POETRY
DROUGHT
​
Riverside dirt
was the bed
in more generous weather.
Now, smooth gravel and unnatural debris
tuck the edges of barely-there banks
and cracked, ash-dusted surfaces
make haunting patterns
of parched
parched
need.
​
Plum Tree Tavern 10/11/2020
​
COVID Holiday
The steam of too hot tea
on another eve of absence
blurs my view of holiday lights
in the window.
We shouldn’t ask a memory
too much, I know,
but I do know the gift of you
unmasked and near.
I reopen you each day
in this distance
and your light, as certain as sun,
is bright and clear.
Our past laughter layers
like harmonies
in this wrapping and unraveling
of quaran-time.
I wander in our memories,
asking them too much,
but you surprise me with great comfort
every time.
​
Splintered Disorder Press Jan 2021
Writing in a Woman's Voice Blogspot
Dec 3, 2021 Dec 4, 2021
Gyroscope Review
April 2022 - Audio Poems
boats against the current
Sept 23, 2022
March 2022
Bird Slam
Our windows
are not that clean
but the birds hurt themselves
anyway
and I startle
from a page of prose or verse
like we crashed into each other
in separate skies
and both fell,
but not to the ground.
I stare up and through,
blank,
until I find words again.
They are on the floor,
which page?
Uh yes, the perfect pairing
of butterscotch with light.
Yes,
there,
lift.
June 2023
ICY IN SPOTS
Red neon blinks
like it celebrates the danger,
and we take it, as tradition dictates,
as a triple dare
to trundle out
with calendars as stuffed as our bellies.
The car warms
and one of us begins the annual tale
of sliding tires
in a spinning car
before seatbelts
when I70 was only two lanes
and Grandma folded her body around
the tin of her powdered pecan cookies.
“Nothing was broken!”
we all yell together,
referring to bones and cookies
but not in that order.
The person holding this year’s batch
feels the weight of their responsibility,
and repositions the old tin
for the fifth time on their lap
as the car pulls out.
The details slip with each retelling.
It’s not always Grandma who protects the cookies,
but it is always those cookies.
And the ending still keeps us on the road —
Nothing is broken.
​
December 2023
Beyond Scale
Our love is a jazz trio
in last-set energy
with expanded structures
and smoky-toned fusion.
Wandering in melodies
of our own inner worlds,
we hold pauses like brinks
just long enough for longing.
We roil the melody
with solos rising and spilling
toward each other without caution
in scattered wholeness.
Even the bridge’s
wild independence
is at the mercy of progression.
It tangles back and reminds us
we are home.
​
January 2024
