SQUIRREL
I was distracted by other thoughts:

The squirrel darted left, right, I didn’t slow or hit the brakes
because I was thinking:

Dad’s first Thanksgiving alone.
Is the paint thinner and all that oil still in the basement?
It is hard to go home.

He ran under the wheels. I looked back,
his white belly shone in the sun.

This morning, wings outstretched as if in prayer,
the vultures warmed in the dead tree.

The Foundling Review 8/2012

SOLITARE
I play the three I know: Free Cell, Spider,
and plain old Klondike to kill time,
to clear my mind between re-writes,
escape life.

On the carpet, as close
as he can get, lies my dog.
When a deuce tops the trey,
followed by the ace,
a little ping from the computer
rewards my success.

Bull’s tail thumps on the floor.
Ping, thump, ping, thump,
he applauds the card played.

When I tell him that he’ll wear his tail out,
the thumps come faster and faster.
ping&thump&ping&thump&ping

I play one more game of each.

Avalon Literary Review
2013

ANTS
It’s four in the morning, the dogs want breakfast.
Turn on the light; there they are, all one thousand
of them. Scurrying back and forth, they are taking
sugar to the nest somewhere in the wall.
A scout ant must have picked up the smell of cocoa
brownies; left a trail for others to follow

They are so small but who knows what damage they
are doing to the house? The ant spray I use inside
is supposed to smell like cinnamon. I spray a paper towel
and attack the horde. Last year, I thought I had closed
all the holes with tub and tile caulking. But still they come.
This year, I squirt a gel into the holes I hadn’t found
and outdoors along their paths on the foundation.

Outside I turn over a cinder block, find the nest.
Nurse ants run eggs deeper underground.
I apologize for disrupting their home. I leave the block
until they take all the eggs away. I suppose I shouldn’t kill them,
I let the spiders cast their webs in the sun room.

I just don’t want ants in the house.

Avalon Literary Review
2013

WINTER’S COMING
Cicadas rasp fall’s
last song in the faded
afternoon sun. Swallowtails
hunt autumn’s waning
nectar on buddleia.
Does the grasshopper,
basking off the cold night’s
lethargy on dried grass,
feel death coming?

As the northeaster shifts
dry sand,the Great Egret
stalks fish as gulls scavenge.
Above, a Marsh Hawk hovers,
the young mouse dangles.

The wind is tinged with winter.

Crucible

WALLS
I tear off the wallpaper, leaving
an old layer of paint. Spreading spackle
like frosting, I fill in the defects.
When I sand, gray dust cakes my hair
and sifts through the house.

Time to paint.
I dip the trim brush
into Blue Gauze
and tint the molding.

Filling the bristles
with Linen White, I hide
the lime green walls.
The last coat is on,
the vanity in.

I’d like to change my own walls,
the ones that are black and white,
that keep you out. I’d paint them
in pastels, Brushed Silver
with Ruby Dusk trim.
And I’d put in a door
to let you in.

Aries One

Tai-Chi
Sandwich terns, bills tipped
in yellow, plummet into the shallows,
flutter up with silver fish.
Black legs blurred, the winter grey
sanderling probes the wave-washed sand.
Off shore, the dolphin arcs
out of the swells following the mullet.

On shore, people hurl weighted hooks
into the shallows, hoping for a hit,
while a swimmer, belly bulging over her
bathing suit, practices tai-chi,
hoping for grace.

Just a Moment

ALONE, THE WIND SPEAKS
When the wind plucks
the pines’ needles, the grove
quickens into a harp. Each branch
hums to another, scoring
the stringed sound.

But some nights, a moonless
wind rings a frosted steel
chime with a solitary note.

The River’s Edge

WAITING FOR WINTER
Basking in the sunlight to shed
the cold night’s stupor, grasshoppers
rest on dried grasses.

Bees hunt autumn aster
and Russian olive for fall’s
diminishing nectar.

In prairies, pot-holed
breeding grounds hide invading
chemicals in clear water.
The juvenile Marbled Godwit
migrates east, pausing
at man-made tidal pools.
Born with snarled beak,
it cannot probe the sand for food.

The bees hoard honey
to survive the frosts,
grasshopper eggs overwinter
in leaf mulch. Both prepare
for the next generation.

WAITING AT THE LEK
In the mist-black dawn,
house finches rustled
in the leaf-bare cottonwood.
Prairie wind celloed
through withered grass.
Above the plain,
ancient leks were quiet
until sharp-tailed grouse
began to display. their purple sacs
oboed into the brightening day.
As afternoon dusted
into evening gray,
sandhill cranes, heads
capped in port wine red,
returned to the Platte.
Flocks flew in from
the fields covering
silted waters
like a growing blanket.

Traditional mounds disappear
under shopping malls,
rivers are drained for fountains.
Fields over-grazed,
the orchestra fades.

Charlotte Poetry Review

TURNOUT
Two horses, damp from their baths,
stride beside me.
Walking to the pasture,
their iron shoes ring on concrete.

An Audi speeds
towards us,
spewing dust.
Rich car, I mutter.
We stop.
The car passes.

Framed in the receding
rear window, a young face
strains to watch us until the car
rounds the corner
and she can see no more.

I turn the horses out,
they run to friends,
leaving me behind.

I think back
thirty years, see a face
in the faded Chevy
wishing she had horses
to turn out.

Cold Mountain Review