The Help

I make excuses
and call them reasons.

I'm older and fatter.
We're busy.
You're tired.

The truth is much simpler.

No one really sees the help.

Heirlooms

Nestled deep in the vines
is a flash of bright red -
the last fruit of the season.

My knees in the dirt, I reach
inhaling the earthy greenness
of lingering summer
until

cupped in my hand
is a tomato
so sun warmed and perfect
that I am tempted
to pierce the tender skin with my teeth
and let its juices wet my tongue.

Instead, I halve
its beauty with a knife,
then scoop the flesh and seeds
into a watery jar
to ferment and mold
like a family secret.

In a day or two,
I'll scrape and rinse,
collect the heavy sinkers from the bottom of the jar,
and carefully wrap them in netting to hang and dry

through the cold, dark months of another winter;
an unbroken line
to another spring.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

As If

Someday, I will live as if . . .

I believe in happy endings,

my kisses really mend scraped knees,

and my thighs are perfect.

Yeah.

And, someday . . .

winged elephants will fly out of my butt.

A Magpie Tale

Let's Call It . . .

The cat puked up an odd-shaped hairball.
I slopped red wine on the living room rug.
The neighbor's dog is a half block of roadkill.
Fuck it.  Let's just call it art.

Unemployment is blood on the bar graph.
Bills are stacked in unsteady piles.
Pink slips fill the street like confetti.
Fuck it.  Let's just call it art.

Dark spots on the chest x-ray.
Canyons on the EKG.
Purpling bruises on a child.
Fuck it.  Let's just call it art.

It's all graffiti on the gravestone.
It's all billboards on the brain.
It's all Coke straight to the cortex.
Fuck it.  Let's just call it art.

For Poetics at dVerse

A Shout-Out:  Over at Word Garden, Shay's piece had this line:
"You smear brimstone on the hearth stone
And tell me its pop art."

Either it just wormed its way into my brain, or I steal from the best.  Probably both.

As I Do

Cradle gently,
as I cradled you.

Speak softly,
as I spoke to you.

Love deeply,
as I loved you.

Learn from me,
as I learned from you.