WinterReaching from the ground a woman's arthritic hands cracked dry with bark and the loss of children trying to fish in the grey cloud ocean for pinprick light from cosmic depths the snow falls like from an old black and white classic with Gene or Grace Kelly singing about cold sunshine love.Winter
LoveThis year for Lent, I am giving up Love. I’m giving up roses I’m giving up Hallmark I’m giving up paper hearts I am giving up God. no more stitching others’Love
congenital hearts back to paper perfection. No more store bought chocolates in glossy soulless boxes. I will cross out the initials on every tree in town. Don’t think I won’t stop the forty minute drives to find you sleeping on the couch, not even dreaming of our plans, because I am giving up on broken hearts, broken eyes, empty stomachs, &
Gasoline Smile SisterGasoline smile sister with the pretty blonde hair and poisoned drinking well- water eyes, I share yourGasoline Smile Sister
blood vein choked heart, full of forgotten names and dates, the sleepless nights make my hair grow long too, like yours when your smiles were only ninety cents a gallon. And though my freckles don’t match yours I can tell you’re in pain like a bird at sea with no place to land and my soul aches for yours, the sting still bitter on both our breath but there are no words to fill the gap love- loss leaves and all we have
When I was in a cultWe always drank hibiscus and mint tea out of chipped porcelain teacups, their gaily dancing Elizabethan women faded into forgotten smiles. When I was in a cult the elderly women wore their blue-vein war paint proudly and spoke in grunts and rough hand gestures. Certain words were banned for our protection: Haptodysphoria. Sesquipedalion. Absquatulate, but we didn’t need them anyway. When I was in a cult my eyes were innocent and hair plaited like my sisters’, mothers’, aunts’. My fingers were tree bark, the ants my fWhen I was in a cult
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Tired
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A poem begins with a lump in the throat. ~Robert Frost
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