Beware the Hawthorne Tree

Beware the crimson Hawthorne tree--
Not because of its circlets of thorn
Or it blossoms that smelt of death
in London when the plague came
and reaped her streets.

Beware because a faery may lead you beneath
And when you emerge, blinking, seven
Mays later, you'll discover the blossoms,
which you dreamed of deep in winter,
have already bled from the tree.

What My Father's Mother Said

My father's mother had fourteen children.
Seven boys.  Seven girls.
She was a farmer's wife and
Spent hours in the kitchen
Spinning flour into bread.

When my second son was born
I thought my grandmother would
Be in love with his red roundness,
So I asked if she'd like to hold him
And she said,"Not really."

Well. Who could blame her?
After that many loaves of bread
She was done with feeding, done with caring.
And yet, somehow I have a photo
of her holding my baby on the sly.

Happy Accident

If I'd had a GPS
on that trip to Arizona
I would have turned north
instead of south when I left
Tempe.

If I'd had a GPS
I would have noticed
much sooner that I was on
my way to Nogales instead of
Phoenix.

If I'd had a GPS
I wouldn't have made a late
U Turn in Nogales
just as dusk drenched the
desert.

If I'd had a GPS
I would have been in Phoenix already
and missed the earth bursting with bloom,
exploding against a mauve and golden
sky

like a murder of crows.

Journal

Journal

Today while driving to Hires
to eat a hamburger (even though
I often think about giving up meat
because I once looked straight into 
the eyes of a long-lashed calf)
I nearly ran over a stray red journal,
red and limp from rain, lying
in the middle of the street.

I swerved to avoid it as though
it were a human being in a wet red sweater.

Well, of course I dodged it 
with its possible recounting of kisses and 
and fights and trips to the grocery store 
at midnight for a pint of coffee ice cream,
as well as the scores of Jazz games watched,
because what could be more human
Then the words of human?

Pieces of My Life

Notecard

Ornament

Sea glass

Cotton

These are the things I have in

the memory box my husband

made from the wood of a

much loved peach tree.

The notecard is filled with words

my grandmother read to me

on my wedding day.

The ornament is from my mother

in memory of the baby 

who didn't make it.

The sea glass is from the beach

where my brothers and I watched

our children grow up.

The cotton, which I picked beneath 

a low-slung Carolina moon, is from

the field next to the home where

my granddaughter lived.

Notecard

Ornament

Sea Glass

Cotton

Mirror

When I looked in the mirror
this morning I was surprised
to see I still had long hair.
I didn't recognize myself. 
Last night I dreamed hard
that I had shaved my head like a marine.

The dream felt real enough to eat.
I was full of regret but 
also resolve to live this
new way with less of me
because what else can you do?

So! I was happy to find myself
unchanged in the weak light
of morning--at least for now.
The mirror will surprise me again
as it always does and then I will 
start at the things it nakedly reveals.

A Poem a Day

First thing. I am not a poet.

Second thing. I admire poets immensely. (I'm looking at you, Wade and Lisa.)

Third thing. I attended a poetry workshop taught by the above Lisa this weekend.

Fourth thing. April is National Poetry Month. Yes! It's a thing! 

Fifth thing. I'm accepting the challenge to write a poem a day and post it here.

Sixth thing. I suck and I know it.

Seventh thing. That was a disclaimer because I'm REALLY SCARED ABOUT DOING THIS.

Eighth thing. But yeah. These are just drafts, written quickly.

Now that I've established all that, here's today's offering.

The Odyssey

I thought I remembered what happened

in The Odyssey, which Miss Nelson made us

read in AP English the year I was 17.

But now that I'm reading it several 

lifetimes later, I am discovering 

I barely remember any of it.

Not Calypso and her "gleaming, glittering" chair.

Not the horse-lord Nestor's eldest daughter, Polycaste,

who rubbed oil on Telemachus's skin.

Not Nausicaa, who welcomed salt-stained Odysseus

to her father's kingdom.

Instead I remember the boys in my class 

with their surfer boy hair and their 

pachuli-scented jeans and the way all of us

stared out the classroom window past the 

track and the field and the streets and 

the blue, blue mountain to the west

Wondering, perhaps, what our own voyages

might be.