Mid-Thirties
Toddler, pigtails loosening,hides behind her mother’s legs,two tiny hands around one adult knee.Mother leans down,whispers in her daughter’s ear.Child smiles,tilts her head to one...
Sheltering in Place
The desert wind outside my window howls.Tree branches, desiccated by the rainless winter,toss and rustle with eerily sibilant sounds.The wind itself moans...
Billy G
The snake circled the island, up the Hudson, down the Harlem,into the East, and around the point past Billy G’srent-controlled building on the...
The Thing about Mornings
I’ll never forget
We slept
Splayed on memorial benches
Morning dew falling on locks like overgrown caterpillars
Crawling to crystallized captivity
Your smile
Sunrise evaporating what moisture...
Goddesses Incognito
Underneath
the drab,
the daily,
we are passionate goddesses parading in
spangles
glinting jewels
shimmering cloth
that mirror our enticing hips.
Underneath ragged watchcaps,
we are tender goddesses
crowned in
headwraps
tiaras
mantillas
bandanas
that accentuate our nobility.
Underneath...
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 — ...
Shadow Selfie
Projected onto shalebut rooted in this planet,we long to countervailthe weight of sandstone, granite,and metamorphic rocks.We welcome paradox.
Our presence is a maskagainst the...
Collections
My childhood collectionsstamps from every countryplaced neatly in a booktiny porcelain cats in a boxand stories about their livesthat made sense
Fifty years later, I...