WATERMARK

I'm writing poems again, and to keep that going I've joined Molly Fisk's Poem-a-Day project, with Millicent Accardi as promptress. If you're interested in participating, shoot an email to (molly@mollyfisk.com) for more info. It's happening again in April with Lisa Cihlar as the promptress.

Here are my first three: 

Vanishing

Heat loves
heat and today is a tease for what comes
with spring around here 
     "The Girls of Winter" by Jim Harrison

nothing is as it was
from party-lines & letters
to cell phones & email
even the climate changes
in this brief life, entire
species vanishing, vanished
still we rise up each morning
feed the sparrows, walk
the dog, treasure what-
ever is left to us

Absence

There are trees and they are on fire.
     Zachary Schomburg, "The Fire Cycle"

There are trees and they are naked. They sketch
a black calligraphy across this flat grey sky. The full moon hides
in banks of clouds. Even the snow is dull, like silver darkened
by too-intimate contact with steel, a tarnish that can’t be polished
away. This cold. The taste of metal.

Nine Doors 

“If I could master the nine doors of my body”
     Marilyn Chin  “Beautiful Boyfriend”

1. behind the eyes, a maze

2. the scent of lilacs

3. the tongue, encased in ice

4. thorns     wild roses

5. where I used to live

6. a mathematical immersion

7. closed [bolted]

8. the sea encroaches

9. a hummingbird nest