Look to the warmth
Cast your line into the soft static of six days from now. Feet up, warm cup, and let someone in. One who’s been down. Yes, that’s the one, my love.
Out of our heads!
Nights at the round table!Spouts of hot teasloshed into cups of tiny china.Cards and clinking glasses,glinting toothy smiles!One nods offafter too many Jameson’s.Piggyback up the stairs,unfold him into bed, hah!Open … Continue Reading Out of our heads!
Blackface
When I woke upthis morningI laid there for a bitIdly went to scratch my nosethen nearly had a fit Someone else’s hand was there,with skin of ebon brownI ran my … Continue Reading Blackface
Hurry hard
Each of us wanted safety.Father, from trouble’s horde.Mother, from father.We chickens, from the storm. All of us were running,and love was hard pressed to keep up.Adolescence held confusion, guilt,and strange … Continue Reading Hurry hard
The stairs, the stars
I will want my eyes open if I can, when it happens. Don’t stay if it’s too hard. But if you do, you might see, in my dry eyes, a … Continue Reading The stairs, the stars
Foreigners
If you would, talk some sense into me. Or, just talk some sense. I am in short supply, you see. I have broad and muscled shoulders from clenching the etched-in … Continue Reading Foreigners
Quakers
I know why you couldn’t shave anymoreI used to think that you couldbut needed to be touchedI think, now, that something told you“What’s the use?”and you agreedand your hands and … Continue Reading Quakers
A dream Dad, a burning yearn.
Why’d you lead me into corn-stubbled hills? This mind of mine swirls with overthink. Come on, old man. We’re supposed to be waiting by the highway for that Buick to … Continue Reading A dream Dad, a burning yearn.
One track mind
Tell out loud how good coffee lingers like nicotine fingers. Remember now how a curly head kid had to keep up with Dad, no proffered hand, in a strange land … Continue Reading One track mind
Waste not, want not
For his end time, we flocked together from our compass points, and gathered by his bedside. Like the fresh faces on Auntie Em’s farm after Dorothy’s dream. In his life, … Continue Reading Waste not, want not
Hero
A scene of old develops and sharpens. It’s the start of some chapter in a boy’s learning. This memory is of being ten. It has cold misty rains at a … Continue Reading Hero
My Man
hunch up those shoulders carry that hollow barrel chest on spindly trembling legs practice your ghostly motions stare obscenely out of eyes like yellowed olives your gates are closed for … Continue Reading My Man
Gifts of today
In yard-high drifts, the small chittering tracks of a resident rabbit, filling in quickly with the blowing snow. I follow, stupidly bootless, right around the house until … Continue Reading Gifts of today
a failure of foresight
Don’t kill yourself, (they said), when he went out to do the walkway in the dark. One upstairs, with Netflix on the headphones. The other snoring in her pillow chair. … Continue Reading a failure of foresight
Apartment for rent
Erica has her own key to her own apartment, on the strength of a job letter. No more nightly pay, unwanted bottles, fancy but fouled dresses. She sits in the … Continue Reading Apartment for rent
Memento
When they went to clean out the dead man’s room, one could see their noses wrinkle from the smell of his cigar years. There was sweeping and wall washing to … Continue Reading Memento
