Election Night Kindness

Lean over nearer me
on election night --
let's appoint me the Queen
of the Universe
and you can be
my biggest fan.

Remind me that it matters
to vote
even though no one
ever wins here
except the Queen--
her loyal subjects
constantly falling
on their knees
in gratitude,
weeping for joy.

Kindness rules here
like the sun rises
and the moon
that is just a light
that reflects
all the rays
of the fading
from day into night.

It matters,
when all is lost,
to know that we have
been so much more
than kind.

It takes nothing from the other
to be kind and full of hope.

The Summer We Raised Chickens

The summer we raised chickens
is fading from my mind a little--

The way the feathers smell
when water,
boiled.
is poured over
the stiff white bristles.

The way twine feels
tied tight around legs that tried
to carry the body away
from the inevitable.

The track of blood
from the stump
into the long grasses
and back to the barn
and the steam.

My job
was to pluck them.
My job
was to hold them down.

My job was to remember the names
my sister gave them,
like Brownie and Skye,
and live to tell the story.

Distant Relations

I am fading tonight; pale
with only the slightest outline
sketched on my sheets,
hands tucked under my head
and breathing deeply.

My breath resonates
in a frequency
that only birds
the color of cardinals
can hear.

These bloodlines,
warriors,
are cousins
and distant relations
to the sounds of music
with no place else to go
but up.

Clouds and stars,
and sometimes a falling maple leaf,
can see beauty in all that red
and the incredible flashing
of clarity against the
cool exhalations
of snow when winter
inevitably arrives
just before we expect
seasonal gratitude.

Traveling So Far

This jagged scar;
the ridge of this lesson
prospers with parallel
tracks, brindle and dull
from disuse.

Almost forgotten letters
are traced on the inside of my lids.
When I least expect to find their raised edges
and the deafening meaning
that comes
from touching these wounds,
I encounter the cold resistance
to losing everything.

I am stumbling toward the darkness of prison--
the metal of bars pressed heavy
on my chest, my heart fearful.

As if the unbearable dream was over,
I declare I will not go back there
now that I have stopped
the bleeding
and I have remembered
the distance
of traveling
so very far
toward freedom.

The Body was Even Cold

Brace yourself
for the thud,
cold and stiff as bones
tolling like lonely

church bells,

when the ache
of your body
drops

quiet as death
from the corpse,

breath pilfered
from the pink satchel
of your lungs--

gasping for anything
like air..

This day is as precious as the last,
you think.
It seemed easier to notice the losses
when the heart pointed out
there aren't as many beautiful
morning mists or babies to kiss
on the roundness
of a cheek.

The shock of it all
was like grief.
Abrupt abandonment
awakened before the body
was even cold.

Even Oaks

Forget what you have ever known
about the core of yourself;
that pithy center that has held  you up
through the stormy days and nights
of your life until now.

Forget what it meant to waste hours, minutes
wandering through the grief of rain
you carefully weighed
on scales that measured nothing
of the soul that inhabited the space
that slipped away like leaves
letting go on cold nights.

Even oaks eventually give up
and let copper and brown
fly and give way to the wind
that remembers everything
and is content to release the silent voice
of another season
turning the corner
where memory and love
first kissed.

Doing it Right

At the top of the stairs
I hear myself scold you;
holding you accountable
over the phone for your digression.

I see myself in the mirror
and reflect on the way my mouth
tightens at the edges
and my brow gathers in a stitch
between my eyes.

I am guilty
of wanting your happiness
to flow like easy water;
a cold and deeply clear spring
that quenches your desire.

Like any mother
I want you to do it right
this time.