FROM AFTER ALL (2018, FUTURECYCLE PRESS)
Boys Who Cut the Legs Off Box Turtles
You’re sure these are the same two who smash
jack-o-lanterns up and down the street and name
your brother Four-Eyes and pinch your nipples
on the school bus, who steal baseball cards
kids have clothes-pinned to their bicycle spokes
and call them fairies when they cry. They come
at night over the fence into your backyard
to the pen with foil pie tins spilling lettuce,
the cement pool you helped your father pour
and shape where you like to wash the turtles’ shells
because the water makes the orange markings
shine like the lid of your grandmother’s jewelry box.
One leg off each of the babies. Both
hind legs off big Bo, which is the name
you’d give a dog if you had one. That morning
you go out to see how they are doing
with the lettuce and find them—beaks opening,
closing in panic that you do not understand
until you pick Bo up and see only his front legs
treading air. Your father promises if you take them
back to the woods where you caught them, new legs
will grow, so you do. You leave them under the bushes
near the pond, watch for a while as they do not move.
The next time you see those boys—who after
high school will be sent to Vietnam—you shoot them
your most unflinching evil eye, wish them missing
limbs and nightmares to help them think about
what they have done.
***
Before
I was an egg in two parts in my grandmother’s hand. I was an apple
in my grandfather’s hand. In the flood of a dream, I was the quavering
face of a stone. In a glass bowl, swaddled in a white towel, I was three
eggs that whispered to each other the old stories—wishes, black brooms,
earth that crumbled like cake in the mouths of lost children. I was the long
peel of an apple ratcheted over a blade. I was my grandmother’s apron
with its stain in the shape of an egg, my grandfather’s clean handkerchief
stamped into a perfect square under the weight of an iron. I was the black net
purse in my grandmother’s hand inside the silk of her glove, the space
inside of her hand as she took my grandfather’s hand the first time
he asked her to dance. Waiting for spring, I slept furled in the magnolia
blossom. All night I tapped at the kitchen window, waiting
for my pink hood to drop. I was the eye in the bowl of the rain barrel,
blinking with each drop of rain, witness to everything.
Boys Who Cut the Legs Off Box Turtles
You’re sure these are the same two who smash
jack-o-lanterns up and down the street and name
your brother Four-Eyes and pinch your nipples
on the school bus, who steal baseball cards
kids have clothes-pinned to their bicycle spokes
and call them fairies when they cry. They come
at night over the fence into your backyard
to the pen with foil pie tins spilling lettuce,
the cement pool you helped your father pour
and shape where you like to wash the turtles’ shells
because the water makes the orange markings
shine like the lid of your grandmother’s jewelry box.
One leg off each of the babies. Both
hind legs off big Bo, which is the name
you’d give a dog if you had one. That morning
you go out to see how they are doing
with the lettuce and find them—beaks opening,
closing in panic that you do not understand
until you pick Bo up and see only his front legs
treading air. Your father promises if you take them
back to the woods where you caught them, new legs
will grow, so you do. You leave them under the bushes
near the pond, watch for a while as they do not move.
The next time you see those boys—who after
high school will be sent to Vietnam—you shoot them
your most unflinching evil eye, wish them missing
limbs and nightmares to help them think about
what they have done.
***
Before
I was an egg in two parts in my grandmother’s hand. I was an apple
in my grandfather’s hand. In the flood of a dream, I was the quavering
face of a stone. In a glass bowl, swaddled in a white towel, I was three
eggs that whispered to each other the old stories—wishes, black brooms,
earth that crumbled like cake in the mouths of lost children. I was the long
peel of an apple ratcheted over a blade. I was my grandmother’s apron
with its stain in the shape of an egg, my grandfather’s clean handkerchief
stamped into a perfect square under the weight of an iron. I was the black net
purse in my grandmother’s hand inside the silk of her glove, the space
inside of her hand as she took my grandfather’s hand the first time
he asked her to dance. Waiting for spring, I slept furled in the magnolia
blossom. All night I tapped at the kitchen window, waiting
for my pink hood to drop. I was the eye in the bowl of the rain barrel,
blinking with each drop of rain, witness to everything.
FROM WHERE THE WORLD BEGINS (2015, FINISHING LINE PRESS)
Ghost Stories
This house was theirs. They sat close
to this stove, stood by this window.
When they walk these rooms,
the air thickens, leaves a motion
like the shiver of a flower
with a bee inside. They sigh beside you
in your bed, jealous of your dreams.
In September, they tear the pages from your schoolbooks
to make the teachers say you lie.
They toss pecans at the windows
when rain is coming. Their unhappiness
blows the Christmas candles out.
You know them all—your grandpa’s cousin Ed,
shot in a bar over the price of a wagon.
He turns up the flame under the soup pot
so it boils into the grate. His boy, also Ed,
killed in the mine. The Darby baby,
who comes when you can’t sleep,
his eyes pools of reproach,
tiny cold touch like the prick of a needle. His mother
Maylene, taken by flu, who stands where a mirror once hung,
combing and combing her long hair.
And Uncle Luther, that crazy moonshiner.
When the preacher comes for supper, old Luther knocks
the Bible to the floor, moans like a cat dying lonely.
Just the wind, one of you whispers,
as around the table every head bows to pray
a grace that lasts so long the gravy curdles.
Ghost Stories
This house was theirs. They sat close
to this stove, stood by this window.
When they walk these rooms,
the air thickens, leaves a motion
like the shiver of a flower
with a bee inside. They sigh beside you
in your bed, jealous of your dreams.
In September, they tear the pages from your schoolbooks
to make the teachers say you lie.
They toss pecans at the windows
when rain is coming. Their unhappiness
blows the Christmas candles out.
You know them all—your grandpa’s cousin Ed,
shot in a bar over the price of a wagon.
He turns up the flame under the soup pot
so it boils into the grate. His boy, also Ed,
killed in the mine. The Darby baby,
who comes when you can’t sleep,
his eyes pools of reproach,
tiny cold touch like the prick of a needle. His mother
Maylene, taken by flu, who stands where a mirror once hung,
combing and combing her long hair.
And Uncle Luther, that crazy moonshiner.
When the preacher comes for supper, old Luther knocks
the Bible to the floor, moans like a cat dying lonely.
Just the wind, one of you whispers,
as around the table every head bows to pray
a grace that lasts so long the gravy curdles.
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FROM Gyroscope Review, Fall 2022, Crone Power Issue
https://www.gyroscopereview.com/welcome/issue/
Practicing Chaos
I’ve let housekeeping go—characters
of the Russian alphabet in the dust on a table
where a mug has left a fuzzy ring--
planet in a universe of clouds
and alien language. Rain slashes the windows,
leaves streaks the color of tired air.
I do not oppose the altered view—I am learning
the appeal of approximations—everchanging,
the shapes and sizes of birds, summer shimmy
of trees. How many weeks has it been
since I mopped the floor? It sparkles
with sticky tribute. From room to room,
the climate fluctuates. Sub-tropics
underneath the bed, lush blossoming
out of forgotten soil. On the stairs, a fallen pin,
a rush of hot wind—high desert. The day is coming--
let’s call it the end of everything--
when I will erupt in a storm of brushes and brooms,
damp rags and chemical sprays.
I am an ancient goddess here. I create. I destroy.
FROM The Wild Roof Journal, November 2022
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https://wildroofjournal.com/issue-17-gallery-2/