after she died
this all
become a
pet rock
relationship
a biding
of time
a hermit
in his paper
kennel
speaking
only of
those who
bid their dogs
farewell
Pet Rock
The Edge of Grief
approaching the
edge of grief
alongside a friend
and the blur of the
numbing steals all
sense of time
and place and memory
of sequence of order
of hunger and thirst
of exhaustion in the
energy of fumes
we’d just returned
from lunch Tuesday
when her call came.
I’d missed it, called her
back to learn her
husband had fallen
from his chair at
work and she was
hospital bound.
I let our boss know.
A friend and I
arrived to a
room full of people
we did not know.
And just like that,
a lunch special
slice of pizza and
salad with lemon
water later, the
world is changed
forevermore
just hours
before she
broke down
in the waiting
room with the
declaration
we weren’t finished.
A Flickering
at 4:37 I heard
scrambling of paw
on wood floor
ticky-toe hurried
steps toward
the bedroom door
next the whining,
different from normal
pleas, like someone
stepping full weight
on my Boo Radley
then a return to
the bed, where he
turned in circles
bumping us with
his body to wake
us up, then lay
between our heads
trembling
panting
as if there were
a ghost.
I took them out,
all three,
in the light balmy
mist of the
pitch black
Georgia backwoods
starry skies
thought of the bits
of squirrel tail
over near the tree
line where violent
death hung in the
recent air
we came back
inside, and I turned
off the light to return
to bed.
A flicker after the
switch-off, and I
knew.
Hello, Mom!
Reality
every few days
I have the urge
to sell everything
we own and move
into the camper with
two plates, two forks,
and two spoons
and share a knife~
to retire, take to
the highways, see
the changing landscape
of America, pulling
our flatware and
plates from
site to site
no particular place to be
no pressing deadline to meet
then I come to my senses
trying to reckon with the
reality of the silverware
drawer and all those
cabinets.
Horror Farm
out by the tree line
of Loblolly pines
fifty feet from our
front door
where the Great
Horned Owl pair
chats across the
pine branches
at 5 a.m.
Ollie and Fitz
stopped in their tracks
to smell the rotting leaves.
They looked like charcoal,
only fuzzy. More like a
squirrel tail torn to shreds.
Or a rabbit.
I had just told my children
about rabbit, rabbit earlier
on the first day of June.
Was this a harbinger of
death for this poor
creature gone except
for its fur?
This farm holds mysteries
that will never yield answers.
It’s been the Johnson
Funny Farm since 1971
when three farmhands
saw a trio of cross-eyed pigs
but it’s not all funny here.
Sometimes there is
a twinge of horror against
all the laughter and tears.
Visual Vexations
Visual Vexations
my brother and I
wonder still: were
Mom’s Lewy Body Dementia
confusions visual
distortions or hallucinations?
She saw a little boy in an
orange shirt sitting all alone
at the storefront and worried
about his safety.
We saw a pumpkin.
She saw strange men with
bunches of bananas
under the carport.
We saw family members
building her a wheelchair
ramp with Dewalt power tools.
She heard voices playing
tricks on her. We heard
branches scratching
the shutters in the wind.
Still, we wonder what she
would see now.
Would she know we are
her children, making our
way through this carnival
funhouse with all these
distorting mirrors
of the complex
and the concave,
wondering, too,
what things are?
Rabbit Rabbit
all this rabbit rabbit
of yesterday to have
good luck all month ~
a maddening superstition
bringing more stress about
the forgetting is bad luck
enough to forego the
continuation
to begin to ask why
we do this to ourselves
why rabbit, rabbit?
Consciousness Aviary
in the aviary at
Emory University Hospital
Midtown in Atlanta
trapped birds fly
in a viewing room
adjacent to the light of day
wondering how to
regain full
consciousness
All This Pain
the closest we
ever got to a
rainbow was a
peacock feather
the day the two
went to Noah’s Ark
to look for things
to discover
to wonder about
I didn’t feel like
that kind of mother
who says a prayer
and leaves it in
the lap of Jesus
without worry
I was more
the warrior type
praying everyday
hoping all the
nickels would add
up to be worth a miracle
I knew in the back
of my mind when I
saw the Cheshire Cat
smile
Blue Eyes
they were getting
ready for an afternoon
wedding when the
husband stepped out
of the shower, kissed
his wife, said
I love you, Blue Eyes
laid down on the
bed and died of
a heart attack
leaving her and
their four sons
grieving
this is why when
my husband came
to my bedside
this morning before
stepping into his
shower and kissed
me I wondered:
should I give him
an aspirin?
should I take one?
Common Threads 