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Sleep my girl,
place your strawberry-blonde
hair on a pillow.
Dream the sweetest
of dreams, finer
than any sweet gift,
ribboned in pink—
color of the blanket
you were once wrapped in.
I sang to you then
as I sing to you now
over the desert land.
Published: Liturature Today, Vol. 8, 2018
Aubade
I was wearing an orange maternity dress
that summer morning, standing at the airport
that would take you to Vietnam.
I wasn’t yet twenty-one.
Our parents never said how foolish we’d been
to marry, having done so themselves
in a time of war. I watched you
go up the steps of the plane,
put on your sunglasses
and turn to wave.
Should I have thought
I might never see you again?
The armor of youth.
I barely remember driving home,
only the comfort of the bed,
the antique dresser with mirrors
across the room. Somewhere someone
was mowing. I knew I should get up
at some point, the baby’s foot
a knot in my stomach.
Outside were lilacs, hollyhocks,
hydrangeas. I could make a bouquet.
But I didn’t.
Night came with its cool air,
air you were flying through.
A small lamp on, a moth at the screen
in its camouflage.
Publisheld: Haunted Waters Press, 2018
Water Lilies, 1907 (unfinished)
after Monet
To have your subject
to return to again and again.
Why this one
unfinished
when you destroyed many.
This was before the pond flooded,
plants ripped loose.
Those willows draping
their reflection over water
purple and blue—they
are not here,
not one blossom, nothing
yet in bloom, but something
worth saving so that we
might see stirrings of
desire in the barest season.
Iodine, 2011
Postcard of Provence
after van Gogh, 1888
The farmhouse and the fields are the same shade
of wheat, yet the door and windows of the house
are blue. Red flowers grow along a brick wall
that curves away from the stark white pathway,
and to the left a lone figure with his back to us.
My friend who’s lost her husband sent this card,
and wrote in handwriting smaller than van Gogh’s,
How sad I am. We cannot know this man’s life,
what he’s walking toward or away from, his occupation,
only that a ghostly sky meets a field of lavender,
that one tree has bloomed purple behind haystacks.
He could be a widower, carrying his loneliness
with every step, no one to hear I’m home, vases empty,
and work still to be done—threshing of wheat,
shaking the olive trees until they let go their bitter fruit.
Nimrod, forthcoming
(semi-finalsit for the
Pablo Neruda Prize)
Weeping Willow
after Monet, 1918-1919
Whatever your sorrow is
is yours alone.
Tall lithe figure
swaying darkness, what
have the years
brought except
silver among green leaves
trailing the bank.
You can’t turn away.
You stand rooted
in faith that rain
will come, wash
away debris, that the sun
will glint through
what wind hasn’t
severed. Part of me
longs to enter
your canopy,
lie beneath your shade,
but the ground
is damp and grass
won’t grow there.
View from my window—
my black-shuttered house.
Iodine, 2011
Still Life with Bottles
for my husband
after Monet, 1859
Come sit, share the bread with me, spread it with butter, there on the pewter dish. Pour the wine—we won’t need the carafe of water, but maybe later the apricot brandy the sun is hitting now, spreading its shadow across the table. Bring cheese, and there are apples in the kitchen in a basket. Red wine is your favorite, earthy tannins that preserve. I want to tell you of the new sadness, how the heart can fold like a flower at sunset. You, who’ve lived with me so long, having studied my face, desired good things for me—lift the bottle and pour, then my lips will taste like yours. Don’t worry about the white cloth if anything spills, it will wash. This knife isn’t sharp, just tear the baguette—bread made to last only a day. Now I can tell you, while all is quiet, the walls surrounding us, making us close in this small space.
Yemassee, 2011
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