My Lipstick


Its shiny black case
belies the worn tube
of rose-dawn
wound down within 
I wouldn’t go anywhere without 
and I sometimes wonder
how it has come to this

when I was a child
my grandmother would collect me
from the house of argument
for a night at the theatre

I would sit on the stiff edge
of her twin bed
draped in eyelet spread
and watch her get ready
curlers carefully unwound
black dress a subtle glitter
of tiny beads
her sagging face transformed
last of all
by face powder and ruby lipstick

before the show started
we would sit in the dim-gilt
opera house
with its screen pulled down
over the stage
painted sylvan nymphs frozen
in sheer dresses 
dance-skipped
with garlands of flowers
full lips pink and soft

my grandmother sometimes
stroked my hand
or doled out white lifesavers
we placed carefully between our lips
that we might be saved 
by sweet breath
and a touch of sugar

lately I feel closer to my grandmother
than to the girl I was back then
now my grandmother’s hollow bones
freed from the weight of female flesh
almost float
in the private cave 
of a silk-lined box

Who does a grown woman become
anyway
when she coats her lips with color?
sometimes younger, maybe
sometimes ready to be carried away
in story

to coax bones
from whose velvet center
pings and pulses
all that we really know 
of red
coax our bones into cavorting 
among spring-leafed trees

the young are so thin
in their love
like the painted petal
from a garland of flowers
    trailing loosely
        through fingers

  first published in  Amore: Love Poems



Milwaukee Snowballs
​

I moved here as a young professional
on a January day
after a typical winter storm
drove down street after street
and in the yards 
children built snowmen
from balls of glittering white
with everyone pitching in
to strain, push, and marvel, too
that individual flakes of snow
could become this drift
become this ball
become this man

years later, I walk with you
through the city at night
steamy houses breathe out
another summer’s day

everything’s quiet as shadows tilt
over slabs of pitted concrete
a big old snowball bush
spills out its strange exuberance

moonly orbs hover and float
with some internal electric glow
like an inspired conflagration
of a congregation of flowers
soldered together at the stem of things

the sight stops my heart
in its downward creep
we hold hands and start to talk
about how we love to be alone

-first published in Burdock Magazine