It's Still Life

Messages of Warning to My Much Younger Self Bend your knees. Yes, mice are living under the decking. Your belly shouldn’t wobble like panna cotta. Bend your knees. Pushing your little sister into the pool won’t teach her to swim. Don’t ignore your left eye. And bend your knees. You’ll flunk algebra; it doesn’t matter.…

  A Splash of Water i. A layer of golden pollen and a splash of rain on brown bread toast II. wind sings against the window, splashes of weather that splinter dry dust III. My throat aches for a splash of water and the taste of kind words.     for Twiglet #73 It’s National…

  Those Holes I don’t know about you, but I’m filled with quiet holes. Contemplative holes. Every time a friend dies, or family, it’s another hole. Grief is some sort of unspoken language, and some people just expect you to fill those holes up. A friend died the other day. A man of faith. Love.…

The Myth of Planned Obsolescence Two plates are tapping. Tit.tit.titting against each other. I’ve loaded the dishwasher wrong. No, if it open it now, I’ll flood the floor. I hate those dishes anyway. They’re 40-years old, and refuse to break. Won’t even chip. Yeah, I know, they don’t make things like they used to. Damned…

  I. Tulip (rewritten) A tulip’s deep and echoed voice, a flower fountain, a red streaked revenge. It is a vanity, even in its own shadow. But such beauty drowns in rain. Once loved by spring, now dies away, carried off by a Narcissus glance. AprDay 22: A Plant   II. I watched a bee…

Tulip Tulip’s sweet and echoing voice. A flower. A cup. Red as revenge. It is a vanity, even in its own shadow. This beauty drowns in rain, once loved by spring, now dies away, as if carried off by Narcissus. Loves longings, deceived.   Day 21: AprPAD Danger and NaPoWriMo Narcissus It’s National Poetry Writing…

Auntie She drowned in a floral-scent bath, and we all went into nondisclosure. People drowned in the ocean all the time, sink like stone thrones in pools, but if you drowned in a bathtub, everyone’s full of questions that they won’t ask. They think pills or booze or both. It was both in her case.…

  The Limits There’s a gulf Between here and there. This town Is toughest at its limits, Hard as darkness, It ignores moonlight. The dogs howl out there. Don’t know why, and No one asks whether It’s rapture or despair. Dogs Mimic their owners, An ill-fated fang is reason enough Not to ask.   NaPoWriMo:…