At the height of summer there is always
some sense of tipping, of downslope. Some
afternoons the wind rushes the season,
My Idea of Luxury
is a woods’ edge brimming
with ripe blackberries
hanging thick
Blackberry Picking
The smell of dew-
wet salal
and Oregon grape
Tomato Patch
Such greenness growing
from the dark soil of spring
At Stake
I’ve tried to cage it in,
my single, sprawling tomato plant
that will not be contained,
May for My Mother
I would give it back to you, a month of May,
especially the days just after Mother’s Day, the time
when the world up north again began its blossoming,
Coming to Fruition
For sixty years you waited.
Hiding behind your fears.
Tag-along daughter, sister, wife.
Nocturne IV April
Stars blink tonight, a sign
of atmospheric turbulence,
something uncertain
Contemplation IV
Two crows fly
across the field
to peck insects among
Evening on the Lanai
Shadows deepen across the town,
slowly climb the hillsides
until the last of the sunlight leaves
Skin Flesh Pit
The reliant tree bears forty peaches
our third orchard year. I can’t quite stitch
a connection to his children though the son’s branch
The Peach Stand
In the brightness of day, sunlight burns the eyes
and you buy peaches from a roadside stand.
another soon
another soon love yes another soon for now listen what we
have is red – most often fragile red sours white–
Open Hearts
My baby’s heart is turned around backwards in her chest.
Her sister’s heart has five holes where holes don’t belong.
My grandkids, I mean.
Ageless Trail
I walk barefoot on the edge
of the woodland, careful
to sidestep the cracked acorns,
Walking Toward Eternity
A newly-hatched snapping turtle
that looks like a small smooth stone
lies motionless on the sandy path at my feet.
Junior High Gym Class 1964
We wear the required light green, short-legged, one-piece cotton gym suit with elastic at the waist, cap sleeves, and snaps down the front.
Read more1981
Can puberty inch toward us in a song?
For twelve weeks Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train”
snakes up the charts—her banshee cry so strong,
Banana Bread
reading between the lines of
Grandma’s recipe
I leave bananas on the counter
Mulberries
She sees the barn, the mulberry tree, the cat,
walks down to the creek, writes what she sees,
writes, she says, in grief, says so far much of what