SELECTED POETRY
Waking up in February Rain
Gray has entered my body now, inhaled deep
like the long, slow drag of a chain smoker.
Granite sky, a few weak threads of sun.
This winter has lasted years.
My dog Raven prances as I put on her orange raincoat,
fasten her leash. Children from the corner preschool
pass on their morning walk, each one holding on
to a long, knotted rope like beads on a necklace.
As we walk down our front steps a boy shouts
“Dog!” and the line comes to a halt.
Raven sits and accepts strokes from each small hand,
my dog a monarch at the head of a receiving line.
How can I not smile at these glistening slickers,
rain boots printed with mushrooms and dinosaurs?
There are green shoots in the muddy parking strip,
moss velveting my stone steps. Ear alert, Raven pulls me
into the soft gray day, her nose to the wet ground where
every rich scent has its own color, its own taste.
Repair
The two of us climb steep stairs
to the tower of prayers and relics.
What were we fighting about?
Behind a crown of red rocks, the sky,
saturated indigo like the hydrangeas
in my grandmother’s yard, is cloudless.
Frayed prayer flags wave from pinon and juniper.
A man in white overalls climbs a ladder
to reach a carved figure gazing down
at stone paths, copper prayer wheels.
He fills cracks in the statue’s face,
sands them smooth. My hand
finds yours, that river-polished rock
I love to stroke—the one
I feared was lost. We watch
as he polishes with a soft cloth
the soles of Buddha’s upturned feet.
Flame is Just the Fire You Can See
He held the dollar up and lit a match.
I watched through a crack in the door.
“This is what you do to my life,” he told
my mother. “You destroy everything I make.”
I watched through a crack in the door.
Flames lit his face, a flare of wings.
“You destroy everything I make,” he said.
Shadows froze inside my chest.
Flames lit his face, a flare of wings.
Bills curled into ash and floated down.
Inside my chest, shadows froze.
I never asked about that night.
Bills curled into ash and floated down.
He held another dollar up and lit a match.
I never asked about that night.
“This is what you do to my life,” he said.
Published in The MacGuffin
Vol. 39.2
Fast
When I headed down the hill to meet that boy
my bike chain fell off and I flew without brakes
past the stop sign on 17th past 16th toward the dock on 1st
fell off sideways into a skid scraped my leg
but loved the speed the wild wind the feel of my heart
pinballing against my ribs I heard my mother say
You’re not going to make it to 14 if you don’t slow down
and I remembered that fast
was what they called the girl down the block
who showed up to school pregnant the year her mother died
the other mothers clucking behind her back and I knew
my parents had no idea what I was up to my father
locking the door if I stayed out too late trying to teach me
to remember my key not knowing
I braced one foot on the railing one on the sill
to climb up to a second story window where I slid through
on my stomach and right into bed, one arm
around my stuffed rabbit the one with the pink satin ears
Published in San Pedro River Review
Vol.15 No.2 Fall 2023
LAST SWIM CLASS
Published in The Delmarva Review
Vol. 16
In the shallow end of the swimming pool
children surround my daughter. They climb
onto her shoulders, hang from her arms,
say goodbye to their dripping goddess.
I will not think about her leaving tomorrow
for college. Douglas firs lean into the chain link fence.
Between wind-blown boughs, a glimpse
of turquoise. Summer sun illuminates
waves around her, droplets of water
sparkle in her hair. I smile, give a thumbs-up
from my white plastic chair. Her newborn
spine was a string of pearls beneath my fingers.
One minute she is a painting from centuries past,
illuminated in golden light—the next
a laughing girl in goofy pink sunglasses.
Daughter, you cannot see how brightly you shine.
We push quarters into the rusty soda machine.
Cold bottles clunk into our hands. Let’s take our time,
drink this effervescence as slowly as we can.