Your Umbrella

Old Bank Street, Manchester, UK by R.A.D. Stainforth

I want to dance

outside 

your dry, sane circle

and get wet

get wet

get wet

I don't belong

here

in your dry, sane circle

you've never

let me

forget

I'm a hayseed

daughter of the fields

I'm a half-breed

no matter how high my heels

I don't need

to be your white man's burden anymore

Dry isn't what the rain is for.

For The Mag

Love Looks Like

Hand printed pages
back-lit
by the sunset I missed
stitching
fossils and fur
and driving -
always driving
to get where you're going.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Spring Sketch

Heart locket leaves;
a silver chain breeze
that flutters and flirts

with the hem of my shirt;
bare feet in the dirt; every cloud
is a coin in my pocket.

A sketch poem for Play It Again at Real Toads.

Summers

We had the sun in a skillet
those well-fed summers.
Green beans, tomatoes,
and okra head high.
Wide mouth Ball jars
brim full of berries.
Cucumber vines.

I'd run through the millet
(cut and baled by late summer),
and my muscles moved long
and loose on my bones.
I'd run without worry
of what might be behind me;
I was fearless and strong.

Years trying to fill it -
the hole left by those summers
of sweat and squash bugs
and long rows to hoe
when I saw the world
through firefly eyes
as a garden to make my own.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Meers

There's a fault line by Meers,
and I blame the burgers.
Longhorn lean,
but big as a dinner plate
and weighty enough to shift tectonics,
this is no hold it in one hand Sonic special.
This is an unbutton the top button,
geological,
gastronomical event.
Finish one?
I can't.
But I'm willing to richter on and keep trying.
You know, for the advancement of science.

A small tribute to the legendary Meers burger for Karin's prompt at Real Toads.