Tuesday, 4:29 p.m.

The ice cream truck slowed down
our street, but A Small World didn't cease in its rotation
and neither did the wheels. The breaks squeaked
at the Johnson's house a block over,

sounded like the school bus that nearly stopped
this morning when I waved the driver on
and went back inside, half expecting
to wipe up the milk or turn down the cartoons.

Soccer practice lets out in sixteen minutes;
I hug my knees in a fetal curl and read
the anchorman's lips. The doctor's words
tumble around in my head
like your cleats in the clothes dryer
used to do.

Thomas Kills A Song Bird

Windchimes tickle the breeze,
and a smile twinges under the ill-kept lawn
on Thomas' lips. He pulls a swig from his jug,
and shine trickles down, a fluid hum
harmonizing with the ceramic tinkle.
The tune flits him back to the afternoon
of her first piano lesson, and a prick
of guilt withers the lilt as his words spill
over, stilling her fingers: music is a waste of time.

Honesty

You pelt me with pebbles and run
like a sissy, hide behind the slide
and point so your silly friends see;
I hope you laugh so hard you pee
your pants in front of them. Your mamma
saw the whole thing, nya,nya, boo, boo
she's gonna get yoooouuu. She walks
you over to my swing pinching your ear,
and tells you to say... What's that?
A little louder, please; I don't think
your buddies hear you. Sorry?
Hmm. You're distracted by your sore
ego, so I reach down, scoop a handful
and pitch it like I'm in the Majors.
As playground rocks whiz
through the air at your ugly head,
I whisper. I forgive you.

Hey, my husband's face is on the featured photo today.

Thou Art With Me

So, I see you've taken up prayer.
How's that workin' for ya? It's not death's shadow
that should send your monitors
into a frenzy, though.

Just last night, mine snuck down the hallway,
morphed through your door, and hovered
over your tubes and hoses
before she danced up a storm

cloud and hailed the thunder
(hence that short power outage).
She watched you struggle
without the hiss of oxygen's flow
through your mask, blew you

a kiss, and whisked out the window.
I've found her back here this morning, hung over
you, cursing the generators
for their infallibility while you babble

(spare me) about green pastures.
Your hands quiver, exhausted
from the efforts of holding me
down for so many years.
Are you afraid of me? Don't be

daft; I'm harmless. I can't speak
for her, however.

Thomas, Dead Man Walking

Light flickers atop the wick,
barely stretches to the wedge of black
in the door's crack before it resigns
to confinement. Thomas hunches
over the captive, watches it it writhe
and bleed out before he snuffs
it with a thumb and index.
He pours a snifter, catches a whiff
of the flame's death and chuckles. In hell,
it's the other way around.

Sevenling (The Note)

I taped a note to the remote
typed-out, signed by hand,
straight to-the-point.

I left dinner on the stove,
your work clothes in the dryer,
and phoned you in a replacement prescription.

I wonder how long before he finds me.

Sevenling (Barren)

I tilled the soil, infused it with nutrients,
tested for fertility. For months, I watched
the seedlings, waited for one to sprout.

This bed stays so cold
and dark, dry like barren winter
in a desert drought.

You wonder why nothing grows here.

Thomas Doesn't Do Pretty

"Pretty stuff just takes up space."
His back-hand slapped her
Nanna's vase. It shattered
against the wall, and her eyes withered
with the petals as she swept...

Thomas reclines, rolls his tongue
over the last sip of wine, shifts
his gaze away from the empty rack
where her knickknacks once sat,
the ones he'd trashed with the last tantrum.
Tonight, he will replace them again,
so he'll have some glass to smash
next time he gets the urge
to do something rash.

Sevenling (The Kitchen Doesn't Smell)

The kitchen doesn't smell
of garlic cloves, coffee grounds,
fresh-baked cookies.

Paint, it's always paint because he can't find
the shade, the texture, the trim
she would have wanted.

One more shot of Bourbon, and he may get it right.

-- For Thomas

Triolet I Heard You The First Time

I heard you say you loved me, though
I didn't know you meant it. Dang,
you're gonna miss me when I go,
I heard you say. You loved me, though.
I laughed behind your back, and so
you ran off with some chick who sang.
I heard you say you loved me. Though
I didn't know, you meant it. Dang.


(which was in response to one of my fellow poet's April 16th Triolet) Here's his:

You didn’t hear me when
I said I loved you. Once
I mentioned it again.
You didn’t hear me. When
You laughed I knew right then
I had to change my stance.
You didn’t hear me when
I said, I loved you once.

It's Curtains For Thomas

Lady Grey whispers hints
of lemon, but he hears only the purse
of an angel's lips against china. The tea runs out
of steam, still full. Thomas shoots Jack
Daniels in his gut, climbs the ladder, and hangs
those darn "cute curtains" she'd asked for
before she couldn't ask for anything anymore.

You're One Line Short of Three Full Strophes

This is the muse: I see you,
you think I'm cute. I'm dreaming
up a good title. Skip the prologue,
shoot straight (from your hip

to my hip, lip to lip we get) through S1,
but by S2, L2, I'm getting a clue
that there is no you in my epilogue.
I could most likely slip in a few more

good rhymes, but realize that it's so much
darn work. I forfeit the plot and form
for the sake of a poetic ending.

Thomas Meets The King

He cradles a spine, bent..........................dreaming? In hell? Everything hurts.
from times she'd folded it backwards ..... He (Satan?) looms over her. ...likes
to expose the meat, the blood...............Vodka. Interesting, familiar...
text. His finger runs along........................must be reading his bookofspells...
the pores, tracing the path.....................dark, cold. Not hell. Something
her own tips had worn. ..........................brushes across her hand. She stirs...
It is a puzzling mystery
how a woman, so meek, thrived
on savage stories, but King
and Koontz quitely slaughter
their characters on her bedside
stand. He flips through the pages.
The room is so cold........................................so cold...

Death By Drowning

It's an involuntary silence, one that drains
words right out of you like greywater.
After the surge, we rush down streams
of thought in parallel paths

that will never merge, swirl past refuse
of time wasted together, and gush
into our own personal gutters. It went quietly,

our marriage. It did not attempt to burst
to the surface or gulp for air, and I suppose
that will be your strongest argument

when you get the gumption to speak,
but we both know how it went under to begin with;
your sleeves are still wet.

Sevenling (Reality)

On our wedding day, you compared me to the sun:
without me you'd pale, too much of me you'd burn,
and if you stared at me too long you'd go blind.

After a few years, I became coffee: without me your day
was a drag, too much, and I made you jittery.
To take me straight, I was a tad bitter.

Now, I am reality television and you just can't stand me at all.

Triolet (You Look So Innocent)

You look so innocent and sweet
sometimes. I lie there, breathe in deep,
and watch you sleep. I want to beat
you. Look, so innocent and sweet,
I thought, but you're a lying cheat.
The plastic on your head should keep
you. Look, so innocent. And sweet,
sometimes I lie. There, breathe in deep.

Limerick

There was a poor Woolley who once learned
certain body parts shouldn't get sunburned.
She said, "never again
will I bare my rear-end"
when she saw just how red-hot her buns turned.

Fish Out Of Water

Katie found Benny's body, bloated,
floating in his bowl. We sent him off
proper: James said an Amen, flushed
twice. That's why I'm late getting here.

I checked in at the desk with the shift nurse;
she said you've had a rough mornin' too.
You must be dreamin', 'cause I see the bulge
under your lids squirm. I wonder

if you're circling a school, maybe eyeing
a straggler, one with the wounded smell.
I imagine you caught a whiff of his injury,
and it sent you into a frenzy. You have no idea

that I'm about to pull your plug, drain
you dry. I hope you flop around for hours
before the final spasm. Can you hear me
in there? I'll have your carcass burned,

tell Katie we've got another ceremony
to perform. James can pee in the swirl,
and we'll flush three times, just to be sure.

Photograph -- Part I

Turpentine fumes with a citrus tinge cling
to her tongue; if it wasn't stuck to the roof
of her mouth, she'd shout at the xylophone
wielding weirdo outside her window. No,
not her window. Not a xylophone, either.
And what's with all the flowers? Her temples
throb, her goose-egg swells, she wonders
what the heck she's into and how
long she's been out. Nice curtains. She slides
them aside and sighs. Just windchimes. Relief
subsides when she whirls around to face the face
on the wall.

Elisabeth's A Wreck

"Pretty stuff just takes up space."
His back-hand slapped her
Nanna's vase. It shattered
against the wall, and her eyes withered
with the petals as she swept. She stepped
on a shard, it pierced her flesh,
and she begged Thomas to bring her
to get it stitched. He griped, slugged
down the draft in his hand, tossed her
keys to the floor, and pointed to the door.
She wept as she left, but kept it to herself.

Elisabeth's Wreck

"It happened quick," Nurse Annie said.
Thomas shook his head and flicked the butt
on the sidewalk, lit another, took a drag,
let his shoulders sag. "The car hit a slick, slid
into a ditch and flipped. She didn't feel
a thing". But he did. He kicked the curb
and cursed the wind and thought of Elisabeth's
milky skin, her face, her face, the broken vase,
the keys, the friggingkeys, why did he throw
the keys, the friggingvase, her broken face.
Nurse Annie traced the tear to from his ear
to his chin, so kind, so like his Lis. And then,
to him, she was.


Photograph -- Part II

That face, the pale skin, the woman
from the accident. Annie tries to remember,
then wishes she'd forget. The husband had choked
up, she'd taken him out
for a smoke, tried to calm him, but he'd lost
it, called her Lis. When she'd insisted
she wasn't, he'd flipped, and clocked
her over the head. Now, she's in this room
with a lukewarm cup of tea, some horror
novels, and a photo of a comatose wife
on the wall. Someone down the hall murders
a piano one note at a time.