More snow poetry

Snow clouds wrap around the
horizon like a blanket you just
pulled from a cold linen closet
I long to see a the red splash of a
cardinal darting between snow
covered branches, diving for seeds,
before the next arctic storm
covers us in a fresh layer of snow,
gives me an excuse to join you
under the comforter and wrap
around each other.

April 10th, 2016

Three years ago it was thundering
like today
growling across the
grey, balding dome

We eat Frangelica monkey bread
forks sticky instead of fingers

and find warmth
in an embrace
that opens and closes this story
beside the aching spring clouds

April 9th, 2016

Let this be a lost day

the kind where coffee 

is hot, black, and unlimited

strap on some roller skates

and sweat until we forget words

and the complicated layers

of our misbegotten thirties

April 7th, 2016

This day
We spent in hospital waiting rooms
no longer sterile white, or 90s pastels
but filled with landscape art
with textured seating
and warm wood-grain frames
we waited in the cafeteria
and took breaks
huddled for warmth in the truck bed
Just like the other families
whose names were called alongside

April 6th, 2016

Fingers like trees, with rings

new, green, young in the wind

mirrored on each side

One for a wedding

from a wife 

for a wife

One for the heart

from a red head

We start fresh each year

like bulbs

Recommitting to the bloom

April 8th, 2016

I will lead you through the forest
but we will get lost
because there are few things
I need as intensely
as the pungent smell
of a shedding cedar
to dangle my toes over the shadows
of water striders
cast against the rocky creek bottom
to work my way down root framed stairs
and wind through deer trails
without regard for
time or space or others

April 5th, 2016

It's easy to find poetry
In the pocked Capen bluffs

Or the swarm of carp
Bright beneath the gentle
Lapping waves of a waiting pond

Or the relentless flood
Of an April Missouri

It's an escape that gets me
Through to tomorrow

April 4th, 2016

The crux of aquamarine
And mud is simply the
Place where spring meets
River after an Easter rain
Even the fish shiver in
The biting spring winds

April 3rd, 2016

When I'm gone cold, someday,
Plant me beneath a forest.
Give me this last wish-
To feed the roots, to
Soften the steps of fresh
Fawns, to lay beneath
An ancient canopy's shade.
So i can finally find my way home.

April 2nd, 2016

Sometimes you
Just need to embrace
The metal tree with
Sculpted metal shelf
Mushrooms and soak
In the sun-drenched
West side, lean in to
Hear the wind reverberate
Down the metal trunk.

April 1st, 2016

On an April morning
The chickens puffer out
Like bobble heads with
Scaley legs- the cats curl
Into a sister moon
On the bathroom vent-
And Melissa is smiling
In her sleep, blanket
Pulled up to her chin

Going on 15

The pit of a peach 

is buried in my stomach

acid-pocked and embedded 

in the lining

Or maybe it's just 

the nausea and the impending

worry that I will never 

figure out who I want to be 

when I grow up

Easter poeeeem

Your first Peep of Easter, 

A bright thing that melts

and sticks to the roof of 

your mouth, a child's comfort

that you put away for 

healthy greens and carrots

and thin slices of lamb

But I like memory of you

when you were a bright thing, 

a ruddy-cheeked smile split from

dimple to dimple and I miss 

the way you found laughter

simply in holding hands or

the way odd clouds at sunset.

When you get lost in the forest-

I found two sinkholes

and ran to the crest of a hill

Just to see the valley on the other side

I bounced up a rock-lined trail

and ran my fingers down limestone stairs

and remembered how to fill my lungs and my belly

how to run in the March winds until the deer trail ends

A Tree in January

Upside down

we are just writhing

shadows, snakes sliding

over each other

and disappearing

into the depths 

of the frozen

grasslands

But look up, 

and I reach to the sky

unfettered

living

dancing in the 

harsh, cold gusts

of wind

I had a dream of you

I had a dream of you

The way you were 
when we were

Sometimes I still

find the remnants

Movie tickets
tucked in my clutch

Stray sketches of
your sad eyes

Lost in notebooks

Wrinkled by coffee rings

The way we were

When you were

a fish beneath
the Winter mirror

Untitled

Pain clustered and bloomed
like spring buds on an oak tree,
in the old way, the ancient trial
of every human who bleeds
but does not die, does not
need a funeral, but forces an
imitation of death, the throes
of winter that ravish no
real tree, but freezes root
systems in the most intimate
way, the only way I can
find my way home to sleep.

Chase a ghost

On the side of the cement trail,
naked rib cage curling into the sky,
broken spine crushed into the dry earth.
Too big to be a rat or a squirrel,
too small to be a human, and the vertebrae
 the diameter of a toddler's sticky fist.
Surely the prey of some moldy goddess,
half-chested, grieving with her arrows,
a prayer, an offering to the flesh eaters
and spindly dandelion roots, desperate
for the fertile soil of another new Spring.

The Secret Life

The Secret Life
For Kathleen

The secret life of mothers
is reflected in the pointed wave,
flickering behind the bonfire,
cast against the faded siding.

The shadow blurs and forms
into new shapes, water stains
bleeding into each other, a 
slow, love-dance in the dark.