basted sweet sweetly
sugar-rimmed burnt to
the pan of heat hot
scalded sticky with
pure, pure love

like I love my
kids – like I love
the fade of sun
to moon; the melt
of snow to spring

he loves
me and I look
to him, at him

through him

and I swear, I
must have been
a saint in a
previous
life.

tomato green, the leafy romaine, the
bulbous yellow-skinned squash

Cool sun streams through -
early spring molecules dance
to the frosted ground’s tune

Warm, warm, dark friend!
Cuddle the seeds tamped sweetly -
embrace the roots that
will burst against you
as you soften

Rise to the air young babies and
fill that negative space, keep
those fence posts company

and weep freely in the breath
of spring’s full-on promise.

weighing you down

I know it to be true
by the slump of your
neck carrying

all that bluster of
head and brain.

Sometimes you
work up a smile
even still and

I reach out to soften
your calluses
but your
hand

is already waving
farewell.

Often mummified
in hormonal gauze -
Fogged with their burdens
of emotion and heart -
alas, their strengths.

They wander with aim -
some bravely, with their sisters.
Others charge ahead ugly -
later miserable with the lonely
chair they’ve chosen.

In the end, it is their
walk to walk – no fault
but their own that they
lazily dropped their
eyelids when
making the
journey.

.

Written for:  http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

it all smells so familiar
so don’t think you can
pull one over on me

Me, who has tasted your
thick whiskers prick of
tongue and skin so
sweet with whatever it is
you do all day.

I remember it all, so
don’t duck me
and act like

we never happened. She
may go about her day arranging
furniture, but I just sit on mine
seething and wish
for your demise.

The least you can do
is say hello.

.

Written for:  http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Cramped clutch clawing
at that last snip of clarity
before the storm

O that storm!

Batten down the hatches -
it’s raked her sky
many times before

Lifted her skirts overhead
and broken trees already
bent with compassion
toward her risk -
Dankest murk
enveloped and swollen
at the seams of her

Yet still she runs naked
through it – to it and
screams from her chest
blown open painfully

but with a pure love like
none other
bleeds sweetly

from her pen.

Tick of type -
alone inspired
day shut down and
I’m fading late

Nothing really to say
but soak in the day
on tomorrow’s
lovely cusp

Sufficiently alone
in a sleeping home
and time to
gather my rest.

Drive of arm up, up, up
then back downward
waxing the wall and like
magic, aged-white
marked heavy by
smoke curls lashing
near-gray, now

coated clean
with the smoothest
and quietest of
clear blues.

I always danced around
who I turned out to be -
swirling in her presence
just to see if you’d bite

You usually did, but
I’d want too much and
we’d go our separate ways

but most of you I still
remember fondly and
all of your birthdays are
burned into my memory

even though I have
a tough time remembering
my own children’s.

.

Written for:  http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

beating the tar out of the
place we sat just last week

our first major purchase
made in our coupledom,
bought with my brokerage job
bonus (remember?)

now food to the flame
crackle and spittle
broken down wood ash
and it seems it should
mean something

something symbolic
something weighty
or dark – about us

but it doesn’t

it’s just heat and smoke to
warn the kids about and

crumple of dusty fabric
to pack away until the
next trash pick-up.

You, just down back
burning the couch.