Category Archives: poem

how it feels to lose creativity

first i lose the feeling in my toes
and they become as gnarled and ancient as fossilized wood.
then i lose the ability to stand
and fall over to the ground with a soft sudden thud.

next, the ability to speak, that
most human trait, takes its disingenuous leave
the brain goes last; it’s electrons snap
off like a tired parent finding her child finally asleep.

peculiar smiles and ducks nap at 3pm

on certain days that circle twice and curl up
like a cat (or the corners of your peculiar smile)
i believe i’m the only one who sees how ducks
take naps at 3pm, or how the hairs on your arms
taunt the breeze of a trepidatious day.

on certain days that lay over like ferns in a
softly wooded cashmere forest i believe
the world can have magnetic poles capable of
keeping us straight and narrow, but only if we choose
to ignore the way the auroras confound the sky.

estate sale

the first thing to go –
an Orioles picture to a man who
played for the Brooklyn Dodgers
who would, later, give it to his son;
and a couple of porcelain cats
already cherished
in the small hands of a mentally
strained woman;
the printing press and its letters
to a young artist,
and books to budding chefs –
the bedding went to Hispanics, lacking,
and I took an elephant necklace, molded carefully in gold
with tiny bells on each shoe.

memories leave their objects
and barter now
for the flecks of color in the irises of our eyes.

prufrock revisited by a woman in vegas

let us go then
under a desert sky
taut as leather hide, stretched

to the empty hall
where in younger days
our heels would have clicked with rhythm

my body used to hold
the shape of a stiletto,
now it wilts and bends

ah the men, they come and go

and how the sky changes knowing
volatile lessons, lost.
maybe i should
drop a rope for younger women
who don’t know
yet.