I drive this brown place

Dry air sucks me toward the stark pines in concert
on the mountain, silhouettes of women re-assemblng.

I love this brown place where flashes of strata show flesh
centuries of bark and moon. I drink this place

like hard water.

I navigate an older childhood of alcohol and noises

behind adobe walls. I climb crumbling brown earth and

love what others discard. We assemble as slim vials
assemble as stories. I drive the whimsy map of maternal

pines with tiny nuts to bite down on.

This gritty ride is nearly angelic. Assemblage. My hand

on the steering wheel, a learned behavior. I saunter

in exodus, dressed all in gray with flames of Fall

breaking from mottled cottonwood.

Enchantment the given adjective. Brown and lavender

hues like birds that punctuate the night. Book splayed

on the passenger seat beside me. Mud clarified with rain.

Comments

Vessel

Inside I imagine puckered cups of butter cookies nested in paper that releases a sigh But instead there may be fiction within wishes never reciprocated Playbill of redundant arguments One black glove found fraying This vessel on an emptied table solo temptation is labeled with another’s name Guarded initials as if carved in melting snow A tool unsuited to the task of prying open Not yet valentine

Shameless Early Promotion

My poetry book, The Fiction of Stillness, is available for pre-order now on Barnes and Noble. Official release date August 1st, 2024. Here's a taste: ... The table is smooth and round symmetric The chairs are haphazardly placed at the end of this day I have breast cancer I say into the receiver [communities must] pool resources How to produce the sounds of the imaging report into sentences that resonate with months of postponement weighty contrast on my right side computing and comparing IM ratios for greater insight not sufficient to prove the efficacy of screening ...

Grit and Sunlight

What springs up: insistence in this persistent mother of mine (still breathing) Even busy ashes from a rescued urn float up reconstituted as morning dew She unfolds her tendril arms from shadow (shaking just five days ago as if in temporary surrender) (that moment when I am less certain of her longevity) this woman ever present (anyone’s mother) aging when even the most spindly clover of her fragile skin captures the sunrise light like anticipation’s shower ...

As Mourning Doves Persist

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