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Erosion

The valley is a mile wide here
where glacier melt coursed through this plain—

now waters trace a narrow mouth
and part like lips the yielding earth.

My finger where your rings once clung—
what must have been to leave such marks?

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At Grandmother’s Funeral

She was ancient and demented:
hallucinating fire and snakes.

At four years I did not fear her—
her long gray hair, her yellow nails.

I’d never seen the placid dead.
I hid from her dreadful beauty.

From WHAT WE BURNED FOR WARMTH, FLP 2006

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Unspayed

The white house cat has run away
to a neighbor’s barn, three doors down.

There among the toms she holds court,
her lustrous ermine coat soiled gray.

I see her at the hayloft door –
abdicant queen looking towards home.

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Green Burn

Tinder dry, grass will rise to fire
at the slightest provocation.

Stacked tightly, green hay too will burn
from spontaneous combustion.

Don’t stand too close—you just might lose
your barn and everything in it.

from LITTLE FIRES, Finishing Line Press 2008