In Memory of Corduroy

Scotland skies on a normal day
mock that gray corduroy skirt
I wore every Tuesday, Chapel Day,
when I was ten.

Chapel with its dim lights and songs and prayers
shadowed my friendlessness like a friend.
I fit in with Mary and Jesus
who also wore homemade dresses
and messy hair.

The stained glass masked my stained
corduroy skirt, and praising the Lord
lifted my heavy eyes right to the pulpit
across the altar into the baptismal.

Life in a Laundry Basket

 


Slow paced and adventure free,
I’d like to live in a laundry basket

where buttons are loose,
panties are warm and clean,
strings stick to Velcro,

worries are but missing socks
and grass stains.

Lost in Edinburgh

for Scott, with whom I shall grow old


Traipsing through puddles
with you down Cockburn to Waverly station
in my Peter Pan hat in the rain,
holding hands so I don’t get pummeled
by a minibus will bring back memories
someday of us when we were young in love,
when I polished my ring persistently
and spoke with an accent
wore funny hats and caressed cashmere.

Ladies Who Love the World As They Know It

 

 
Rosehips in a warm brew
of freshly squeezed lemon-citrus
steam from tiny tea cups
painted with yellow ladies in straw hats
petting with imperfect pink fingers
perching baby bluebirds
on a cloudy Thursday in April
listening to the silence of their breaths
between gusts of curlicue winds
and white snowflake dogwood petals
wondering where their men are,
wishing they were pregnant,
and all the while enjoying themselves
and the little tea cups they are painted on.

As Iron Sharpens Iron

a poem for the Hayses


In a dark and sullied work shed
lined with feathered wood shelves
and splintered work benches
I am the pointed,
red-rusted fire poker
hanging across two dirty nails,
and you are the sharpening stone.
You scrape my dullness
to a point, you scratch my jagged
edges smooth. 
I keep you strong
and make you stronger.

Coming soon... poems to tickle your fancy.