I have written poetry and short fiction all my life and published a lot of it. My day job is editor of a trade publication Illinois Racing News. I live on a small horse farm in northern Illinois with my husband and various animals. My latest book, "Ribcage," (from Glass Lyre Press) recently won the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. I also am an associate editor of FutureCycle Press and Kentucky Review.

New
for Firestone Feinberg whose suggestion inspired this poem
​
Trade winds influence the wave
Or the plates of earth shifting in the deeps
To suck it back into pure
Energy uplifted on the Japanese
Woodcut.  Every newborn made of 
Egg and sperm whispered by the serpent
In the earth tree: Yggdrasil. Each hour clocked
Or measured with shadow. Stars
Exploding or congealing in an
Embrace of gasses. Each new love
You reckoned, each disappointment, each
Betrayal. What’s good about
Newness? Think of continuity:
The taste of porridge,
Rope swing on the elm,
The way the rowboat scrapes against the dock,
Familiar bodies. Or not?
Bless the explorers
Seeking the black orchid of the cure
In the Brazilian jungles. The new doctrine
That will save us when we drink the red
Offering salty as Sangre de Christo.
Shakespeare coined 1700 new words
For old ideas. Uttered into cliché.
Thoughts fleeting as a damselfly
Hovering over the summer pond
Dappled with changing light.
New. It entrances like the cave opening
Stumbled on by two hikers who go inside
And vanish in the claim of marketers:
The top selling word is New.