Uncategorized

Body

Poetry, Uncategorized 
These old kneecaps
Full of empty threats.
One day they’ll mean it,
And I’ll cry.

You ever try to fill your chest 
Beyond your lungs?
One day my ribs will
Throw their arms up in concession.

Thighs, “thickms”,
Strength, strife.
Run, rage, hope, hate.
I think I love you. 

Left eye more open than the right,
A shy Cupid’s bow 
And my grandmother’s nose 
To connect it all.
Teeth that can’t stand 
To be near each other.
Eyes, always guessing,
Pressing closed against the sting.
Some days I wish I was just a body.
Thoughtless and fearless,
Present. 
Just here to be.
Without a memory or a worry
Or anything, really,
Except for blood, my mother’s skin,
And my father's bones.

Saturday morning

Poetry, Uncategorized 
Wears a misty cap.
And the asphalt sings 
With a metallic odor. 
This feeling hangs 
Like a lead shawl 
Drawing down my eyelids 
Against the white sky.
Coastal sage scrub 
Pleads on the side of the I-15
For the brush of a coyote’s tail.
Desperate optimism.
Anger, taps on the glass window
Annoyed that it has to wait.
But it’ll wait, 
Even if it takes all night.
It is better to hash this out.
Kick at the puddles.
Scatter this muddy water 
Across the sidewalk. 
The wet season has been long 
For us. A monotonous drizzle.
White noise and floods 
On a Saturday morning.

Sidewalk impressions

Uncategorized 
I run down Nebraska every day 
Cross Purdue and Colby and Federal
Stop for a breather at Barrington
And pick my way across the lumpy
Root-risen ground by the skate park.

And I wonder, if I ran this route 
One million times 
Would the sidewalk even know?
Surely, yes.

Each time my foot strikes the cement 
It leaves an impression
A thousandth of a millimeter-
A quick kiss in the concrete.

So if I ran this every day
For the next 1,000 years
You would know,
Right? 

Hm. Maybe not.
It could be the other way around.

The sidewalk leaves 
A thousandth of a millimeter 
Impression 
On the sole of my shoe
With every lung-burning, stomach-churning
Stride that I take.

Until one day, 
I need new shoes.

I have to believe you’re here

Poetry, Uncategorized 
Today
We put strings of butterflies
On your bench.

It just so happened 
That a single monarch 
Crossed the trail 
And lingered for a bit
As we made our way down the sandy path.

I wish I had talked to you more.

I wish I had known you better.

You were always kind of like
A half-mom,
A taken-for-granted,
Taken-for-normal
Presence in my life.
Like the sunshine 
Or the leaves.

Things have been tough since you left.
Daughter. Husband. Adopted son. 
Fragmented by the absence.

I have to believe you are here
Holding them all
In arms made of gardenias
And wind.

I have to believe you are here.

Is it karma? Is there a lesson?

I have watched people wither away
Over losing someone who was not half the person
You are. 

I have to believe you are here.
white, gold, and purple iris in bloom with trippy effect - photo by Tierney Brannigan

Quarantine

Prose, Uncategorized
There’s no place like home

Spending all day indoors doesn’t feel as bad as it should. The spring rain helps. There’s no sunshine guilt.

I’ve been watching the birds come to the front porch. A pair of mourning doves perch on the railing. They shimmy and fluff themselves against the rain. Their feathers are the color of quiet hope. Their call – OhhOO…Ooooh…Ooooh – like a porcelain haunt in the pitches of my memory.

The hours slip into one another and 8am is 4pm with a few stretches, distractions, and snacks down the hatch. Days don’t as easily slip into one another. Friday feels further than it did when I actually went to work.

Cleaning has become a new hobby. I smiled satisfactorily, inwardly, as bleach clawed at the inside of my nose during my second EVER toilet scrubbing. This feels like what I should be doing. Or should have. This feels strangely like adulting.