My Ancestors
My ancestors picked cotton
Worked hard stacked brick by brick
The old say the young
Just scroll the mouse
Facebook Instagram and click
They call them the instant
Microwave...
Night Sky with Donald Trump
If I put him beneath a sky full
of stars, stood him without
phone or tablet, landline
or screen, broke his connection
with the...
Haiku Haiku
haiku moment —
most pure
before words form
swallowing cherry blossoms…
will I compose haiku
with a japanese heart?
loon skimming still lake
above its own image — ...
Ocean
I’ve got insomnia
again. I lay awake
for hours, listening
to the fan whirl
as my thoughts swim
round and round to you.
You’re six hours
behind so when I can’t
sleep...
Caught in the gusting wind,
a swallowtail flutters ahead.
The lights are red
for eight lanes in each direction,
leaving a vast emptiness
at the heart of the intersection,
except...
Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving
My mother framed the Rockwell painting.
That image of matriarch in white apron
setting down white platter
with turkey large enough to feed
all the smiling...
Pas de Deux
In our choreography, Dad and I
had three types of dance:
the shower, the stairs, and the car.
The shower’s dance was a slow kabuki-
like...
Winter Solstice
We drive in the darkpast the open fieldsinto the neighborhood:Millions of lights on the housesin the trees—the world a-twinkle with hopewhile overhead a...
Street Scene
Early evening heat rises frompavements, from cement and asphalt,carrying a scent slightly sour,slightly acrid—oily and tar-like.
Outside the café, beyond its fenced-intables, a large...
