Poem Titles
Before the hard June rain
Denies the poppy
Its coral dinner plate spread
The wind steals the paper petals.
Before the May lilac
Explodes in purple grape clusters
To wilt in an unexpected blast of summer heat
The wasp sucks the sweet nectar.
Nature robs nature
Perfect daffodils beat down, frozen
To the mud, crystal, translucent
March’s cursed last snow smothering
While buzzards circle, hawks seize eggs and
Nesting hatchlings leave kinfolk
Screaming, chasing, losing
You who could have cured cancer
Find jealous Mother Nature wielding
Her impartial wand.
She dosed you good with uh-uh
Not happening, don’t ask why
Bruja, cold teat, mother.
On your scans I see
Blooming, glowing white clusters under the
Smooth muscles or your chest and
Still your heart tops these
Five flowers
The black specks within your organs are like
Peppery toad skin and I want to
Catch them in my bare hands
And move them to a place where they
Would do no harm
Wriggling bad luck won’t hold still
I trace the bursts of
White on black
And Black on white
On blurs of pictures
And breathe the scent of heavy white peonies
Head down and weeping
In the summer storm.
Holding you
I am back in the Utah desert mountains.
Your heartbeat the thundering staccato
Of wild mustang hooves
Mounting the shifting sand
Of your belly rise.
Tiny as a pack rat I nestle in your chest thicket
Shiny memories pocketed.
My mouse ears detect
Magma rumbling
Hot pulses overflow channels until
Dead rivers of purple
Seep into the gravel bed
Of your throat
I smell a blend of fear and grace
Fumes from the pressure building
In the muscular canyon
The mustang is joining the herd
Roaming your brain
Steam settles on your hot skin
I creep around and find a year in the early eighties
When your lovely first wife
Burned you so bad
And you so strong
It has taken this long to concede.
You cowboy, you carnie,
Did you buy that old car
The one you called Rodeo
Just for its name?
Like you it held together
With grit and cigarette smoke
Last winter you hunched over the hood
With frozen hands you dug in wires and cable
Pulled out a rabbit and it went another mile.
Like a rodeo clown
You disappeared from my basement sofa-bed
To go to Florida or Texas when she
Called you, from her trailer, late at night
You held on tight to that bronco love but
She grew tired of your act again and you called me
To tell me you had picked out the bridge with
Your name on it
I prayed you would
Pull one last white dove from
Your sleeve and
Fly home on its wings
We sisters clapped our hands and
Vied for your attention and breathed for you
But it was your encore before the
Closing curtain
Now we press our ears to the grass
Of your grave and try to catch
The buzz of you sawing yourself in half
In your wooden box.
In spring the daffodils will break the ground
The ultimate magic show
We will nod with them as
You take your bows in the wind
Again and again.
