fine poetry to turn your world around
Cleaning Out Mother’s HouseWe scrub the toilet first thing, swat at cobwebssweep away corpses of a thousand flies.Mice have made nests in the brittle lettersthat reveal our Pappy’s voluptuous affair(who the heck was Dolores?), his failed campaignto bring our father home from the Pacific.He well knew how the army poured whiskeydown the throats of boys […]
My California—After Lee HerrickFor those studying fractions, it’s blue glory sky over diamond-littered ocean, which reduces evenly to Beauty, with no remainder. Every beach kidcan learn this math. Add rain and you get mustard flowers encouraged to wildproliferation. They yellow-tint foothills, color spilling toward the train tracks and Emma Wood beach. This is my California—a […]
Business District circa 1982Praise the Cornet five-and-dime,Rodgers variety for ribbon by the foot.Praise the clerk with a ’50s bouffantand red-purple handslike my hands now.Praise the mortuary up the street,Direct Cremation $300—all the days I drove by that sign.Praise Inside Scoop, mocha fudgeice cream. Praise Rexall Drugs,sleepy Muzak, greeting cardsI spent too long picking out.Praise Bits […]
Time’s Wingèd Chariot ~with thanks to Andrew MarvellHad we but world enough and time, chocolate would be our only crime. We’d sit beneath the cacao tree, shaded by its fragrant leaves. Wait four years or more while I’d adore your lips,your forehead, silken skinuntil the farmers rapped the podson rock or tree, split them, scooped […]
