Category: Poetry

I don’t know flowers
so I couldn’t tell you their names
but I passed a cluster of them
on the way to work:

they were light purple long thin buds.
maybe some kind of lavender?  
I don’t know

but since the published poets
were always banging on about flowers
I thought, what the hell
let’s see what all the fuss is about
and I bent down
to have a sniff:

I didn’t like them.…

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You used to leave your shoes beside the doorway, letting the season drip off onto the carpet. Now, you walk them off wherever you please, one foot out, one foot in. Sometimes, you grab the wrong shoe out the door, so you walk around mis-matched. You used to bring home honey on Saturdays. A treat from nature. You used to cradle my body to your chest and kiss the back of my earlobe. You used to pull quarters from behind my ears. It’s magic. Now, my ears are un- kissed and magicless. You used to try and bake cupcakes, but you never read the directions, so they were always very dry, and burnt. We would sit with a can of icing and a bottle of wine, eating the cupcakes.…

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1.
Till the end (there is no end)

2.
Scores of flying scissors cutting the air
above the rooftops and cathedral

3.
She is so much younger

4.
They leave (hidden behind the column her friend
had been only an audio and purse). We stay
and take their place (watching, sipping
our beers, crunching our snacks)

5.
The burning fish is dying a slow death behind the cathedral.
A last gasp of orange and black has taken the scissors
and the fish. Only the cathedral remains, drinking
imperfectly (perfectly) from the absent
moon

– R L Swihart…

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The stars are so thick (in rivers and ways) they bend down to trouble your sleep.
Coyotes pick off the chickens one by one. Trees but not many: utility poles
but not many (and shorter than you know): instead of grass, rusting
random bits of Americana no larger than
a junkyard poodle

*

Listen carefully or not at all. The streets tell a history as thin as the pavement:
Saddle Sore Trail, Last Dollar Trail, Gunslinger Trail

Yes, the S-2, running somewhat north and south, reminds you that the stagecoach
went by – and the RV park (Stagecoach Trails) confirms it. Yes again, Ginny,
if you want to feel like Mark Twain saw the same desert views you’re
viewing. No harm, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure he took
the northern route

*

The morning I left for the coast the yellow eye of the sun quickly burned a hole
through the silver gelatin of fog.…

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1986
My sister and her husband called Wednesday and told me Dad had
molested their daughter. Over the weekend. At his house. He was
babysitting her. Another sister told them the previous week that they
should be concerned because Dad had fondled her from seven until she
left home at seventeen.

The four-year-old. . . pain, pediatrician, abrasion, evidence. By law, the
doctor filed a report. My sister . . . he put his pinkie in her, he had her
hold his penis, something thick, like toothpaste, came out. It’s what play
therapy revealed. Pedophiliac. I never knew the word before.

1987
Our father pleaded no contest on two counts of child molestation against
his granddaughter. There will not be a jury trial. We are relieved.…

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The Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus:
4 people in Massachusetts have died this summer,
and the area of high alert inches closer.
Each day we read, cuddle, ingest
and expel fluids, read poems, and cry.
I teach him about our indoor plants:
irisine, philodendron, echeveria, anthurium.
He likes to look out the window.

We stay inside the house.
Outside, cherry tomatoes split
their skins, slip to the ground,
and succumb to birds and earth.
All the bruschetta we did not eat this year.
I can’t wait until hard frost,
when mosquitos die in droves
and we lord over the streets like animals.
…

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Dishrags. Washrags. Dust rags. Rags from the rag
bag that big gunny sack, far end of the closet, where old
coats hang. Get me a rag, Mom says, to wipe up
the spill.
…………….Hear that tearing sound? Old sheets, new
rags. Stained tablecloth, worn towels, a torn blouse
(the one with blue and gray leaves, fabric Aunt
Judy sent; the one that I sewed), tee-shirts—
red, purple, gold. We could design a quilt.

We’re cracking walnuts, knocked from our tree.
Mom gets a long-faded towel rag,
puts it under the door.
…………….…………. .……=.No rags in our panties.
(We’ve got Kotex pads, tampons.) Old cotton undies?
Even blood stained, they make decent rags. That skirt?
Mom asks. Why don’t you wear it anymore?…

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