Poetry

This morning I was showered with the blessing of the new year. With head bowed I watched the droplets fly and sanctify. Later the chub cheek of my son rubs…

I have been mother to rock-chuckers, work-shirkers, back talkers who have incurred the wrath of teachers, coaches, choir directors, and neighbor ladies, and still I have loved, as diaper rash…

Ghost season, my daughter calls it. The time the dead draw nearer. The wasps are hungry. They flit along the clothesline among the muggy towels, slick sheets, lick sweat off…

My five-year-old daughter slides her fingers between her thighs holds her hand out to me and says, “smell.” I hesitate, bring my nose closer to her hand, take a token…

Bring me the bedding that held his sleep and blind I’d know it as his. Pungent smell with an acrid edge, like delicious food just starting to turn. Since infancy,…

Suddenly my children are ill. Dragged out like old rags, dead dogs. They are gray in the face, limp, shadowy. And I am dazed from the night vigil. Dragged out…

My five-year-old refers to my mother, the grandmother she has never met, by asking, “What would Betty say when you were mean to Aunt Connie?” Then I tell a story…

You call me from the under skin of sleep beyond the dream of dust and drought, of spring floods and rings of fire. You store in the heart’s hollow a…

There were fifteen of us in a van filled with desert wind. The redhead next to me had anxiety attacks and wanted a baby, now. I swore I would see…

Tonight, we lie on his bed and he cries, “I’m ugly.” And I try to hold him, try to rock him, but he’s all new, with his long arms and…

Underneath my layers a flutter of wings un fruscio d’ali gentle knock of wind butterflies sing your baby knuckles tapping on my skin.