Poetry

Pity

The cookies his neighbors brought by              didn’t taste like pity— at my father’s house              for the first time, after, the locks broken into, now new, when cross              the street comes a neighbor, cookies shrouded              in tinfoil, a plate I need not return.              How long had the pair kept vigil out the window              for someone to…

Chicken Brick’n

Because there’s no end to cruelty,                   Lyle ties half a brick                                    to a hen’s foot, climbs the ladder up the water tower                    where waits Tony—together,                                    they toss their weighted hens into space: the flung chicken                    that charts its course                                    across clear air, fans its…

Smote

When Shirley Weems submarines her Barbie in the shallows, spooking the catfish while her brother and me sit on upturned buckets with cane poles on our side of the pond not bothering anybody, I note how the light around Shirley seems so rosy, all a-twinkle with its own self-contained Shirley music. I pick a dirt…

Sweet Disposition

Thoughts have gone wolf again, hunting for reasons in the dark. Suppose we were never               supposed to fall into each other’s arms? Made a bone-boat tossed all our memories in—               watched it sail. There’s a chance I know nothing and I…

Dancing in Buses

Pretend a boom box blasts over your shoulder. Raise your hands in the air. Twist them as if picking mangoes. Look to the right as if crossing streets. Look to the left, slowly as if balancing orange baskets. Bend as if picking cotton. Do the rump. Straighten up as if dropping firewood. Rake, do the…

Bird Swerves

Blackbird called Redwinged                                              and I both startle when I stand and turn. Bird expertly                        swerves, flies on; but I spend a few…