this far planet, origin
of superheroes who can
repel bullets perhaps
having been raised beneath
this hail
hell
wind-swept every lightless day
from the star side
and umbrella-less
NaPoWriMo Day Seven prompt to use a news article as inspiration.
we’re down to icy slush, footstep-shaped
margins of grass or sodden islands
sudden lakes, squished plastic bags
sidewalk-washed downstream
the dripping we heard overnight a dream-
breath of spring, sheets too warm
the same winter birds but heard
with the door cracked
how things get ugly before getting better
like a healing bruise, the heart
churns, chugs, pumps again and
in winter’s dreg-end we sweep away
the debris
snow clouds re-gather,
cardinals chirp, crabapples
bright against full gray
and seed feeder full—how else?
some give; others only take
and butter, of course, though
our great society has long figured out
how to do fake butter
so now I’m left with these questions—
what about goat? how do I mourn
the loss of ice cream and every breakfast casserole
should I go to the garden walk with wine and ____ ?
I suppose there might be crackers
and how could a Texas girl with even great imagination
(I’ve hardly that) fathom these long remaining years
without a single enchilada?
and certainly, why now?
when so much of the joy has already slipped
my hermit days march forward
with stiff arms and fists
When you were in the hospital
I went looking for something
in your dark cluttered room—
you wanted your calendar—
and found my last custard cup
full of coins and old batteries
on your nightstand and knew
you had never asked to use it
but just pulled it from the shelf
as if you had right to anything
since we’d let you into our home
perhaps; but I took the dish back
gave you an old butter tub in its place
and yes I felt small but had I not
felt small all the time
Circumscribed by jail-fence, our privilege
to drop in once a week, we connect
a moment through this earth
fingers sweeping for carrot girth
radish shoulders (divided over kale)
notes on how your mothers make posole
how they worry
how they will adjust
when you finally come home
These kids learn plant
harvest radish lettuce carrot
crush basil oregano thyme
inhale incense of future pizzas
laugh sunbees & quietwords
tongue-burst tomatoes warm from the vine
in this fountaining the flutter
wing-dust and scattered
seed, greening
why should you not return
to heartening beneath
your one-note lament
and need for salt don’t say
it’s always the same
for when have you ever noticed
roses blown open to rain
robins food-screeching
in your window-tree?
cleaning frenzy downstairs the ruckus
of laundry and drowning perfume
birds dart tree to tree unable to settle
on this branch or that much less thought
but the pair of ducks on the neighbor’s roof-
peak: they stand, step closer together,
pause, step again, coyly dip their heads—
my half-cup of coffee still warm
you won’t say they’re unfeeling
the cable men digging a coffin-sized hole
obliterating a season’s worth of green
growing by your back fence—
if anything you feel
for them, waist-deep and it’s snowing
and despite your best compost efforts
the earth is still clay—
after all they moved
the plastic gnome smoking his pipe
cross-legged against the rubble,
serene
Graceful Press Poetry 