Category: Issue 24.2

The background image for our newest issue is a photo by Melodie Mesiano taken at the Storm King Art Center in Orange County, New York with Mark Di Suvero’s sculpture

bookwormhole

 

lost river
childhood memories
gone underground

 

all the way back to childhood cabbage whites

 

sweet peas gone to seed summer’s end

the slow curve of summer zucchini

learning
to let go –
late summer roses

 

roadside assistance
Queen Anne’s lace brightening
my mood

in tall grass
road signs for the diner
closed last year

summer dusk
the call and response
of neighbors

 

first furnace run
the smell of summer gone
fills the house

 

Indian summer
someone blowing
on the embers

farmers market
a hummingbird foraging
in the flower stall

a whiff of music
from a tasseled truck
harvest season

 

silence stretches across the mesa raven calls my name

 

drought
a cactus wren sips
from the garden hose

In the sound of the prairie marbled Godwit

prairie soil-
digging through
the family archives

 

maples disrobing the harvest moon

 

yellowing maple—
I feel
for my bald spot

 

checkers in the park…
an acorn cap
fit for a king

 

Queen’s wave
brittle oak leaves swivel
in the morning gust

 

outdoor café
floating to my table
a bubble of laughter

she doesn’t have
a playground voice
sweet violet

 

my first kiss
 around here somewhere
  ghost pipes

 

fall colors
I ask my hairdresser
to add highlights

 

zig-zagging the trail
to walk in shadows—
what I can’t confess

the kettle whistles
up a flickering shadow
night owl

November first
putting my skeletons
back in the closet

fresh snow on old
our argument
resumes

 

nightly news
between my neighbour and me
a higher fence

moss
the quietest
of revolutions

peeling an apple —
the sudden twist
in my destiny

war-zone dawn the out of place pink

 

Cusp

I awake in the dark of a strange room. My first time back
to this country in years. A plane rumbles above. The window
is where the door should be. My body and mind are

a mural
we won’t see again
airport sunrise

 

coral clouds—
each blink of jet lights
recolors the sky

weekend getaway my cat packs himself

walking by the old house —
our buried dog
flowering

 

hospital reception
rosy clouds drift
in a painting

 

rootbound—
the new treatment
stops working

brain cards i shuffle the fog

time enough
to listen to a joke
senior center

 

the lure of you . . .
driving the coast road
home

strawberry rhubarb
some marriages just work

berry picking our conversation

family cookout
she swallows
a sharp retort

 

one dessert two forks
all the wrong turns
turning out right

arriving without a suitcase spring rain

 

 

(Originally published in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Issue 22: 4 Feb. 2024)

 

saying yes to no
rainy day plans

 

a river stone
in my pocket
chrysalis

 

river rock erosion I sit for a few angstroms

 

tadpoles
a fleet
tickles through my fingers

dragonfly wings
more there
than meets the eye

 

night garden
white lanterns
powered by sun

 

the indigo
of approaching dawn
last rites

 

the flight home
longer than the miles
dad’s funeral

expanse of snow
unmarked the place my grandparents
crossed over

 

time on hold
faces
in a shoebox

 

wilted rose petals
a love letter full
of clichés

rose garden
how many loves
are possible

 

the hay’s first turn
the loose scent
of centuries

solstice picnic
the arc
of a horseshoe

 

first snow . . .
our neighbors turn on
their party lights

 

the wishbone
heart
of winter

 

advent calendar
in every window
more juncos

 

one more
dialect of silence…
snowfall

(Originally published in Acorn, Issue 51, Fall 2023)

errors in the translation winter rain

pouring rain
the leaky roof
has its own song

slide
of the crooner
year’s end

turn of the year
my  d w i n d l i n g
address book

 

oars shipped
a long look back
at last year

rewilding the yard I give back some of what I took

 

summer blues
the drooping mopheads
of the hydrangea

where the river
steps out of its body
summer fog

 

garden catalog
I order some irises
called Butterflies in Flight

children’s laughter the colour palette of pool noodles

 

the sky
in a box
bluebird

ending my day on a high note red-winged blackbird

 

until we meet again spring rain