Published Poetry
 

Tenacity 

More and more I have come to admire tenacity.
Not the small tokens of breadcrumbs, which are trailed
throughout the house, but the simple
resistance of a foot: sinking again and again into the sand,
it disappears and emerges new. A mirage, true.
But out of such repetition arose tides, sunflowers, 
honeycomb, petals- all this persistence, pragmatic life.

Published on Verse-Virtual

A Full Life 

The idea of it is ludicrous at best. To be tied to a computer chair with a neck turning into a turtle. Peeking daily at a screen which pulls you into a whirlpool of numbers merging onto spreadsheets. How the only thing which keeps you in that chair is a pension. That your life is measured in vacation days and dollars growing by mere percentage points until your back is too stiff and your ankle has given out. Where the remainder of days will be on the couch watching National Geographic when instead we could be visiting those places. Streams where salmon know how to spawn, and birds are louder than airplanes in their rush overhead. Where there are a calendar of days with nothing to do but put toes in the sand. I once lived on an island for two years. The waves washed up trash like unwanted jewels. Once I fell out of a kayak. Flew feet first down the rapids of a river in Idaho. The water covering me like a second skin. The refreshing coolness until fear made me shiver. The current always stronger than our ability to swim. It’s gravitational pull powerful as some women’s maternal instincts. Unabated desire to have, hold, create a life outside oneself. A life that breathes, and hums, and sings. As the wind whispers between tree branches and fungi send signals through their underground network of morse code. And for a moment we realize what it must have felt like to dance among the cosmos, understand the power of fire to warm and destruct. To behold none other than our own greatness in the smallness of the universe. To fold ourselves like a paper crane into the creases of delicate existence.

Published in Yellow Arrow Vignette 


 

Uncertainty

​

I don’t know how to write about uncertainty after the world has been closed shut like an oyster.

The pearl formed on its jagged bed rising like an eye to a telescope to the stars.

One named after me somewhere in that galaxy.

On Rodeo Drive in Hollywood stars press their hands or boots into wet cement to cement their fame into minds who will forget them generations later.

Sitting in their frayed beach chairs shaded by large umbrellas men with names like Jose and Javier will sell you a map to see the stars for twenty dollars. They won’t tell you these homes are rarely visited and the only person you may see is a security guard, bored, head bent like a question mark over a small screen. He will flash a smile, shake his head and return to absorption.

I don’t know why we care so much about fame and less about war.

Why we can tell you who won an Oscar, but not the names of those who have become stardust.

Due to violence, neglect. The danger of living in a country who is scared because of the color of your skin, which direction you pray, the surname which follows you like a shadow.

I don’t know why we care so much about things that carry no weight but press on our minds like a hammer and chisel.

Will it rain today? A synonym for clear. What seeds to plant in the garden. Jeans too tight around the hips.

I don’t know why the hours slip by without notice and sometimes sneak off like a lover.

To return with scare details about where they were and who they were with.

I don’t know how to write about the warming climate. The months in April that pass like summer. The incessant spiders that weave their webs in every corner. Hanging upside down in the shower, waiting next to the jar of cinnamon.

I don’t know why I feel I’m the only one who asks you questions in search of connection.

Communication too heavy a mountain to climb alone, shoulder the weight of the pack pulling you slightly lopsided so the world is seen at a slight tilt.

If the world tilts, and we tilt is it true we will all fall over onto ourselves?

A dog pile of defeat.

Then who will raise the white flag?

Who will tell us it is time to go home?

Even when there is no home to belong to. When the door is locked, shutters drawn. The whole left side open to a garden of sky.

Published in Phren-Z

​
 

​

Grasshopper

That there is only one of you. So precious, life.

What will we do with your wildness?

It is possible we will toss it to the wind like dandelion seeds

or press it to the chest like a love letter.

Watch as the grasshopper folds her wings like the string of a violin in evenings symphony.
Listen as night settles into its foundation.

Sigh escaping into the air like a lover’s prayer for remembrance.

We do not know who made the world though some have their ideas.

The grasshopper may not know either but still she puts wing to wing and plays like nobody and everyone were listening. 

Published on Verse-Virtual 

What I Carry 

​

What do you carry?
Regret in my brow and the droop of my eyelids.

What do you carry?

This life like an anchor.

Who carries this weight?

My heart, my knees, the inside of my elbows.

What would you do with lightness?

Throw it into the air like confetti and watch in fall like child’s innocent laughter.

Where is the best place to keep regret?

They all say to tuck it away like a bedsheet. I believe it is best out in the open like smoke that clings to jackets, the tendrils of hair follicles.

How do you tally regret?

With pen and paper, with broken hearts, an empty tube of toothpaste.

Is regret hungry?
It is never satisfied with what it has.

How do you keep it full?

With lies of omission.

When do you let it go?
When it becomes too heavy to carry.

How often is that?

I have lost count of the ways I have set it down and walked away,

the wind licking my back like a cherry lollipop.

Is regret sweet?

I have lost my ability to taste anything but bitterness.

Then how do you live?
Unfolding like a flower that turns its head to the sun.

Published in Phren-Z

 

​

​

​

​

Hips 

​

Hips, how you hover in orbit every time I walk.

Sashaying down the hard cement of this city by the sea.

Propelling me down wooded paths,

up mountain scree. On roads familiar and obscure.

Motion your nexus of control, one summer you quit in protest.

Refusing to move in the direction I wanted.

Hips, you kept me humble.

Relearning how to move fluid as a weaver's nimble hands.

It became the year of watching dew collect on a spider’s web,

observing ducklings moving linearly down the river.

Of seeing the sun rise in the cleavage of mountains.

A tart taste of salsa made from our bounty of tomatoes.

The daily hum and thunk of the refrigerator.

The weight you carry settling fine as dust upon this bodily frame.
Hips, you kept me stable.

As we learned how to wear masks and conserve water.

As heat combusted into spontaneous flame across this tinderbox state.

As the world kept forever spinning like a top.

Published in Tulip Tree Press 

​

​

​

​