Biscuits Just Ahead
____________
White Only Colored
I am six — sunburned pink
I follow the arrow for Colored
SILVER BIRCH PRESS "ME AS A CHILD" POETRY SERIES
