And Still Birth:

FORESHADOW

I mean, Eve probably should’ve seen it coming

the first time she took her toddler boys

to the grocery store

which in her day was just a wild walk through her garden

Where is Abel? You were supposed to be holding his hand 

while I crept behind this shrub to go the bathroom

WHERE IS ABEL?

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Yes, sweetie, that is exactly what you are

Or when Cain scribbled

F you Abel

in the unforgiving trunk of a magmag tree

and started humming weird grasshopper music to himself 

and laughing with the snakes

But she had rich things on her hands 

plants and names and a to-do list 

that stretched past the garden

river and then some

I should have seen it coming

she thinks, should have looked upward more

instead of into this cursed earth

ripping at the weeds that were threatening to strangle 

my little fruit tree

PUBLISHED IN SEGULLAH, 2017

FREQUENCY

As men grow older they lose their ability to hear high-pitched sounds. Perhaps this is why they prefer the steady company of dogs--those who will hear these for them. Women aren't much better off. As they age, bass tones become inaudible. Nature will keep the peace.

put your

fingers over

your earbuds

and slowly

press them

back and forth

to hear the

change in pitch

and you

will understand

why you

will never

satisfy a woman.

the change is subtle and happens faster than the second;

you will notice the tonal shift only as white noise below

your conversation.

understand, this is how she hears things all of the time.

you both listen to beethoven’s 7th in your car with windows rolled up and rain marathoning down.

neither of you looks at each other.

it's as if some game show host has promised you fifty dollars each if you can burn holes through the windshield with your eyes.

she sneezes and you hear the crescendo,

you blink and she hears the pause.

dumb, you sit in stupid, stupid silence.

PUBLISHED IN INSCAPE, 2007

LEAVE A MESSAGE

Mother can’t come to the phone right now

Suppose She has 640,000 cupcakes She signed up to bake?

Or maybe She’s in the sick wing of Father’s mansion

Cradling a flu-fevered cherub 

in a perfect Pietà prototype?

Wiping sickness and sad eyes?

Or wiping small behinds?

Just, in general terms, wiping. 

Then, of course, the raging list of celestial errands

Robes to be pressed?

Feasts to prepare?

Souls in need of a good home? 

No wonder the lead-lidded goddess has been quiet

napping in strange, convenient places.

Suppose Mother is not absent, She’s just laid down in the hallway, 

taking the thousand-year nap She deserves?

Suppose when She wakes 

Roused by a crescendo chorus of daughters’ cries

She will reveal herself in flowers

Patterns

Symphonies

Celestial Bodies in the blue night sky

PUBLISHED IN 2016