Because joy helps you to swallow

Each day my resolve weakens
under a burden of years
with one truth to be self-evident
that we did not
think everything through

I sweep fetid memory
under his favourite chair, with
each disappointment
relegated to the pantry
behind the oatmeal

I find myself leaving room
for new, sweeter moments
when I am kinder
and remember smiles

Reflections of suns risen and set
and each child’s eyes
and even the mundane, nameless
sudden joys


like that time
he left his cup of tea
atop the car
and we laughed

Elegy for a penitent girl

The moon beats down
on my head, O it
does not let me be–
I was wrong.
Every word
each time using people
I put away, now
history in the jar.

The sun shines painful
in my eyes, O how
I do not forget–
I am sorry.
Each word, now
every time I meet you, you
someone, to give only
peace from my hands.

The rain falls soft
on my head, cleansing
O, how it heals, even
as the thoughts run by–
I wasted time.
Words of meanness and ruin
let my hands empty, and
with hopeful water, fill.

Hard Liquor

I thought I could take it down like a man
a grimace at the end and an exhale of appreciation
groomed on wine spritzers, after
being schooled on middle-aged men
at twenty-two, you

were a new cocktail, mixed up
shaken, stirred, and muddled
too many bitters for all the girls to go for you
with an undercurrent of loss and hope
I drank you too quickly, we

left in a stupor, stumbling
through years before once more
dusting off the bottle, the cork
breaking off in pieces until we shoved it in hard
to get at the elixir that would bring us back

Monday random on Tuesday

• I am behind on so much
• I get to feeling paralyzed–what to begin with?
• Well, Rose, you could start by completing your Monday post on Monday and posting it Monday.
• Sigh.
• The past two weeks I have been deliberate, trying to ignore what is not being done and just completing things, especially things that I have promised to others.
• I am working on following through.

On finding old cherry tomatoes in the back of the refrigerator

Why do I feel sad, pulling them from the back with some resistance from a bit of old green Jell-O gluing their container to the clear glass shelf

their red firm flesh when I bought them, cylindrical and perfect; I paid twice what they were worth in order to have that pop-into-my-mouth sweet satisfaction–how I don’t bite with teeth but compress between tongue and roof of the mouth until

pop

the juices wash over tongue and teeth and slide down the throat–

and now I see the puckered old skin and raisin-like rind, and I almost cry for what is lost what was and what could have been

in a salad, or sitting on a plate plump, ripe, and ready for tasting