Moving Day

They empty my closet

sorting shirts and pants and dresses

into piles

for Goodwill or

The Women’s Shelter or

Some Memory Bear.

The papers and books get tossed

into a soon-to-be pyre.

Furniture, cookware, tumbled, trashed

The fridge. They remove a plate of cookies

cookies I made, cookies I saved

for you.

Cookies from a holiday party you never attended.

Another plate, another party of one.

The freezer is full of cookies

Saved from all the parties you

never attended. You were too busy.

Into the trash.

They divvy up ‘the good stuff.’

You take nothing,

click the lockbox as you leave.

Published in Poetic Visions Poetry Competition & Exhibition 2020 Anthology - Museum of Art - Deland

Sunrise, Sunset

My son stands, hip deep, in the Atlantic

thin flowered dress plastered to his thighs

walking along the surf, pushing his curls

behind his ears, the long, thin fingers

topped by  bitten nails.

Delicate eyebrows shade his blue eyes,

the same shade of blue as mine.

I am mesmerized by his beauty.

Blessed with ignorance

that he has already started

weekly injections

into those pale thighs.

In a few months,

the blood will stop flowing

from his shriveling uterus.

My son turns, smiles,

blows me a kiss.

A wave drenches him

and he laughs.

For his 18^th birthday,

he changed his name.

I say kaddish for my daughter-dreams

and rock my new born son

in my arms.

2nd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2019

Published in Revelry 2019

Three Seasons of Glass

                                                                   

Scratching at the glass

the casing the sills

I suck the tiny

lead paint infected

wood flakes

from under my nails

feeding the pica that will kill me

sometime in the future.

Snow builds up on the grilles

ice patterns on the panes

hold my hand to melt another pattern.

It is cold here, almost as cold as out there

no one looks my way

no one looks at me

no one sees

no one remembers

me, licking the glass, waiting.

Rain makes new designs

wearing off the dirt

press against the glass

banging head until welts form.

Blood trails bookmatch the rivulets

Harder. More blood.

I see the sky,

deeper blue behind the rain,

as I wait and wait, for sun.