My Poetry

Vacancy  It was the perfect night for a ride in your old Silverado until you found a train to race. Sound of its whistle blew straight through me as you drove between the crossing gates. My heart quivered like the speedometer needle and your lips were hotter than your 454 manifold. The city seems lonely looking down from Bear Hill at night. You told me all your fast ambitions while drinking a fifth of Jack. I watched the signal at Cross and Maine turn from red to green and back to red avoiding your eyes but the moonlight was powdered sugar on my skin and you were determined to taste it. Not even the darkness was perfect. I opened my eyes to the red neon VACANCY sign flashing across my face while you squeezed my hips and groaned. Morning sun melted between us I watched your eyes in reckless R.E.M. and knew I’d never share your dreams.

Lessons from the Sky It's been a taffy pull year and a half time stretched resources stretched  sanity stretched. I feel like water gathered in an old tire  as days trickle downhill.  It's tough to move on  when the whole world is in a time out but I'm getting to a place where I like myself again.  Still, time feels like a toy lost in childhood.  I've spent so much of it reading the horizon watching clouds drift. I've chased metaphors sank into similes played hide-and-seek with allusions but my muse has been stingy all it can muster is angst.  I don't care what those  scientific studies say chocolate kisses  don't make me feel loved.  I'm okay being alone never needed anybody to complete me, but just once it would be nice  to have someone  toss pebbles at my window someone to share poetry and music with explore science and Shakespeare with someone with whom I can  match wits.  I wasted too many years with a man w...

Recess The sun baked through the denim of my wrap-around skirt  as I waited my turn at hopscotch. The key to my bike chain was my marker for the game. It never landed outside the box.  Dandelions turned the playground into a white carpet of puff balls. We twirled around them like ballerinas and wished for bubblegum, Barbies, and breasts, before we blew their seeds off to root in someone’s yard.  We were 4th grade girls; a summer too old to climb on monkey bars or swing from rings.  We talked about boys, but never to them.  Sometimes we played jacks in the corridor. The chill of shaded concrete seeped through polyester dresses as we bounced  past onsies and twosies.  There were times we’d play handball against the  bathroom wall, and once, Sandy  broke Tina's nose with the tetherball. After lunch, the scent of hot dirt stung my nose, while we played volleyball and whispered about how Sally  was wearing a bra.  When the bell rang, we ...

Places She Ran Albuquerque in October blazing sunrise  colorful constellations dot azure skies.  Eagle’s view fails to find fragments she left behind.  Ghosts of conquistadors homesteaders, and warriors inhabit El Paso- desert  jewel reflected in the Rio Grande. Kings of the rodeo could not lasso her though- she ran to Memphis and shared her blues with Beale Street. Never found grace in Graceland only dreams pawned in glittery shops for a quart of gin. Reflections distort in the sun, where she took a pretty boy's virginity to replace the one she left under a willow tree. Vapid thoughts eased pain weaving through her mind. Xavier wasn’t her savior yesterday is never really gone, and Zion is not where she belongs. __________________________________________________________ I was raised in a cultish religion and I felt smothered by it, so when I was 17, I ran away from home. I hitchhiked back and forth across the country for 7 months.  Sometimes it feels like it all...

 Sleep Deprivation Dead asleep first rest she’s had in days on a mattress stained with semen and menstrual blood. A condemned apartment sanctuary from the rain. His hands roam freely. Dragged from blessed slumber; she doesn’t even know his name!   It doesn’t matter too tired to protest. If this is her sacrifice for shelter so be it. Her legs are wrenched apart. His face contorts into a pained grimace; unholy union.   Her uncomfortable squirms excite him slobber on her shoulder. "Just hurry up," she thinks.   Animal grunts in her ear. His body seizes confirmation it’s over. His arms enfold her, shit breath on her neck. Finally sleep- deliverance from hellish reality. The fate of a teenage girl running from a smothering religion. She thinks this is freedom. She will be gone before he wakes thumbing another ride to condemnation.

 Wilted  He found me like a wild rose on the roadside I was thumbin’ my way to work. He was a clinging vine; transplanted himself into my world.   Soon we were tangled together around a picket fence dream. We couldn’t afford to paint that fence white even with me working two jobs it stayed that gray shade of weathered wood. But who needs fresh paint anyway? He had his cigarettes, I had my kaleidoscope, and we read Xaviera Hollander guide to mind-blowing sex together.   After the children were born he acted like the world was a slot machine and it was somehow my fault it wouldn’t come up all cherries. And I made lots of lemonade from all those lemons he brought home but he would only drink gourmet coffee.   I think of him often now, and sharply, like when I pretend his neck is the rose stem I am clipping. There are times I want to shred the leather jacket he forgot to take   and turn every photo of him left into confetti but my memory softens with an old son...