Rose Margins #7

Cafe red and yellow, waiting, I 
anticipate your overdue arrival 
and a strong chai just ordered. 
Chocolate and steam milk artistry, 
barista painting the top of 
the sleepy smoke stack,
palm full of timeless petals. 
I wait on the umbrella of you 
as weather is confusing and 
the walls are bare of any other 
thoughts, save for one cherry on top.

Pink Umbrella: Perhaps Six: Ranunculus

row upon row of paper

petals as fine as an eyelash

you cannot separate them

a rose can lose

more than one satin curve

but ranunculus'

watercolor crystal shatters

then all fall

down

Stick Figure Valentine #6

The straggly, yellowed yucca you pulled from the trail while hiking stands half buried, timid now and upright in our side yard. Thin frosty valentine takes ready aim for sky. All sharp edges but pretty. We revitalize sight with each hopeful transplant of painted sticks fastened together with glue and lacy paper. Where formerly there was only dried earth, adventure 
will burst into perfect flame, one whole mosaic of blues.

Pink Umbrella: A Fifth: Skysick

the rain yesterday softened

the Liquid Ambers' spiny seed pods

while the Eucaluptus trees exhaled 

the scent of menthol

in the warm moist air

the bridge rode the waves 

clouds replaced sail

I afraid of flying turn

and drive home

Dreaming Bridge

There was something about the entrance
that always stopped her. Iron promise. The arc 
of the old welder, his tools spitting, Breath
sequestered. The day that her husband hoisted 
the header of metal at the dry road's edge 
and they were all prouder than when they 
first moved in. She was younger then.

If she closes her eyes against the sun, it isn't blue
that seeps in but crimson of attempting to forgive 
the dusty end of the earth where she lives still,
raising boys named Tanner and Hunter, 
and a girl named Elizabeth after all the others,
in a modern world left wishing on them.

Yet the animals remain her friends, fresh water
in silver tanks, and an arc of invisible electricity 
that transmits her wireless dreams at dusk 
on the flat screen diary. Her sideboard desk littered 
with unimportant papers, save for a tiny paper umbrella 
of yellow, folded touchstone, bookmark for a different story
drink that she begins, writing about the city and a bridge.

Hoofsteps

once upon a time 

she ran up the street of breathless 

anticipation

men stopped to watch as she

a gazelle far from the dry savannahs

made her way up the hill

her breath warm and quick

her heart beating faster faster

faster than the big cat who waited

once upon a time