November 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 Gyroscope, SWWIM, 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.
Woo!
You’re my eyes-wide-open, my popped button,
my tumble-dried hoodie on a chilly day.
You’re the sun’s favorite joke, a punch line I keep forgetting,
a cackle cut loose at a wedding, or maybe
a back wind on a bike ride—you startle
storms of ibises into flight.
Every day you paint clouds saffron
and scatter amazement,
for you who spit shine my insights and water my inklings
are a Slinky boing, a pogo jump,
a parachute leap, a sky full of dandelion fuzz
sprung by wonder.
Originally published in The Wild Word
Shifting
In a pizza place off an alley
we fed coins into the jukebox and danced
between waitresses and red-checked tablecloths
—jumping beans, wiggle worms,
clutch of girls bouncing to a music menu.
Song replaced song at the jab of two buttons.
Daily specials were wiped clear, new ones chalked,
and I realized I could change temperaments
like T-shirts anytime I felt like it.
I was self-contained as a hermit crab
in class and on the playground or sitting
in outfield, building stick houses as balls sailed by,
but that day I sprang from my restaurant chair
and my friends followed suit,
full of cake and sauce and “Sugar, Sugar,”
and even as a sentence drifted through my brain
—This is not what you do—
another one settled in: Now it is.
Originally published in Halfway Down the Stairs
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