April 2024
Bio Note: I write poetry, edit fiction, play the banjo, and knit obsessively in Tampa, Florida. My poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, The Wild Word, and Valparaiso. My poetry has received nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. My first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books.
Here Below
Before a careless bulldozer buried him under a ton of dirt
he played with impeccable pulse.
He anchored tunes with a standup bass,
left fingers spidering, right hand patting pauses,
a running commentary that thumped below the chitchat,
bristling with off-color intent.
Just as hothouse plants rooted and swelled
to his sweet, muttered, nasty guy’s-guy nothings,
we set our feet in the soil of his crude jokes and thrived.
His wife didn’t pay much mind to the dirty stories
and sly non-secrets. When he laid their deck,
he penciled women’s names on the underside of the planking,
like an ode to abundance, and she just laughed, shrugging.
We take our cue from her and refuse to fret,
but celebrate him in smut and subtext.
Without crawling among the snakes to check, we hope
we made the list––divas of warm skin and rayon dresses
immortalized on a two-by-ten––
and we also aspire to be like his wife,
who stands aboveboard, rolling her eyes, knowing
her name has been etched more than once in that slatted dark.
Originally published in New Ohio Review
Memory
Tower of London, WWI centennial, 2014
Acres of ceramic poppies surround the castle.
I heard they took weeks to plant.
They’re brilliant for a moment brief as life,
spilling over the wall, flooding the moat,
a river of red for color-thirsty visitors.
In our black travel clothes, we press together
and gaze down at a flow of crimson so audacious
it bleeds through our tendency to forget.
A few days later, we wedge our way in again
to watch volunteers pick the poppies
and lay them back in their boxes.
They labor with backs bent
like Millet’s peasant women.
The poppies ebb; the muddy swath widens.
Originally published in Binnacle
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