In Gratitude to a Rock at Machu Picchu

There are times when there are
other languages to discover.

In conversation at the top of the world,
I have selected you, unpolished quarry rock,

to converse with, touching spine and bone
on your slanted outlook of granite.

We speak of mist and shadows.
Purple orchids, Pachacuti.
Exploding Stars.

Life and death, life and death.

A llama has defecated nearby,
drawing large beetles.
An ant makes a trail like a tiny mountain climber.

In deference to solid advice.

What happens in airports

Philadelphia 

She saw me at a table tapping at my laptop. 
I looked up and saw an airport ID on her large bosom.

She said you look like a writer. 

Can you help me write a letter for my church? 

She wears shiny gold dresses on Sunday she says.

She gives roses to pregnant girls on marble stoops.

She says to them, join me in the house of the Lord,

She wants to help her church people fly.

The Feeling of Scissors Cutting Away

There was never a scream when you died,
only the sound of inhalation and exhalation.

Scissors can make an itty bitty cry
at the axis of of two blades.

Long cuts are slow and steady.
Little snips are quick breath around curves.

What has been cut away is considered negative,
disqualified and discarded.

Intentionally, remaining cloth can be
draped and darted into something new.

A beating presser foot
pumps matching thread into matched seams.

Let no one split apart what God has
joined together.

It seems I have lost the ability to believe this,
Because my careful wedding dress is gone.


( My mother sewed my wedding dress and my sister's wedding dress. A few years ago, I took the wedding dress out of the plastic and a pink foam hanger had permanently ruined it. I secretly put it in a dumpster. This poem is the poem of grief).

Oscar Shorts

I asked the man next to me what happened on Friday night. In a beer laced voice, he said:

“Dramatic shorts, you missed the whole thing. Lots of Syrians crying. It was excellent.”

Rabbit: The Sharpness of Shadows

Rabbit: The Sharpness of Shadows: The Sharpness of Shadows A Kansan by birth, and somewhat related to everyone in the cemetery,  she was trained initially in a delib...

The Sharpness of Shadows

The Sharpness of Shadows

A Kansan by birth, and somewhat related to everyone in the cemetery, 

she was trained by a flat and vast landscape

instilling a pronounced feeling of smallness

in the magnitude of her natural surroundings. 

She associated this large and uncluttered space

with a simple and unadorned life. 

Her people were grounded by good soil,

but feathery clouds filled her head.

Searching for novelty, intoxicated with color,

she left, striking out beyond the 

prevailing opinion that that one should always

stay where they are.

As she remembers her restless past,

Each scene selectively animated

with more softness, more reverence, 

ignoring the sharpness of shadows.

Warm air bends the light

until it meets the eye of someone standing in the road.

The Two

When I opened my eyes this morning, you were in a chair watching me, and I asked, “ How did you get in?” 

You said “The side door." Of course, Detective,

thats how you came into my life, the door I hadn’t locked. 

And you were here, and so was he, in the living room, meeting for the first time. You both knew of each other. Awkward. But you were getting along.

Of course, I knew you would. So many things similar, so much in common.

I left to do business in a bleached white hotel, while both of you waited at home for me to return.  Both of you waited. Because I run off like that to strange places, my priorities in selfish containers. 

I leaned into him on one side, and held your hand on the other. My ring finger could feel where the promise used to be. 

Then your seat was suddenly empty. I thought maybe I should try to text you.

A finely transparent feather was found on my front porch yesterday. 

Light came through it as I held it up to the blue sky by it’s quill. 

And I cry a little, now that I am fully awake.