This is about all I have: to eat
this cookie on the porch and drink
some tea while she sleeps. I know
its been a rough day when he calls me
three times at work, each call
with a scream in the background
a sort of backdrop to the day.
The sound of her wails
give a strange taint to the sky
though it is finally blue
after a long long winter. On Saturday
we weeded the garden boxes
and bought soil for the vegetable seeds.
During one of the many hours of nursing
I learned on a gardening program
that daffodils never lose their potency
(unlike tulips); they will always bloom;
flower forever. I’d like to be like that.

Wow, I’ve never played Scrabble with a sort of theme to it, but that’s just the way it worked out! Here’s a poem using all of the words Stephen and I made.

When the queen is done braiding her hair
with a zig and a zag
it is time to drop
the magic key down to her guru
who arrives on a mean donkey pulling a cart.
As she awaits, she wonders, is it a crime
to lust for her enlightened one?
Having failed to find the bottle
or the jug groovy enough, she has hired
this guru to stir up the rotten webs
that have clouded her heart.
Somehow, she fell in love with him
and as per their usual three o’clock tryst
he will catch the fallen object, but
before he reaches the window
(where a sumac fails to hide
the secret door to the tower completely)
the donkey is startled by a pair of oxen.
The guru is filled with ire
and flogs the poor animal, reeling him in
as if he were koi fish in a lake.
When this happens the queen, lusty
for her suitor, seals the impatient moment
by throwing herself from the window,
hoping to be neatly out on the cart.
Instead, she misses and kisses the street.

“This Little Light
of Mine”
“You are
My Sunshine”
and “Blue Moon”
in the afternoons
and she joins me
with her
aaahhhhs
as if
she knew
the words
or any,
as if
she were here
now, her soul purpose,
to be singing
about her
candle heart
shining
or her
smile or
my smile
or the blue moon
every so often
no longer alone
in the sky
hearing our prayers
for
love
love
and
more love
as it seems to
be turning
to gold
behind the cloud
of her tongue
just big enough
to stick
out
at me
and wriggle.

The mother picked her baby gently up from the bassinet and nursed her in bed. Baby spat the milk back into the breast. Mother got off the bed and took the dirty diaper from its bin and smothered it onto the baby’s bottom. Water sucked up the drain and filled the tub where the bodies were covered. The sun returned to its usual spot behind gray clouds. The man walked toe-heel, toe-heel down the sidewalk with the newspaper under his arm, turned around, and returned it to the machine that spat back two quarters into his palm. Back home in the kitchen, the tea spout sucked the Earl Gray into it’s belly and the yolks their shells. In bed, the couple rested in each other’s arms, their mouths turned to cotton, their heads too.