POETRY

a poem of grief, grip, and gravity

Our father had a favorite bird.
I whistled the wrong
song at the funeral, bobolink,
not cardinal. We three
sons stood like the Calvary
crosses at the foot of the hospice
bed.

The beginning began
at quitting time. During lunch,
in the church basement,
the dread of inherited sweaters
demands attention.
Inevitably posture, cowlicks,
and curls

are what we carry from
the empty room. Mother
bites back the assumption ancestors
are all dead, folds a short
stem rose
into a black bag. The new Monsignor

measures condolences from the stairs. The stained glass…

A shovel comes to dirt in the slog of back and blade. A bed head mesh of lilac roots tempers the loam in a fete of grey skies and worm curl. The lopped topsoil, more a skin pigment than soul depth, lumps in a mole sized pyramid a human stride shy of potato mounds. The integration of potted lemons and blueberries to the wind gives young branches a shoulder test for the weight of fruit. Only a cop would cut stalk or boot the ground of oxygen. Planting a work best begun on a knee. Bad apples keep the doctors…

The sun misses everyone murdered
shadows place the names.
Florists unveil the black daffodil
it is considered they did their part.

I’d rather write in my own blood
than read the news.
The words verdant and verdict
burn under a magnifying glass.

Mourning breaks the day open
like a cracked skull.
A press release hisses at courage
pretends mothers don’t read.

An exasperation rides the passenger seat
adjusts the hanging air freshener.
Reparation in larvae stage
sets a wing in motion.

Pulling over shifts the planet.
The flashing moonlight
fades like a pulse intent
on headlines.

The next day teachers…

an Equinox poem

Bridge pigeon sports Mt. Fuji tramp stamp
on back folded wings, red eye bright as fish bait
scans the river, mate meadow trolling heron
flirting black bird circling the trellis
in a sun bright arc.

The geese wind calms, the flattened grass
bends back from winter, the yellow mallow
butters the field ponds in frog songs.
An abandoned grocery cart holds the high
water mark in tufts and rafted limbs.

Equinox, more timely than clocks spins the horizon to a golden dial lets lavender clouds whip the mingling set and stars saving the final blue for the…