Cemetery

Cemetery

Cemetery
Night
Dark
Cold
Winter
Snow
Ice
Melting
Sunshine
Growing
Plants
Fruit
Buries

~ Spring 2007
[circle poem]

Cancer

Cancer

The day my grandma passed
her styrofoam cup to me
filled with untouched water,
she smiled - I was her whole world.

I slipped my fingers under hers
and held her hand tight,
like how she held her daily pills,
necessary but hard to swallow.

I placed my other hand under her head,
supporting it just above the neck,
how she held me
when I was the baby.

In a moment, her breathing shifted,
ever-so-gently.
I could taste bland tears,
felt them drop and dampen my shirt,
but I never made a sound,
never moved a muscle.

And in that moment, she passed
her other hand over mine,
as her final breath was taken away,
leaving me behind
with just her body,
and her old-fashioned jewelry,
and a pair of slippers.

~Fall 2008

Childhood

Childhood

A peach hanging in the sky,
overripe, dripping juice
down your windowsill.

Robots and teddy bears scattered
on your patchwork quilt, old kings
and queens make you stay for bittersweet tea.

Through stained glass windows, the magnolias
stick to trees in tufts like sickly
sweet cotton candy.

Dinosaurs roam
in the distance, moving slowly
through dewy grass, gleaming teeth
and claws, obscured by the mist.

Shooting stars are rickety spaceships racing
your dreams across the night sky, followed by
cookies and spilt milky ways.

The gardens grow long forgotten toys, broken
yo-yos drip rainbows that pool
and swirl, staining your memories
with polka dots, sweetening the smell
of grandma’s gingerbread,
trapping you behind that white picket fence.

~Fall 2008