MON AUTUMN
Little pieces from me fall,
Jagged-jigsaw bits of memory
I try pounding them back in place,
But they no longer fit.
Their necks just bend
And so they fall / no longer fit
Little pieces from me fall,
Wadded-sticky bits of mind.
I try gluing them back together,
But they no longer stick
They just fall apart
And so they fall / no longer stick
Little pieces from me fall,
Fast-forgotten bits of past.
I try, I try, I try to remember,
But they no longer stay.
They just go away.
And so they fall / no longer stay
Little pieces,
These little pieces from me,
These things,
They fall.
I try,
These things,
But,
Like weathered leaves,
They crumble at my feet.
I step on my mind,
A labyrinth mind,
My mind,
All but ash.
Within my fingertips
Lies
My past.
I try,
These things,
Forcing them back inside,
But they no longer live.
They just get smashed.
And so they fall / no longer live.
COLD TOMORROWS
The boy is worried. His little sister won’t stop crying, and both of them are very hungry. His father left last week, dressed in many layers to ward off the cold. He said he was going to fix the generator but he didn’t come back. Momma has gone to sleep and he can’t wake her up. The cell phone is dead, no electricity, so he can’t call the pastor or the school or the police. When he went outside, the winds were so great he barely made it back to the house. He looks at the supplies left. An Oreo cookie and a can of diet cola. Vaguely he remembers Pastor John’s story about Jesus and the Last Supper. He makes his sister wait until he says grace. He gives her the last cookie.
ANGEL WINGS OF DEATH
Turning the handle
A mad wind takes hold
Pulling her outside
All three hinges shot . . .
There, a crackle
Takes her very breath
Amid a melee
Silent screaming mouths . . .
She joins the chaos
Steps on broken glass
No, she realizes
Black tumbling bay leaves . . .
They cover the ground
And spiral freefall
Casualties of war
Angel wings of death . . .
She holds out her hand
Catches one mid-air
An ugly snowflake
A chrysalis shell . . .
Crumbled by fingers
Still warm to the touch
What to make of it
All these dying trees . . .
Death-rain from above
Draws her attention
She looks to the sky
Eyes of hot embers . . .
HERO
White hot embers
barraging her trailer,
a fallen tree blocking her driveway,
Darlene can’t budge it.
A light appears
on the empty street,
the squeak of chain,
a boy turns up on his bike—
brand new Schwinn
he got for his 12th birthday
two weeks ago on a Sunday,
but Darlene doesn’t know that part.
He stops to help her (a woman
who his family calls trailer trash),
the boy doesn’t judge;
even together, they can’t move it
Kid disappears down the road,
returns with a fireman in an SUV.
He wouldn’t get in with her,
wouldn’t leave his new bike,
so they left him racing the flames,
saying he’d spread the word.
She wonders if he made it out.
Two years later a bike wheel is found
in a mound of ash, frame melted,
tire missing, just past where
Mrs. Armstead’s cottage used to be.
Nobody told Mrs. A. about the building renewal.
Being dead, she wasn’t around to be notified.
Nobody knows what happened to the kid on the bike.
ORANGE BOREALIS
Mountain peaks stab the night in silhouette
A childlike rendition of a dinosaur’s back:
Spreadicus bideathasaurus
Watercolor strokes, ever-morphing
/ an artist waving his brush
/ a mad-musician orchestrating
God, the painter
God, the conductor
Magic: there’s a seemingly endless supply
Orange-yellow-red spreads
Bleeds through cloud bandages
Pulses muffled-raucous thunder from afar
/ propane explosion bass
/ bursting water heater tympani
/ vehicle bomb crescendo
The canvas spans the night
The band of orange borealis stretches miles
Approaching at the speed of sound
Next come woodwinds squealing through split reeds
Next come out-of-tune horns, ...
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